NFL Preview: Rookie of the Year Prediction

The sports betting world always gets an early start on the NFL season. Discussions about the NFL offensive rookie of the year candidates have already started. Betting on NFL rookies can be tricky, as those that bet on Ryan Leaf to be an NFL rookie of the year candidate will tell you. But once a player’s college football betting days are over and he goes pro, it is time to predict as to who will wear the offensive rookie of the year crown.

Dez Bryant – Dallas Cowboys

Bryant is already causing all kinds of problems in Dallas by refusing to take part in training camp shenanigans like carrying the pads of veteran wide receiver Roy Williams. Truth be told, Williams should be carrying Bryant’s pads as the rookie will probably have the receiver’s job by the end of the season.

The stars are aligned for Bryant. He is a good player, on a good team in a good situation. If he performs up to expectations, he could be a lock for NFL offensive rookie of the year just like Randy Moss was all those years ago.

Rob Gronkowski – New England Patriots

Gronkowski is a tight end that was a second round pick, and will make the Patriots team. Right now, veteran Alge Crumpler is the number one tight end on the roster depth chart. But Gronkowski’s ability to block and get open in the middle of the field will make him valuable to Tom Brady. The thing that may hold Gronkowski back is Crumpler, Wes Welker and Randy Moss. There are only so many footballs to go around.

C.J. Spiller – Buffalo Bills

Without even looking you can probably guess that the NFL week 1 betting has the Buffalo Bills losing their opener. Running back C.J. Spiller is a potentially great player on a team that has proven to be awful. The advantage for Spiller is that the Bills have no quarterback, so there will be plenty of chance for him and the other two Bills running backs to run the ball. There is even a chance that running back Marshawn Lynch may be out of Buffalo by the time the season starts leaving Spiller to split time with Fred Jackson.

But it is difficult to be recognized as rookie of the year when you play on a team like the Bills. The voting panel wants to see a rookie help his team win, and Spiller will not be able to accomplish that on his own.

Sam Bradford – St. Louis Rams

You have to feel for Sam Bradford. Here is a kid with all of the necessary skills to be NFL offensive rookie of the year, and he has absolutely no one in St. Louis to throw the football to. The reigning receiving king in St. Louis is running back Stephen Jackson. The Rams are so hard up that they are considering paying Terrell Owens to play football for them. While Bradford has the skills, he lacks the weapons he will need to get noticed as an NFL offensive rookie of the year.

Pick: Dez Bryant – Dallas Cowboys

NBA Betting – How Good Can Miami Really Be?

While those betting NFL online are trying to get ready for their season, they surely were paying attention when the NBA pulled out the story of the summer at the beginning of this month, when LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined forces with Dwyane Wade in Miami. So, the question is, how good can the Miami Heat really be?

Most places where people are betting online are setting the over/under for Heat wins at 65, which is seven games behind the all-time record of 72, set by Michael Jordan’s Bulls from the 1995-96 season. That team had the likes of Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman leading the way, but you have to admit, a trio of James, Wade and Bosh is intriguing. First, we have James, a 25-year-old two-time NBA MVP. You have Wade, the MVP of the 2006 NBA Finals and champion in his own right. Then there’s Bosh, who…..um, he did manage to play very well in the USA gold-medal win at the 2008 Olympics. Now, it’s a matter of fleshing out the roster, and those who are betting on college football know that even though you have stars, you need role players to do the dirty work.

The Heat, so far, have signed Mike Miller to knock down the open threes that will be available by the penetration of James and Wade, while Mario Chalmers, who has been in Miami for three years now, adds defense. The Heat have plenty of size and experience with Jamaal Magloire, Juwan Howard, longtime Miami player Udonis Haslem and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who played with James his entire career in Cleveland. This takes some of the pressure off of Bosh to bang around in the interior, which really isn’t his strength. It’ll also take pressure off of James and Wade, who were pretty much being asked to do everything on their former teams.

