Ballin' on a Budget Week 5 Results
I hate to say we resembled the Browns the last two weeks, but just like Cleveland’s season-long record, we have gone 2-2-1 over the past two Sundays. Houston really should have put us at 3-2 on the week, but they twice failed to score points from inside the one-yard line. As it happened, they won on a game-ending field goal to give us the push, but we could have finally been in the green if they’d been able to dial up any successful play call on several tries from the goal line.
We won’t get bitter, we’ll get better. We’ve only picked more losers than winners one week out of five this season, so that should be seen as a good sign of things to come. Here’s a recap from all the games we picked over the past week.
LOSS: Broncos to beat the Jets (-110): Jets 34, Broncos 16.
Wow, did Denver look bad in this game. After taking the Chiefs to the brink at home, the Broncos looked like a whole other team in the Meadowlands. Chalk it up to the short week or whatever you want, but there are very few excuses to allowing Sam Darnold and company to torch you all afternoon.
The Broncos are officially in a long list of teams that are now dangerous to bet either way, just because they’re too unpredictable. It was good value to get them at -1 headed into the week, but New York showed some fight and started our week on a sour note. The win: $0.
PUSH: Texans -3 vs. Cowboys (-110): Texans 19, Cowboys 16 (OT)
Like we mentioned off the top, if Houston was able to come away with ANY points on two drives that found them in goal-to-go situations from the one-yard line, we would have easily won this bet. We did catch a break with Jason Garrett deciding to punt on fourth and one in overtime on the Texans side of the 50.
That terrible decision allowed Houston to drive the length of the field and kick the game winning field goal to earn us the push. It certainly could’ve been better, but based on how overtime played out, it could have also been worse. Total win: $4.
LOSS: Browns-Ravens OVER 47 points: Browns 12, Ravens 9 (OT)
I’m at a loss for words. Wow, was this a brutal game. When you get five field goals in a game, you know you’re probably not hitting an over. When those five field goals are the ONLY POINTS OF THE GAME, you know you’re toast. Both these teams showed an ability to be explosive on offense in past weeks, which made you think they should both be well into the 20’s in this one.
However, neither offense could convert inside the red zone and that is the biggest killer of overs. Just imagine if a few field goals had turned into touchdowns. This would have been a lot closer. As it stands, we didn’t get halfway there, so we’ll try to block this one out of memory. The win: $0.
WIN: Jaguars-Chiefs UNDER 49 points: Chiefs 30, Jaguars 14.
Breathe a sigh of relief, because this was almost a terrible beat. The under seemed well in hand after we realized the Jaguars couldn’t move the ball offensively, but everything was almost ruined late. With Kansas City leading 30-14, the Jaguars marched the ball down the field on a meaningless drive in the closing minutes. Jacksonville got inside the red zone, but Blake Bortles threw an interception in the end zone to end it. The win: $7.60.
They had a couple legit shots at the end zone and had they been able to complete it, we would’ve lost this under by two garbage time points. We will thank the sports betting gods for now, while acknowledging that probably means we will be on the other side of this luck at some point later in the season.
WIN: Dolphins-Bengals UNDER 49.5 points: Bengals 27, Dolphins 17.
Betting the Bengals -3 wouldn’t have been a bad move in this game either, but the under hit, which is all that matters for us. A late Bengals touchdown made it closer than it actually was; this was pretty much in hand most of the game. Cincinnati didn’t set the world on fire with Joe Mixon back in the starting lineup, but they did enough while holding Miami in check.
So, we picked three over/unders this week and all of them went under. Luckily, we had two out of the three correct. Remember, life might be too short to take the under, but unders hit slightly more than half the time. The win: $7.60.
PIGGY BANK: $91.31 (-8.7% return on investment)
PICK PERCENTAGE: 58%
Our ROI and pick percentage look to be at odds with one another. We’re approaching that magical 60 percent pick mark now, but we’ve been putting too much money on losing games. This coming week, we will put a large percentage on the games we’re most confident in, in an effort to finally get us solidly into the green. With us gaining more information on teams each week, we should get better as the season goes along. Keep an eye out for Week 6 picks coming in the next couple days.
