Currently on Tradesports, the contract for the Bears to win the NFC North is trading at 83 (payoff is 100). Contract for the Vikings to win the NFC North is 17. The Bears are 7-3, and the Vikes are 5-5. Next three games for each team are:
Bears
@ Tampa
vs Green Bay
@ Pittsburgh
Vikings
vs Cleveland
@ Detroit
vs St Louis
So three weeks from now, there seems to be a rather good chance that the Bears are sitting at 8-5 and the Vikes 8-5 as well.
Now, I'm not saying that the Vikes will win the division, but you don't have to hold these contracts to expiry; just hold them till the odds adjust to what you feel is correct. Given that three weeks from now, there will be three games left in the season and I think there's a decent chance the Bears and Vikes have the same record (don't laugh, by the way, Vikes aren't awesome but have won 4 of their last 5), the odds will simply HAVE to be closer to 50/50. They certainly won't be 83/17.
So if you're a betting man, and I'm not saying I am, you might consider your options for making money on that convergence.
19-17?
Well we won, but Jesus H Christ, that was terrible. No wonder Saban didn't take Jimbo Fisher (offensive coordinator) with him to Miami. He's GARBAGE.
Clearly, the Tigers spent all week gameplanning for the Georgia game. We absolutely deserved to lose to Arkansas. Hats off to the Razorbacks for keeping it that close.
LOT of work to be done this week if we expect to hang with the Dawgs.
Have to admit, we now own the "king of winning ugly" title (as HP penned it a few weeks ago), taken from UCLA. No doot aboot it.
Have you guys heard of this fella? He's 7'0" and weighs 198. THAT IS NOT A TYPO. He's a foot taller than I am and weighs 4 lbs less than I do.
Awesome. Though I suppose Manute Bol had an extra 7 inches of height and only 25 lbs. Discussion topic: which is more ridiculous? Manute's weight/height ratio was 2.47, while DOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGG's is 2.36.
What's up with stadium security?
Someone got onto the Virginia field and painted a "T" next to the V this morning to make it look like a Va Tech logo at midfield. They've since cleared it, but how in the sam hell did they let that happen?
Read this story and laugh your ass off.
Stocks for youse guys to go research
[Edit: No more stock talk.]
Various CFB Top 10s
Ok, here's
Heisman Pundit's. I won't argue much with Auburn ahead of us, as I wouldn't want to play them again. But I find it absolutely comical that LSU is the "King of Winning Ugly." Once again, I have my doubts as to whether HP even tuned in to the second half of the LSU game. (Psst HP, there were no turnovers in the game.) So that brings me to wonder...is UCLA even on his list of winning ugly? I mean, a 4 point win vs Washington, a 3 point win vs Wazzu, a miraculous three-touchdowns-in-ten-minutes comeback versus Stanford, and an overcoming-500-yards-of-total-offense 10-point win over Arizona State comprise nearly half their wins. Oh, and this is in addition to losing by FIVE TOUCHDOWNS (and a field goal) eleven days ago. OK. So all together now: winning is pretty as long as you roll up 600 yards of offense doing it. There is no other reasonable explanation for this.
Meanwhile,
CFR has LSU on the cusp of being in his Top 13 for consideration. One can only wonder where Urban Meyer's Gators fall on the list, what with Louisville (of 45-14 drubbing loss to South Florida fame) on there.
Here's a link to the video of the most excellent Gatorade commercial, finally.
Thanks to some commenter on
Darren Rovell's blog for it.
These guys are legitimately hilarious.
Make sure you read about the
Miami Hurricanes rap from last year.
Additionally,
their analysis of this Big East ad is brilliant.
Then so did:
Madeline Albright
Bill Clinton
Howard Dean
Sandy Berger
Nancy Pelosi
Jay Rockefeller
Joe Biden
Harry Reid
Hillary Clinton
John Edwards (who reminds us that he was ON the Intelligence Committee)
Evan Bayh
Watch the video. I know it's from the GOP's website, but I sat through the bullshit videos from MoveOn, so hie thee, liberals.
[Edit: It seems the GOP could use a sound editor, by the way. Why did that video even need music? Who knows. There. I criticized the Republican Party.]
Kazakhstan threatens Ali G's "Borat" with court...who knew the Kazakhs were of the litigious ilk?
LSU Thoughts
Ugly first half on both sides of the ball, I don't think anyone can argue that whatever adjustments we made at halftime worked tremendously. Now, there will be those who still say our defense isn't executing and shouldn't get off the hook for shutting down an admittedly weak Bama offense, but they'll just be losing credibility in my opinion. No turnovers, for either team, just great football on both sides of the ball. One of the better LSU games I've seen.
The Auburn-Georgia game was one of the more impressive displays of football I've seen in awhile. Nothing was really ugly about that game, you could just tell it was two damn good teams playing. I think both teams may be able to say they played their best game of the year (at least in the conference, Georgia's win over Boise State may have been technically more crisp). One of those games with the proverbial "Hate to see anyone lose" underlying it. If we manage to handle our business vs Ole Miss and Arkansas, playing Georgia is not something I'll be looking forward to.
I'm behind on my rules, but couple questions: In the LSU game, on an LSU 2nd and 22 or so, Bama had a defensive holding called. It was 10 yards from the spot of the foul and replaya the down. What happened to five yards and an automatic first down?
Also, in the Georgia-Auburn game, Leonard Pope got called for a (very weak) pass interference call on offense. The penalty was 15 yards. How long has that rule been around? I thought the only 15 yarders were personal fouls and unsportsmanlike conduct?
What to make of the Pac 10 when one of its undefeateds got annihilated 52-14 two weeks ago by a team that just got destroyed 38-14 by the rebuilding Washington Huskies?
Here we go...
(Thanks for the pic to someone on the Tiger droppings board.)
Terry Bradshaw would be an absolute hero if he pulled it off and got his group to submit a bid that Benson accepts...
Public sentiment towards Benson has plummeted since Katrina. ESPN's Outside the Lines did a segment on it, which essentially filleted Benson.
The amigos on the Saints message board discuss it here, including one member who was kind enough to upload his Tivo'd copy to the web.
I'm way behind on putting this up but CFR has now started a Pac 10 vs SEC forum. heh. Good discussions around the place, though.
Other posts:
CFR on the Pac 10CFR on the SECHP's top ten with some discussion of the matter. You just have to love his having a team which lost 52-14 in his top ten over LSU because we only beat I-AA App State 24-0. Give me a damn break. It's been clear all year long that UCLA is vastly overrated, and when they finally capitulate, it's time to give them a break, rather than LSU which despite its ugly play has actually been handling its business.
Another one from HP on the SEC's overrated state, quoting an article out of the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
One more from HP. I haven't had time to read most of these but will get around to it this weekend. Undoubtedly, as is usually the case with CFR and HP, it should be intelligent discussion, far better than anything we get out of ESPN et al.
Somewhere in the CFR universe he mentioned that not just our offense but our DEFENSE has been subpar. I need to go back and find it and request some elaboration there. Because as you can guess, I find that assertion to be complete horseshit. But who knows...we'll see if the Tide rolls us this weekend.
O/U for LSU-Bama is 37.5. Tempted to take the under.
Sorry about the AWOL ness
Going to LSU for the weekend. Actually staying in New Orleans Friday night, anxious to see what's going on down there now.