The 65-win realm isn’t out of the question for the Heat. You saw the teams that James dragged to 60-plus wins in Cleveland. Now he has Wade, who isn’t far behind him in the “best player” running in the NBA, and a legitimate 20/10 guy in Bosh, although his numbers will probably fall with having to share the ball with Wade and James. The biggest question will be, at the end of those close games and the Heat are, heaven forbid, down by a point or two, who gets the ball? James and Wade looked a bit confused by that the Olympics, until Kobe Bryant overruled both of them and took over the gold-medal game against Spain. Still, we’d place a sports online bet on the Heat winning at least 60 games, easily.

MLB Trends – Cards Catching Fire, Padres Staying Steady, Tigers Slipping

Those who bet online NFL odds are always looking for trends and to see who’s hot and who’s not, and we’re here to tell you who to ride with in the major leagues, while avoiding the cold teams. Here are three teams to watch this week.

St. Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals had overtaken Cincinnati in the National League Central as of Monday with a five-game winning streak, and you just knew that eventually, this would happen. The Cardinals also have the experience to now run away from the rest of the division. Albert Pujols’ version of a first-half slump still has him as an MVP favorite, while Matt Holliday is an excellent Robin to Pujols’ Batman. The starting duo of Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter may be the best in the majors, and they’ve been carrying the rotation all season.

San Diego Padres

Those who are doing college football betting online would compare the Padres to a team with an excellent defense, but has no offense. But doesn’t the saying go, “defense wins championships”? We’re not sure that the Padres can continue through the whole season with no offense, but right now it’s working. Colorado has won seven of their last 10, while the Los Angeles Dodgers have won eight of their last 10, but the Padres aren’t buckling under the pressure yet with a three-game sweep of Arizona that ran their current winning streak to four. You’re going to have to keep a close eye on the Padres, though, because their luck could be running out. Mat Latos strained his oblique, and while it doesn’t appear to be serious, the Padres simply cannot afford to have any injuries if they want to hold off the Rockies and Dodgers in the West.

Detroit Tigers

Soccer betting players know that a single loss can really hurt a team’s chances in the English Premiership. Well, the American League Central is a close race where a streak can take a team out, and the Tigers are tempting fate right now with a five-game skid. The Tigers, the division-leading White Sox from Chicago, and Minnesota are all within 1.5 games of each other, and remember, the White Sox were all but out of it after a terrible start, but they got hot with a eight-game winning streak at the end of the first half and are now on top. Outside of Justin Verlander, the rotation has been inconsistent all season. They have one of the most potent offenses in all of the majors, powered by Triple Crown threat Miguel Cabrera and probable Rookie of the Year Brennan Boesch, but unless the starters step up, The Tigers’ odds will fall in your best online sportsbook.

Colts Still Kings Of AFC South

NFL betting enthusiasts will be quick to blame Karma for the Indianapolis Colts’ 31-17 loss to the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV last year, and their argument is simple. With a record of 14-0, first-year head coach Jim Caldwell and his staff decided to ignore a chance to chase history and sit their starters for most of the final two weeks of the season, a move that wound up costing the team the final two contests. The decision was made despite several players clearly wanting to finish what they had worked so hard for, and despite making it all the way to the Super Bowl healthy-the ultimate goal, it wasn’t enough to beat the upstart Saints. In the past, Super Bowl runner ups have had a difficult time making it back to the playoffs the following season, however if any team can reverse that trend it’s the Colts. Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne, and the explosive offense return fully intact and with another year experience together, while the defense always seems to show up when it counts the most. In a division that has featured little in the way of contenders other than Indianapolis, as illustrated by their win totals of 14, 12, 13, 12, 14 over the past five years, the Colts remain the projected sports online bet top dog.

The front-runners to challenge the Colts are the Houston Texans, who after consecutive eight-win seasons finally got over the hump and finished with a winning record in 2009-10. Buoyed by the NFL’s number-one ranked passing attack, the Texans won four straight games to close out the regular season just outside of a Wild Card spot, which came on the heels of four straight losses that knocked them out of contention. Those losses all came against divisional opponents, including two against the Colts. Choosing to keep their core nucleus together for this season, and adding a couple of key players on both sides of the ball through the draft in running back Ben Tate and cornerback Kareem Jackson, the pressure will be on Houston to continue to improve.

