...and I believe the rest of the season is going to be a lock as far as betting against my favorite team is concerned as well.
The spread changes in these games as we get closer to the day of the game because Vegas always hedges their bets but if you get in early with most bookies or online gambling sites, you are "locked in" at whatever the spread happened to be when you placed your bet.
Carolina was predicted to lose at something like -400 when I placed my bet earlier on in the week but when betting was closed due to the start of the game it was down to -550 and the spread was raised to 10 points. This wasn't a massive change but the Panthers didn't disappoint: They were absolutely atrocious in this game vs. the Washington Redskins and this was expected. I wasn't expecting them to be this bad though.
By the time the game had begun the money placed on a straight win or "money line" bet was nearly 100% on Washington, which only a fool would bet the other way despite the fact that it was a +400. It could have been a +3000 and it would still be a fools' bet. Carolina is absolutely terrible and the above image basically summarized what would happen any time that the Panthers managed to make even a slight movement forward on offense.
Keep in mind that I made my bet against Carolina when they had 9 points on the spread.
By the time halftime rolled around I didn't even feel like watching it anymore because even though I do like winning money on my bets, Carolina is still my favorite team that I have followed very closely since they became a team, and after a while it becomes embarrassing simply to be watching the game.
Let's make no mistake here, Washington could have won this game by a lot more than they did and the one TD that Carolina managed to get was a "gimme" by the Redskins. Washington had basically stopped trying at this point because it was completely unnecessary for them to put forth any effort. Nobody has ever come back from a 37 point deficit in a single quarter. The Skins at this point were doing almost exclusively running plays with their 2nd string just to burn out the clock and get the damn game over with.
Now if we look at next week's game for Carolina against Denver the spread is starting out a lot higher despite the fact that Washington is arguably a better team than Denver is.
I think it is safe to say that Carolina is regarded as a lost cause by the entire league as well as all bookmakers. For Denver to be a -600 favorite is really crazy when they are a team with a 4-3 record on the season with close games even when they lose. I have no idea how this is determined but I am still going to bet against Carolina because unless there is some sort of fix or Denver puts on the brakes after getting comfortable lead, there is no reason why they too couldn't run up the score against the truly awful team that is the Panthers.
The betting trends indicate that this spread is not enough of a deterrent for most fans as well.
The top is the percentage of overall bets and the bottom is the overall amount of money. I don't know what those 27% of people are hoping for but the 13% drop in amount of money involved in the bets indicates that the people that are betting this way don't have much hope that Carolina can actually hold the Broncos on the 11 point spread, they are just perhaps hedging their bets or this is a high payout parlay. A "parlay" in case you don't know, is where you can win big on small bets by gambling on the outcome of multiple games and you have to be correct on all of them. The more unlikely the result is, such as Carolina beating the spread, the higher the payout will be.
Carolina was so terrible vs Washington that they actually put Bryce Young back in the game after Andy Dalton threw two interceptions on a mere 16 attempted passes. Bryce didn't fare much better as he seems a bit rattled by not being a regular in the rotation and the two passes he attempted were small yardage plays that ultimately resulted in -4 yards because the defense read the absolute hell out of the plays.
I decided to dig into Carolina's pathetic performance and found out that they are $41 million below the salary cap and are already well placed for really good draft picks if they do really poorly this season. This is the miserly way to put together a squad and a lot of people would consider it cheating to a certain extent. It also really pisses off the fans when it appears as though the management isn't even trying to win games. I don't believe this is going to change in their next road game to Denver.
Denver is considerably more motivated to win this game because even though they are sitting at 4-3, they are second in the AFC west with Kansas City at the top. I don't think that Denver has any notion that they are going to overtake KC, but they need wins to remain in the playoff picture and there is no better way to do that than to beat up on the worst team in the NFL.
I will once again bet against Carolina. Hell, I would bet against Carolina if there were to have a game against nearly all of the top 25 college teams. They are that bad. It is extremely evident that they are the worst team in the NFL, and sadly, they might be one of the worst teams the NFL has seen in a decade. If you simply bet against Carolina in every game for a straight loss, you will win money on the season. I believe the same will be true if you bet against the spread which just keeps getting larger and larger as the season drags on.
At this point playing against Carolina is kind of like having a "bye week" but your players have to exercise a bit at the same time.