Week 4 lines, picks

1-2 ATS for the week, 7-6 ATS for the season.

Saskatchewan has HUGE quarterback issues, and perhaps Montreal finally found a decent qb....if I am the GM I am cutting Drew Willy immediately and I am playing Matthews for the rest of the season....he looked poised and unafraid and he threw the ball down the field, and Willy looked like typical Willy,  a scared rabbit, with no mobility who coughs up the ball.

My lines for next week.

Home               line                Road           Total

Saskatchewan    +5                Hamilton       51

Montreal            +8                Ottawa          47       (Ottawa always has trouble in Montreal)

Toronto             +3                Edmonton      56

Winnipeg           -7'                BC                 55

Keep in mind that dogs that score >=20 points cover 72.3% of the time (251-96-6 ATS).

Observations......

Duron Carter is the biggest ignoramous I've ever seen play football, and he is also worth a couple of trash talking or illegal bumping penalties a game or some other penalty that hasn't even been conceptualized yet.....they should name the unsportsmanlike foul "The Carter Penalty"............I cut him immediately.

Edmonton's defense is still bad, irregardless of how they looked against Jennings' BC Lions....Jennings'll make anyone's defense look good.   

If you're a BC fan you have to be already yelling at the television two games into the season......PUT IN TRAVIS LULAY!! If I lived in BC I would go on strike and boycott BC games until they made Lulay the starter.

Coaches, IDK, they get paid a lot of money, but to have a former MOP sitting behind a guy that can't play?  What kind of world does Wally actually live in? 

I don't get it. 

I would back Hamilton and Toronto at the prices I have above....but of course mine differ from Vegas' in usually about two of the games each week, sometimes by a lot.

Calgary and Hamiton look significantly better than any of the rest of the league.  Anyone else making the Grey Cup will be a surprise to me.  Of course things could change...we could see injuries to the Stamps' or Cats' qbs, etc.  Then we see the "Here's Johnny" show, that WOULD be something.

Good fortune to all this week....away dogs have been 2-6 ATS so far this year, which is not happened for quite awhile...we'll see what the future brings.

Apologies, the Ottawa Redblacks, NOT Calgary plays at Montreal this week.

My line for that game is:

Montreal   +3.5       Ottawa        52

Love the lines indigo, been waiting for this week, so confident going to parley all 4 games. Hamilton, Ottawa,edmonton and Winnipeg moneyline and spread.

im worried about Toronto and BC. Both are volatile this week.

I think the Hamilton line will be Hamilton -8

Ja, we will see what Mister Linemaker seems to think.  Making your own lines helps your handicapping, if you're good at it.  So far the discrepancies in the line I've been able to make money on at a  pretty high percentage, with the exception of the Montreal +14 line that I had this past week that I hedged out of...it's all of the technical stuff that hasn't come through so far.

Can I back Jennings again on the road?.....let's just say I will be super pissed off at myself if I allow myself to be enticed by a nice line to take the Lions another time.

The linemaker has spoken......mine in parentheses.

Riders       +6    (+5)          Tiger Cats  49    (51)

Alouettes  +6    (+3')          Redblacks  48'    (47)

Argos        +5    (+3)          Eskimos     52'    (56)

Bombers    -3'   (-7')           Lions         53     (55)   

He must have heard that Jennings went through a new machine that caused him instantaneously to change his spots, otherwise the Lions line doesn't make much sense.  If there isn't one yet maybe I'll invent one and make zillions....the Lions could be my first customer.

I likely will be on the Argos at that price as non-divisional home dogs that score over 19 points in weeks 1-5 have been   15-4-1 ATS and 12-6 straight up.  Over the course of a full season those figures move to 33-20 ATS and 28-24 SU.  If those teams are off two straight losses they have been 16-6 ATS and 14-9 SU.  I think Toronto is better off without Ricky, and the linemaker doesn't think so.   I expect the Argonauts to put up points versus the Peggers.

Digging the Redblacks as well, as teams off an away dog win and then coming home as dogs (Alouettes) have not been not very good.  The price isn't what I'd like, but sometimes you pay a premium.  Hoping Willy will play.

On another note Hamilton's futures odds to win the Grey Cup have dropped from what I purchased them preseason at 9 to 1 down to 3.33 to 1.

I'm not getting overly excited about them, as my Connecticut Sun bet looked great after the first few games and now they can't win a game.  Still, they have looked good so far with the exception of their meltdown in the second half against Calgary albeit on the road against the best team in the league.   Will see if they can stand prosperity this week on the road against a team they should beat  My book has a buy-out clause and they are offering a profit to get out of the bet, which I am not doing.

Teams that are away non-divisional favorites that allow >27 points/game before game number 11 have been 7-1 ATS, winning outright by 16 points/game.....Eskimos.  It shows the old adage that offense wins football games on the road and defense is less consequential as far as wagering goes for away teams.

Makes me re-think my possible Argos wager....perhaps it takes them a game with Franklin to get their already shaky act together.  We saw that last week with the Sasquatches and their new quarterback.

Here's another anti-Argonauts query

playoffs=0  and p:L  and HD and  not DIV and game number<8 and pp:F

0-5 for the Argos with the average loss by 12 points, sheeesh!      

