Pinnacle Pulse 12-10-05

[BettorsChat]

Pinnacle Pulse
The Inside Line From
PinnacleSports by Simon Noble

The talk of this NFL season has been how the Indianapolis Colts have
dominated their opponents on their way to an astounding 12-0 start. Only
the 1972 Dolphins have finished with an unblemished regular season record
and no team has gone undefeated since the schedule was expanded to 16
regular season games. With this in mind, one has to wonder what the
chances are that Indianapolis will win out its last 4 games.

Next up on the schedule are the Jacksonville Jaguars, the only team to
have a second-half lead against the Colts. In their first meeting,
Jacksonville was up 3-0 before losing 10-3. The moneyline on this game at
Pinnacle Sports is -316/+296, which suggests that Indy will win this
match-up 74.7% (306/406) of the time.

At 12-0, Indianapolis has already clinched a playoff spot and if they
defeat the Jaguars, the Colts will also secure home field advantage
throughout the playoffs. This adds a new twist to the equation: Will Coach
Tony Dungy rest his key players? When interviewed, he was unsure. A
quarterback has about a 1 in 16 chance of getting injured if he plays a
full game. For this reason, it’s common for playoff-bound teams in
meaningless games to rest key starters. Despite Dungy’s ambiguous answers
to questions on resting players, I think he’ll maintain his focus on
winning the Super Bowl.

If they reach 13-0, the Colts would then host the Chargers with home field
advantage locked up. If this game were played two weeks earlier, the Colts
would be about an 11-point favorite (-830/+750). In that scenario, Indy
would win about 88.7% of the time. In past seasons, the lines have
adjusted about 6 points for teams in “rest situations”, but the resting
teams have done poorly against the spread. I believe we are therefore
likely to see an 8-point spread adjustment, so resting most starters would
change the line to Colts -3 (-150/+140), suggesting Indy would win 59%.

Beating San Diego would make Indianapolis 14-0, and they would next visit
Seattle. The Seahawks have already won their division and would likely be
playing for home field advantage. If neither team were resting, the
visiting Colts would be about 4-point favorites. Assuming the Colts nap
and the Seahawks don’t also take the afternoon off, the adjusted line
would be Seahawks -4 (-185/+175). In either case, the 4-point favorite
should win about 64% of the time.

Should the Colts be 15-0 heading into the final week of the season, they
would be heavy favorites at home versus Arizona. Super Bowl aspirations
aside, I’m not sure Coach Dungy could rest his players at home against a
cakewalk opponent with history on the line. If the Colts played full
strength, this line would be about -18 with a greater home field advantage
than normal. Resting would still make the Colts a solid 10-point favorite.
The Colts will win 94% if they don’t rest, or 87% if they do.

In conclusion: if Indy chooses to rest its players, I calculate the
chances of them going 16-0 as:
(0.747) (0.59) (0.36) (0.87) = 13.8%, or -654 (No) / +594 (yes).

However if Indy plays for history, the odds of going 16-0 adjust to:
(.747)(.887)(.64)(.94) = 40%, or -155 (No) / +145 (Yes).

Do you have an opinion on whether Indy will finish 16-0? Have you read
something I’ve missed about Tony Dungy’s willingness to risk injuries to
Peyton Manning, Edgerrin James and Marvin Harrison while chasing a perfect
regular season record? Or do you have some other insight? You can bet your
opinion at PinnacleSports.com as we are now offering odds on the prop:

Will Indy go 16-0?