Despite starting off their season 0-6, the Tennessee Titans almost ended up with a Wild Card spot by winning eight of their final 10 betting games to close out the regular season. The elevation of quarterback Vince Young to the starting position provided the offense with a spark, and the Titans improved dramatically as the season progressed, losing only to Indianapolis and San Diego after week six. The losses of a couple of key leaders in center Kevin Mawae and defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch will have to be addressed, but the Titans could be a contender if they are able to build on their end to last season.

Rounding out the AFC South is the Jacksonville Jaguars, the only team in the division to finish with a losing record last season. The Jaguars added some key pieces on defense in NCAA college football betting star defensive tackle Tyson Alualu and defensive end Aaron Kampman, but with no additions to an offense that ranked 18^th overall a year ago, it will be hard for Jacksonville to contend in 2010-11.

MLB Game Preview: 2010 All-Star Game

It is that sports betting time of year when the best in baseball get together to decide which league will have home field advantage in the World Series. NFL betting on the Pro Bowl is significantly different than the MLB All-Star game. The NFL Pro Bowl means absolutely nothing, and the league has reminded us how useless the game is by putting it the week before the Super Bowl and preventing the best players in the league from playing. Nothing is decided by the Pro Bowl, and it used to be a free trip to Hawaii but now that is even gone for the players.

Baseball is not a contact sport. Betting on the MLB All-Star game is a lot like college football betting because you know the game means something, and you know these guys will play their hardest. The MLB All-Star game can help further a player’s career, it can make legends out of ordinary men and it can be fun to watch because it does mean something.

If you have been doing any MLB betting at all this season then you know how unpredictable the NL has been. The Phillies and Cardinals were supposed to rule the roost in the NL, but neither team can even lock down their own division much less contend for the NL pennant. The NL is ruled by teams like the Atlanta Braves, the San Diego Padres and the New York Mets and that is definitely not what we were expecting.

The AL has been pretty predictable. The Twins are leading in the AL Central, the Red Sox and Yankees are fighting it out in the AL East and the Blue Jays are falling off the face of the Earth. The biggest surprise this season has been the Texas Rangers, and now that the Rangers have Cliff Lee in their starting rotation it looks like they could run away with the AL West.

This year’s All-Star game is being played in the home of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, which is in Anaheim. Weather and altitude should not be a factor in this game. Because the game is in an AL park, the designated hitter has been added to the roster for the first time in the history of the All-Star game. The AL is favored in this game with -120 odds to win. Given the performance by each league this season, the AL being favored to win the All-Star game makes sense.

The All-Star game always loads up on pitchers, and this year is no exception. Each team has 15 pitchers to play in this one game, and there is a good chance that both managers will try to work everyone in to get them their All-Star playing time.

The AL bats have been hot this season, and the NL bats have not. The thing that gets lost in the stats this season is the fact that the pitching in the NL has been pretty good, but All-Stars like Roy Halladay are just not getting any run support. In the end, the AL is just too good for the NL to have any real chance of winning this game.

Pick: American League 10-6

Oranje Aim To Redeem Previous Losses

With Spain being the defending Euro Cup champions, and Germany a nation of perennial contenders, it is no surprise that those teams have reached the semi finals of the 2010 World Cup betting tournament. The same cannot be said about the other final four match however, where the Netherlands and Uruguay will meet as the only teams remaining in the tournament that have yet to taste the bitterness of defeat. That run will end for one team this Tuesday, while the other will earn the chance to capture the glory they came to South Africa to achieve.

Netherlands

Although their offensive capabilities and talent remained unquestioned, many online sports betting enthusiasts may have overlooked the Netherlands when making their predictions for the teams that would end up in this year’s World Cup finals, likely because of their disappointing performances in major international tournaments since being knocked out by Brazils on penalty kicks in the 1998 World Cup semi-finals. However, even without superstar striker Arjen Robben early on, the Dutch have proven to be a force this year, knocking off Japan, Denmark, and Cameroon in the group stage before besting both Slovakia and Brazil in the elimination rounds with Robben back in the line up. Wesley Sneijder has been a beast up front, leading the team with four goals to this point, while Dirk Kuyt’s creativity and presence in the midfield has helped the team open up on their attack.

