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HANDICAPPING SPORTS AND PREDICTING GAMES WITH SPREADS IS TOUGH THESE DAYS.

Someone once told me that making predictions in sports can be dangerous. If you’re wrong, you’ll have fingers pointed at you down the road for being incorrect. If you’re right, people will hound you in incessantly for your next prediction until of course you’re wrong then you’ll just get more fingers pointed at you. Make sense to you? Not really, right? My only response to prediction confusion would be to ask “then what is picking winners”? It’s a prediction, right? I’m predicting who will win and, in some cases, if not all I’m predicting how much they’ll win by. Seems pretty clear cut to me (or maybe not). I’ve made a lot of predictions this year. Some were in college football, some were in the NFL, some were in baseball, some were in other sports. Some predictions were right, some predictions were wrong. I figure right now I’m at about 60/40 with being right on top. Not a bad score in this day and age but not enough to brag about. I’m working to get to about 80/20, then I’ll start getting serious and maybe move to Las Vegas. Until then I’ll just have to keep it real and keep picking, hoping that next week my average will improve. In all though I still love being a spectator of sports, win or lose, and yes I do love talking and writing about it. So here I go again. Last week I mentioned in my article that there would be at least one upset in the College unbeaten ranks over the weekend. Not only was I correct in assuming (predicting) that there would be one, there were actually TWO upsets with USC losing to Utah 47-12 in the PAC-12 Championship and TCU losing to Kansas State 31-28 in The Big 12 Championship. This of course created a conundrum for the FBS selection committee who allowed Ohio State to sneak into the playoffs over USC while allowing TCU to remain one of the top 4 teams. In the end it will be Michigan vs. TCU and Ohio State Vs. Georgia on New Year’s Eve with the final championship game being played a week later by the winners. (Remember what I said about an Ohio State-Michigan rematch). There are of course many Bowl Games to come. Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Peach Bowl and The Orange Bowl and all the others down to the WaWa French Fry Bowl there’s a lot of great football left to play and a lot of picks still to be made and lost, so don’t give up just yet folks. The College Football season is far from over. Remember, right pick or wrong pick it’s still a game. It’s supposed to be fun right? The current NFL race for the playoffs is heating up and it’s getting more crowded than a Turkish Steam Bath on discount day. Several divisions seem to have a team locked in with a winning record, others have a less clear path with teams farther down the win/loss column. The AFC East Division is the most heavily contested division to date in the conference. It has three teams (Buffalo, Miami and The New York Jets) all within 1 or 2 games of each other with The Bills on top at 9-3. A hard push from The Dolphins towards the end of the season can change everything. In the end, divisional games will decide the final outcome. Miami, first week winners over The Bills still has to travel to Buffalo as well as host the Jets in the last game of the season. Christmas may or may not come early on South Beach, we’ll have to wait and see. Over in The NFC the East Division consisting of Philadelphia, Dallas, The New York Giants and The Washington Commanders is as heated as any. The Eagles are firmly in command with a record of 11-1, the league’s best, however the Cowboys are looking over their shoulder at 9-3 and both the Giants and Commanders at 7-5 can make an end of season push to get into the post season. The Cowboys vs. The Eagles on Christmas Eve could end up being pivotal for both franchises. Several divisions in both The NFC and AFC appear to have a clearer path going into the playoffs based upon their current standings and remaining games however we still have a lot of football left to play. Kansas City (9-3), Minnesota (10-2) and San Francisco (8-4) have strong positions with The 49ers being questionable after losing their starting QB for the season. Seattle of course is always in the hunt and being my Super Bowl pick has the added advantage of being in possession of my own personal karma. I’ve been on a roll lately so we’ll see if we can extend it for a few more weeks to benefit The Seahawks. Before I move on from the NFL, I’d like to mention just one more topic and that topic is Tom Brady. His come from behind victory over The Saints on Monday Night Football was once again one for the ages, a manifestation of what a great player this guy is. Being a Dolphins fan, I’ve never been a follower of number 12. I suffered thru enough games where there was a sea of Tom Brady jerseys but I have to say I’m beginning to come around and become a huge fan. I think that 100 years from now they’ll be writing books and having discussions in sports forums about Tom Brady much like they do now about Babe Ruth, Wayne Gretzky, Pele, and Michael Jordan. Period. This past week the entire United States watched the Men’s National Soccer Team be eliminated from The World Cup in Qatar where they fell to a strong Netherlands team 3-1. It was not a close game. The Dutch are one of the power houses of European soccer and are consistently in the top 5 worldwide while the US Is pretty much an afterthought. However, a ground work is being established for a future of US Men’s soccer that will hopefully rival the woman’s team (who literally dominate international soccer). Hopefully the trend will continue. The future looks bright and the exposure that the sport will receive 4 years from now will be evident when the World Cup comes to US soil in 4 years. I’ll take a wait and see stance on it and hope for the best! Kev