2011 R+L Carriers Bowl to Become a Classic
The Louisiana Superdome will come to life on December 17th as the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl begins. The San Diego State Aztecs face the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns in a battle to the finish. The Aztecs come into the game with an 8-4 record and a 4-3 record in the Mountain West Conference. The Aztecs average 29.8 points per game on offense and 24.4 points per game on defense.
The Aztecs are headed up by senior quarterback Ryan Lindley (2,740 yards – 52.5 completion pct – 20 td's / 8 int – 122.9 rating). The running game is in great hands with phenom sophomore RB Ronnie Hillman (287 carries – 1,656 yards – 19 td's). Hillman had a 99-yard touchdown run in a losing effort against Wyoming on October 29th. Hillman reminds some watchers of previous Aztecs phenom and latest NFL Hall Of Famer Marshall Faulk who also ran up and down opposing teams in the early 1990's.
The Ragin' Cajuns defense will have their hands full in trying to stifle Ronnie Hillman on the ground. Both defenses will surely get a workout in this shootout of two strong squads. The two-way threat of Gautier versus the running game of Hillman will be a spectacle. Both schools will want to put a lot of points on the board in this game.
Road to the Super Bowl 2011 — Pittsburgh Steelers Versus New York Jets
Week 3 of the NFL playoff season is the Conference Championships, and the AFC will be a battle of the only two remaining teams in the running, the New York Jets and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers are listed in Sportsbook as the minus 3.5 point favorites for this Sunday's matchup. The total over under is listed at 38.5.
The winner of this Sunday's matchup with take home the AFC Champ title as well as a spot in the February 6th Super Bowl XLV in Dallas, Texas. The Steelers finished the regular season at the top of the AFC North with a 12-4 record, but the New York Jets are coming off a big win last weekend when they knocked Drew Brees and the New England Patriots out of the Super Bowl running. Mark Sanches threw three touchdown passes in addition to the Jets sacking Brady a total of 5 times in the game, which was the most surprising upset of the Divisional Championships. New York led its fierce rival, 14-3, at halftime before Brady's 2-yard touchdown pass to Alge Crumpler and Sammy Morris' run for a two-point conversion made it 14-11 late in the third quarter. But Sanchez came right back with a 7-yard scoring pass to Santonio Holmes and New York finished the upset with Greene's touchdown. The Jets finished 11-5-0 in the regular season, putting them in second place in the AFC East as they charged the post season.
The Pittsburgh Steelers took down the Baltimore Ravens last Saturday in the Divisional Playoffs at 31-24. For the first 30 minutes, both units could share the blame for the 14-point deficit. Pittsburgh's defense gave up a 68-yard drive and permitted two third-down conversions during another touchdown march. The offense committed two turnovers, including a fumble by Roethlisberger that Baltimore defensive end Cory Redding turned into a score. This was their first game of this years' playoff season, as they earned a bye week in Wild Card Weekend, thanks to holding the best record int eh AFC North at 12-4-0. This will be the Steelers' 15th AFC Championship Title game. When betting on the NFL remember that next weekend's game will the second time these two teams have played, the first coming in week 15.
Road to the 2011 Super Bowl – Saints at Seahawks
Football odds in fact could offer added value to the Saints in the playoffs since they are not among the top choices with the odds NFL to win the Super Bowl.
NBC will telecast the NFC wild card game between the Seattle Seahawks and visiting New Orleans Saints on Saturday with a start time of 4:35 PM ET. Sports-Gambling opened with Seattle as a 10.5 point favorite and with a total of 44.5. New Orleans scored a 34-19 home payout over Seattle on November 21 as the game went over the total.
Seattle has a record of 7-9 both straight up and with the NFL odds and went over the total 11 times. Seattle is the champion of the NFC West despite their losing record. Charlie Whitehurst got the start at quarterback last week over Matt Hasselbeck and the question is open as to which QB goes in this one.
Hasselbeck had a poor 73.2 QB rating with a 12/17 TD/INT ratio while Whitehurst had an even worse 65.5 QB rating with a 2/3 TD/INT ratio. The running game was a pathetic 31st while the defense ranked 25th for points allowed. Seattle won just 3 of their last 10 games with just 3 payouts in that stretch.
New Orleans is 11-5 straight up and 7-9 with the NFL lines and 8-8 on totals as the wild card team from the NFC South. The Saints lost 2 of their final 3 games. Quarterback Drew Brees will be the key with the wild card weekend odds for New Orleans as he has a 90.0 QB rating with a 68% completion rate and 4620 yards with a 33/22 TD/INT ratio.
Brees' interception total was up this year because he had to carry more the offensive burden since the backfield was banged up most of the season which killed off the running attack. The defense showed vast improvement over last year to rank 4th in the NFL overall.
The Saints have paid out in just 2 of their last 8 games with the football odds as road favorites and just 1 of their last 9 games versus teams with a losing record. Seattle has gone 6-19 against the spread versus teams with a winning record.
Football and Super Bowl Betting Most Popular Bets in the World
NFL Betting is the most popular form of sports gambling in the world and in general, football betting trumps all other sports on the betting board. Football gambling comes in many different varieties. The sportsbook accepts NFL gambling wagers for regular season games, halftimes, futures for divisional and conference championships including odds to win the 2011 Super Bowl.
NFL gambling on "sides" is the most basic form of football wagering. When wagering on sides, you are basically taking a team and laying points with either the favorite or taking points with the underdog. The football betting pointspread is the way that the sportsbook tries to even out the betting action towards both sides. As an example, in the February 2008 Super Bowl, the NFL betting pointspread was New England -12.5 points.
Since New England was undefeated the football betting public was naturally gravitating their way so the pointspread was made rather large to entice an even amount of football bets the Giants way. New England would have had to have won the game by 13 or more points to cover the football betting spread.