I am off of them unless the line moves north of 6 points.

Ok, here's two plays, probably my two games I've liked the most for the year so far.

1)  Ottawa -6  not buying the Alouettes Kool-aid yet.   It took a terrible couple of quarterback for them to get their win against the Sasquatches and they'll be facing quite a bit better quarterback in Trevor Harris for the Redblacks.  Teams that lost their previous game at home and now are home divisional dogs before game number 6 have been 0-7 ATS losing by an average of 14-27.

2)  Edmonton/Toronto OVER 52'

I expect Toronto to score points on the Eskimos.  Home dogs where both teams score at least 19 points the OVER has covered about 80% of the time.  This moves up to 31-6 OVER (>83%) for a non-divisional game.

Good fortune all, let's win this week.

I should clarify my wording for the Ottawa pick.....teams that lost the last time they played at home, possibly but not necessarily the previous week, have been 0-7.

Mods, why don't we have an ability to go back and  edit our own threads like facebook does?

For you SDQL aficionados......

playoffs=0  and tS(W@H, N=1)=0 and HD and  DIV  and game number

Teams that won less than 7 games last year have been 5-13 ATS as home divisional dogs before game number 11....Alouettes

If you wish to collaborate what I've found or learn to input your own queries, go the killersports website look under "NFL" and click on SDQL manual (PDF) for the user's manual with all of the correct suffixes to enter in your own queries.

For my query below

1)  copy the query

2) Go to killersports website

3)  click on CFL

4)  paste the  query into the white box...

Here's a query I am using for the Redblacks/Alouettes game

p:ADW and HD and DIV and game number<16

p:ADW     won their previous game as an away dog

HD          presently a home dog

DIV         a divisional match-up

1-10 ATS, 2-9 UNDER

Cafreful Indigo most of those the op:W.  in this case op:L

p:ADW and HD and DIV and game number<16 and op:L

  You did it right.  That was my point to Indigo.  His query does much better when the team is off a win.  I was showing the results when that team was off a loss.  1-2  is still good but there is much less data and a higher line.  I don't like this game, unless I can find something very strong.

Here's another query to go against Montreal.

playoffs=0  and tS(W@H, N=1)=0 and HD and  DIV  and PRSW, you'll see that teams that won less than 9 games last year have been 7-20 ATS, and if their opponent is off a loss this moves to 2-7 ATS.

Here's another one

tA(line)>oA(line) and AF and DIV 

5-1 ATS to the Redblacks

Home divisional dogs in early season have been 9-18 ATS

HD and DIV and 1<game number<8  

Montreal is in a couple of very negative situations...they both lost their previous home game AND they won their last game as away dog and are coming home to play as a home dog in a divisional game.  Typically irregardless of what they did the past couple of games home divisional dogs early season have been poor percentage plays.  All of the situations individual situations I've run for Ottawa are neutral, so it doesn't change anything for me.  If it does for you, so be it......our perception of the exact same situation with the same data will differ.   Providing my information helps me to make my own decision and hopefully it does the same for you....and when weighing up the data to make a decision,....to play team A, not to bet A to bet the other team team B, or to pass the game will vary between you the betting public and me......no problem...I'm not trying to convince you, all I need to do is to convince myself.,,,,and I will be wrong quite frequently, but hopefully not more than  40% of the time.  And, it's not like I am a total robot....I've watched Montreal and Ottawa play this year and I like what I've seen from the Redblacks and hate what I've seen from Montreal.

And, my emotional  driven brain will sometimes be at odds with the data.  Case in point,....I like Toronto to possibly get a straight up win this week,....however the data (my left brain) doesn't support my opinion (right brain), so the game in all likelihood becomes a no-play for me.   Could Toronto win its game and Ottawa lose versus the spread this weekend?...absolutely.

Here's another interesting query.....

HD and DIV and game number<8

which gives a 12-20 ATS result against the situation the Alouettes are in this weekend......however when adding

"and line"  to get this query.....

HD and DIV and game number<8 and line

we see that home dogs of 3 points, EXACTLY have been 6-0 ATS and all of the other results have been 6-20 ATS, which goes to 3-15 ATS if our week is less than 7.

Random results?  The numerologists would say "no", that all numbers have a specific vibration that vibrate at a differing level.....I tend to agree with the esotericists.  I doubt that many would agree with me, which would NOT be the first time.

Changing my approach?  Not that I am aware of.  In early season games I am using early season situations which have served me well until this year, where favorites and public plays have done well, which has not happened since the database was developed.  The go-to bets in the CFL, dogs and UNDERs have both performed poorly in 2018.

When I started the season 17-2 ATS a couple of seasons ago, my plays correlated with my historical data which correlated with how teams performed that year.  That hasn't happened this year, which is frustrating to me and maybe to those that follow my picks.

Playing an away favorite is very out of character for me, as is a OVER, but the short-term trend is going that way right now, hence an out of character couple of picks for me.

Some very smart people lost money when the stock market went against long time trends in 2008.....and have made it back and then some since.  There will years of outlier results.....if things don't go my way this weekend, I'll maybe consider this to be one of those years and take the rest of the year off.