Bettin’ or Braggin’: The color of money

With all the talk about Big Bird this week, let’s bring Kermit the Frog back into the mix.

If you think it’s not easy being green, try making green betting against the spread on pro football.

Now try it week-in, week-out, over an entire season. Or better yet, season after season.

Here at SFBay, we don’t know what that’s like.

We do, however, know what it’s like to be up a couple thousand SFBay bucks after four weeks of pro football.

And we’ll tell you this: It feels good.

We’re not sure how long it’s going to last, though, so we’ll do the only logical thing: Increase our bets and try to initiate a self-destruct sequence.

Our role model this week is SFBay reader ParksideGreg, who swelled his bankroll — and likely, his ego — with some monster bets on San Francisco and New England. ParksideGreg leads among SFBay readers with 13,600 SFBay bucks.

On the SFBay payroll, the grey cloud over Ali Thanawalla finally lifted as he chalked up a 4-1 record to bump his bankroll up to 8,600 SFBay bucks. Chelena Goldman’s slow-and-steady approach picked up another 100 bucks on a 3-2 week. Her stack stands at 9,500.

This week is rife with thorny picks and gotcha games. One thing is certain: None of us can get bit by Oakland, though, since they get a break with a bye this week.

I’m not sure a number could be large enough for me to pick Buffalo against San Francisco. It certainly isn’t 9-1/2.  This is a game where the home team needs to assert themselves against a porous defense. Prediction: This game is completed by Colin Kaepernick, for all the right reasons.

Peyton Manning gets a big-boy test visiting New England. Two high-powered offenses mean this game could very well be decided by three, four or six points, likely in the home direction.

Rookie quarterbacks provide a couple of home dogs specials this week. Washington and Indianapolis both play at home, yet face numbers against Atlanta and Green Bay. Both will prove hard to cover.

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.

Leaderboard

Name	Bankroll	Last week
Jesse	11,900	+900
Chelena	9,500	+100
Ali	8,600	+500

Week Three

Game	Ali	Chelena	Jesse
Buffalo  at San Francisco (-9 1/2)	SF 300	SF 100	SF 1000
Philadelphia at Pittsburgh (-3)	PIT 100	PIT 100	PHI 200
San Diego at New Orleans (-3 1/2)	NO 100	NO 100	NO 500
Atlanta (-3) at Washington	ATL 100	ATL 100	ATL 300
Denver at New England (-6 1/2)	NE 200	NE 100	NE 400
Green Bay at (-7) Indianapolis	GB 200	GB 100	IND 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.

You Can Win!

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:

• You’ll need to to pick at least six of the 17 weeks of the pro football season to be eligible to win a prize.
• We will pick all San Francisco and Oakland games in the regular season. All other games selected are at the sole discretion of SFBay.
• You play the game by posting your picks to the pre-selected pro football games in the comment thread of the SFBay Bettin’ or Braggin’ post each week. Your pick should consist of a city and a dollar amount for all six games. All your picks must be posted in a single comment.
• The deadline for entering Bettin’ or Braggin’ is Sunday, September 30 at 11:59 p.m. The deadline for submitting your picks is 10 a.m. Sunday (Pacific Time) each week. We won’t be picking Thursday games because Thursday pro football is bullshit.*
• The winner is the player who ends up with the most SFBay Bucks at the end of the pro football regular season. Sorry, SFBay Bucks have absolutely no cash value or equivalent.

* – 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.

Fabulous Prizes

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.