This thread is going to date me.....my favorite team as a youth was the Green Bay Packers with Vince Lombardi who had Paul Hornung and Bart Starr and company. After that I gravitated to the Vikings in 1968 when Bud Grant migrated south from Canada to lead the Vikings to four NFC championships, only to be crushed in four different Super Bowls.
I loved the Bulls with Michael Jordan and company, and then loved watching Steve Nash's Suns, who could never quite put it all together enough to win a championship. The Suns were the funnest basketball team that I have ever had the pleasure to watch.
However, my most favorite team of all-time and my most favorite all-time player is in existence now. That guy is........
Lamar Freaking Jackson.
Words really don't describe Jackson, and even the word quarterback isn't really a good word descripton of who he is, or what he does. Until about four years ago, running quarterbacks like Michael Vick and Bobby Douglas ran when everything broke down, and they ran to keep a play alive. No offense in the NFL, probably ever, had its design with the qb to be the main runner of the ball, because quarterbacks get hurt, right? Teams would look at the Robert Griffith experiment that worked well for one year for Washington and say, "See, this is what happens when the quarterback runs the ball", as Griffith blew out his knee, never to be the same again."
Everyone still says that, except Baltimore, who says,
"betcha' can't stop our guy"
and hardly anyone has, and as Colinsworth said last night, half the time the biggest and baddest defensive linemen are not even being blocked......LOL!
It is like when you were a kid and there was one guy at age 15 that lived a a couple of blocks away who had mustache and muscles, and you had the "kill the guy with the ball" game and no one could EVER tackle that guy...that is Lamar Jackson.
Now, will the Ravens win a championship with him? IDK, but I am tuning in for as long as he is still there to find out.
Even if you don't share my admiration for Lamar Jackson, if you are not betting Baltimore frequently, you are missing out on money making opportunities.
Was there any doubt last night that Baltimore was gonna outrush Kansas City? Andy Reid, as I have said before, has the best record in NFL history against the spread on the road.....he has an all-time great future hall-of-famer in Mahomes running his show. They could not take down Lamar Jackson last night.
Here are the covering rate stats on teams in the NFL that outrush their opponent.
As a:
Home favorite....1960-1094 ATS (+4.6) 64.2%
Home dog..........738-293 ATS (+6.5) 71.6%
Away favorite.....919-510 ATS (+4.8) 64.8%
Away dog.........1469-493 ATS (+5.5) 74.9%