Uruguay

Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez have formed the perfect soccer betting attacking duo for the South American side, and their six goals combined have been the point on the arrow that Uruguay has shot through its opponents to this point. After facing little adversity in earning seven points against Mexico, South Africa, and lowly France in the group stage, Uruguay overcame a tough test in a 1-0 win over Mexico, setting up its quarterfinal match with Ghana. The saying, “fortune favors the bold” is one that resonates through Uruguay today after Suarez’s hand ball that cost him a red card kept his team alive when he stopped the ball from going in to his net with a deliberate hand ball. The Ghana player missed on the penalty kick conversion, and Uruguay eventually won the game in a shootout. Although Suarez will not play in this game, his presence on this team is the only reason they have made it this far.

Matchup

Despite playing a solid tactical game to this point in the tournament, Uruguay has yet to play a team as deep and as talented as the Netherlands, and may be somewhat in over their heads. The Oranje are a determined, focused group, and it will be difficult for a team like Uruguay to stop them, having not faced any side as powerful as they are so far.

World Cup Semi Finals Betting Pick: Netherlands

NBA Basketball – Free Agency Preview

NBA betting experts are bracing for the coming storm. Alongside them, online betting gurus are also waiting to see just how the upcoming flurry of free-agent activity will shake up the NBA for the upcoming season.

World Cup blog activity is focusing on the two sexy quarterfinal matches that have just been set up. World Cup odds are closely connected to the outcomes of the two round-of-eight showdowns between Argentina and Germany on the one hand, and then the Netherlands and Brazil on the other. In the NBA, we could witness a month of July in which free agency shuffles the deck and creates a new arrangement of power, particularly in the Eastern Conference.

To make the comparison with the World Cup, the quartet of Boston, Cleveland, Orlando and Atlanta represented the Argentina, Germany, Holland, and Brazil of the Eastern Conference over the past few seasons. However, a certain progression of events could totally remake the way the East – and by extension, the league – is seen.

The two teams that need to be examined quite closely are the Chicago Bulls and the Miami Heat. The Bulls – who dominated the 1990s in the Michael Jordan era – and the 2006 champion Heat appear poised to reclaim old glories. The Bulls are in especially good position because they snagged a hot coaching commodity in former Boston assistant and defensive guru Tom Thibodeau. The presence of Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Luol Deng gives the Bulls a very solid nucleus. If a max-value free agent like LeBron James or Chris Bosh comes to the shores of Lake Michigan, the Bulls will instantly soar to the top of the East pecking order. Cleveland’s past playoff flameouts plus the ugly unraveling of Orlando would make it very hard to trust those two teams against the skill and athleticism of a Chicago club with a new high-end free agent. The Bulls have done a lot of advance work to become a destination franchise once again, 12 years after Michael Jordan’s last NBA title. They aren’t likely to get shut out in this free-agent drama.

Then consider the case of the Miami Heat. The organization led by Pat Riley has made some deals with the devil in many ways. Miami spent everything and risked everything to make a run at the flag in 2006, and the move worked brilliantly. The downside of that direction (probably worth it to Miami fans) is that the franchise had to let a lot of big names go (Gary Payton retired after that championship season; Shaquille O’Neal left; James Posey moved to other teams in the NBA, including the 2008 champion Celtics). Riley spent the 2007 season coaching a team that plummeted to the bottom reaches of the league. It was the price he had to pay.

Mindful of the franchise’s depleted roster, Riley – who took over as coach in place of Stan Van Gundy during the 2006 campaign – backed away and gave the keys to young Erik Spoelstra for the 2008 season. Now, after two years of biding his time and waiting for the organization’s finances to heal, Spoelstra is still going to be the coach, but Riley has regrouped to the point where the Heat can re-enter the championship chase. Landing one max free agent alongside Dwayne Wade will make Miami a 2011 contender. Getting another high-value free agent as a complementary piece will place the Heat on par with the East’s best teams.

The summer of free agency should be very interesting indeed.