Last week I mentioned that it was as good a time to stop picking the NFL as any because everything that we thought we knew about the season had changed. This week's 1pm games proved that point.
Denver, a team that started 6-0, lost to a Washington team that was widely considered one of the worst in the league and a team that had, up till then, beaten only St. Louis and Tampa Bay, two of the very worst teams in the NFL.
Speaking of those two teams, St. Louis had a chance for a last drive to beat the undefeated juggernaut New Orleans Saints while Tampa Bay actually took the lead at Miami with about a minute to go before Miami came roaring back.
Carolina, a team which had only managed wins against Washington and Tampa Bay and had a brutal loss to Buffalo in its first seven weeks, has now beat two playoff contenders in the last three weeks and was frisky against the Saints as well.
Tennessee, which started the season 0-6, has won three straight including today's demolishing of Buffalo. Then again, that was not as unexpected as the line opened at Tenn-6.5 and was bet all the way to Tenn-8.5 at many places.
Jacksonville, which has had embarassing losses on the road to Seattle and Tennessee, beat the Jets. The Jets' 3-0 start with the league's best defense is far in the past and they are now reeling at 4-5.
Finally, even Detroit, another horrible team playing on the road against Minnesota, one of the teams many pick to be in the Superbowl, managed to push the 17 point line (unless you got Minnesota early in the week when it was 16.5)
In trading terms, the trend has broken. The public had been riding these strong teams and fading these weak teams for so long that they are now buying down into an abruptly turning market, seeing value where there is none.
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