In our first week picking pro football at SFBay, at least one of us is real happy we're not playing with real money.
In our first week picking pro football against the spread here at SFBay, at least one of us is real happy we’re not playing with real money.
Ali Thanawalla strapped on a 1-5 first week to toss 500 SFBay Bucks into the wind. Mark Sanchez’ New York teammates shocked most of the world — and all of us — with an offensive onslaught against a confused Buffalo squad.
We all grabbed a little bonus Monday night when Oakland totally underestimated the importance of the long snap. Who knew Jon Condo was the most valuable player on the team? One sure bet: Many teams took extra work there this week.
One takeaway from Week 1: Parity, schmarity. There are some bad football teams in this league. Squads like Buffalo, Arizona and Cleveland destined for their typical fates. Thank God Jim Harbaugh for San Francisco lifting themselves out of that muck.
Speaking of the too-hard hand-shaking sideline prowler, maybe we should wager the over-under on the number of words Harbaugh and Jim Schwartz will mutter at each other during their post-game handshake this week?
Get your picks into the comments or just watch along for fun and yucks. If you want to jump in, there are plenty of SFBay bucks for everybody. How we roll.
I’ll be over here counting my SFBay Bucks.
Fair warning: We’re not touts, sharks or bookies. We don’t splash action around the web or line up bets in back alleys. We’re just a few local writers picking games without much of a clue. So using these picks for your own gambling is probably a very bad idea.
| Name | Bankroll | Last week |
| Jesse | 10,200 | +200 |
| Chelena | 10,000 | +0 |
| Ali | 9,500 | -500 |
| Game | Ali | Chelena | Jesse |
| Detroit at San Francisco (-6 1/2) |
SF 200 |
SF 100 |
SF 400 |
| Oakland at Miami (-2 1/2) |
OAK 100 |
OAK 100 |
MIA 300 |
| Denver at Atlanta (-3) |
DEN 100 |
ATL 100 |
ATL 200 |
| New York (A) at Pittsburgh (-6) |
NY 100 |
PIT 100 |
PIT 200 |
| Chicago at Green Bay (-6) |
CHI 100 |
GB 100 |
GB 200 |
| Washington (-3)at St. Louis |
WAS 200 |
WAS 100 |
WAS 400 |
To refresh anyone’s memory on how point spreads function, the team with the “minus points” is the favored team, and has the “point spread” deducted from their score at the end of the game. The final score adjusted by the point spread determines the winner of the bet.
If a team is favored by three points, they must win by more than three points to win a point spread bet.
Of course you can play along with Bettin’ or Braggin! What kind of pro football picking game would Bettin’ or Braggin’ be if you couldn’t play?
You can win prizes! (We can’t. All SFBay staff can win are bragging rights over each other. In other words, priceless.)
But first, some rules:
* – Actually, we will be picking two Thursday games, the Seattle-San Francisco game Oct. 26 and the Denver-Oakland game Dec. 6. On those weeks, the deadline for weekly picks will be Thursday at 5 p.m. See why we don’t like Thursday games? Too complicated.
Third-place: SFBay black fleece hoodie, high quality. Nice stuff. $50 value.
Second-place: Limited-edition, authentic SFBay Golden Gate FC soccer shirt, customized with your name. $120 value.
First place: A green Joe Montana Notre Dame Adidas jersey, “True School Authentics,” Size 56. Very high quality retro-authentic heavy mesh. Brand-new, never-worn condition. All tags attached. Very collectible. $250 value.
Jesse Garnier is the editor and founder of SFBay. A Mission District native, he also teaches journalism as associate professor at San Francisco State University.
An early-morning fire ripped through a third-grade classroom and offices in a Menlo Park private school.
If you're going to successfully sue somebody, you might as well go hard or go home. Right?
I want SF and Washington for 500
Pttsburg, denver, and miami for 200