Owning Mahoney

One of the greatest gambling movies of all time is Owning Mahoney. It was Philip Seymour Hoffman before he became ultra famous. Don't get me wrong, he's was famous at the time, but he'd always played second fiddle. This was one of his first leading roles. Now the movie is great, but the book is simply amazing but it goes by the title 'Owning Maloney'. I guess they didn't think Americans would be into a movie with a guy with that last name. Anyways, he was a compulsive gambler to the nth degree. In his mind, he believed that eventually he'd just break even. So he'd call his bookie and say "I'll take the away teams in the American League and the home teams in the National League for a thousand each." Which to me sounds like the most awful way to bet ever since there is no conceivable way you could watch all those games, so you are basically just going to wake up in the morning, check the paper and see if you lost. Buy a powerball.

Two points I want to make off this intro; first gambling on sports is fun for two primary reasons. First, it gives you a reason to cheer on teams you'd normally ignore. Secondly, it gives you a chance to evaluate teams like you would apples at the super market. You can squeeze them and smell them all day, but you won't know what's in store until you take a bite.

For this weeks pics, I pulled a Mahoney and took all the away teams in the NFL and the home teams in college. And Sunday night, I'll be eating dry ribs with a diet coke.

Here are the pics for this week. I'll be traveling for the next 2 weeks, so results may come in slow. I'll have to see what my internet situation looks like. I'll take the home teams in college and the away teams in the NFL.

Texas -18 vs TT; Hard to take tech in this game considering that leach has never won at Austin plus the revenge factor is going to weigh in big time. Not exactly a game I'd target otherwise because you never know what will happen, but Texas is clearly an 18 point favorite when it comes to talent.

Iowa -6 vs Arizona; tough road trip for Arizona. Iowa has a very strong O line/D line combo and this spread is only this low because of the slow start they had v N Iowa. That won't happen again. Iowa has found a rhythm with two good running backs and will be able to win this game by more than a TD at home.

NFL

Colts -3 @ Miami; I'm not sure how Miami will score in this game. Aside from their gimmick formations, they just don't pose a threat. This seems to happen the second year of every new system for Pennington. His little lob passes start getting timed. I worry about the line because the colts just don't close people out, but I can see them winning this one by ten.

Gints +3 @ Dallas; What is the over under on the number of punts that hit the scoreboard? I'm going with 6. That may sound high, but I think the punters in the league will be out to prove a point. BTW, do you think Jerry bribed the Boys punter not to hit it? In my eyes, the Gints are the better team. While the boys looked great last week, this week they play a real team that can actually score points on offense.


Seattle +1.5 @ Niners; pretty surprised to see this line. I guess the book makers expected Arizona to be good this year. Defensively, the two teams are a draw, but offensively, I don't think its close. I'll take the points any day in this one.