The NFL “divisional playoffs” were this weekend (January 22, 2023) – I thought the “better teams” all won today (Cincinnati beat Buffalo, San Francisco beat Dallas)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The final score was Bengals 27 – Bills 10. To my eyes the Bengals are playing like a championship team – I’m not predicting anything, just saying that they are doing a lot of the things that championship teams do.
Of course the Bengals continue to be disrespected by the “experts” simply because, well, they are the Bengals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
e.g. The “spread” was Bengals +6 – which means that the Bills were a 6 point “favorite.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sure the Bills were the home team, and they are obviously also a very good team composed of professional athletes – but a 6 point favorite?
Well, you see the “line”\/”point spread” in a football game is about getting equal money bet by both sides – then the “house” is guaranteed a % of the money wagered – no matter who wins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The “spread” isn’t about which team is actually better – it is completely about how money is being wagered on the game. Which again comes back to my point that the Bengals are being disrespected by the “experts” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Full disclosure – I don’t enjoy “picking” football games. Just in general I don’t bet on sports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a “seasoned fan” I don’t bother to watch much “pre-game” coverage. I’ll turn on the game just before kick-off and usually mute the ‘announcers” and listen to music during the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HOWEVER – when I was a “not so seasoned fan” I would sometimes watch ALL of the pre-game coverage, then the games, then watch the highlight shows. SO I’ve listened to a lot of “television experts” predict football games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was an old “football expert” by the name of Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder who used to predict NFL game scores back in the 1970s\/80’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, ol’ Jimmy was probably wrong more than he was right – I don’t remember ever hearing his “correct\/incorrect” numbers – but he was also a “Las Vegas bookmaker” so his win\/lose record was MOSTLY irrelevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Again, if you are a “bookmaker” you just want a lot of money bet ON BOTH TEAMS – so then you are guaranteed to make money not matter who wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ANYWAY – at the end of his career (before he said something inappropriate and got himself fired in 1988) ol’ Jimmy loved himself some Dallas Cowboys (and in his defense the Cowboys were very good in the late 70’s and early 80’s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem was that the Cowboys as a franchise had some problems in the mid 1980’s (which culminated in a change of ownership in 1989), and were just not a good team – but ol’ Jimmy kept on picking them to win<\/p>\n\n\n\n
from a “psych 101” point of view ol’ Jimmy “The Greek” was suffering from a bad case of “confirmation bias” in regards to the Cowboys — i.e. he keep expecting them to be championship contenders because they had been championship contenders for so long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that brings us to the 2022 Dallas Cowboys. They lost to the San Francisco 49ers today 12 – 19. The line was Cowboys +4. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My guess is that the “betting public” made the “point spread” smaller in the Dallas game and larger in the Bengals games because of “confirmation bias” — i.e. the general public expects the Cowboys to be better than they are and for the Bengals to be worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which is why they play the games …
My opinion on the Bengals win is that the Bengals were the “better team” today. The Bills certainly didn’t “quit” or “play poorly” so much as the Bengals played very well as a team and were in control from start to finish (they looked like “Champions”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Cowboys had another “golden era” in the early-mid 1990’s – winning 3 Super Bowls in 4 years. But haven’t been back to a Super Bowl or Conference championship game since 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that 27 year “championship game” drought they have only had 7 losing seasons. Team Owner Jerry Jones is willing to invest money in the team, they have a state of the art stadium, and a large passionate fan base – i.e. if there is a “recipe for success” the Cowboys have been following it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watching the game today – my opinion was that the teams were “physically equal.” It was a close, entertaining game but I would describe it as the “Cowboys lost” just as much as the “49ers won.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No disrespect for San Francisco – they are another “doing things right” franchise (but they have made a couple Super Bowl appearances since their “golden era” back in the 1980’s\/90s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the Cowboys continue to make “small mistakes” that are hard to justify\/explain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Steelers Hall of Fame Coach Chuck Knoll once said that “Before you can win the game, you have to not lose.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Before you can win the game, you have to not lose.”<\/p>Chuck Knoll<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Yeah, it is a great “football coach” quote – what he (probably) meant is that more games are “lost” because of players making (self-inflicted) mistakes than are ‘won” by players making great plays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SO the Cowboys have a lot of very talented players – that managed to find a way not to win. I have an opinion on the “why” of the Cowboys continued “non championship” run – but it is just an “opinion” and it isn’t important or useful at the moment … <\/p>\n\n\n\n To the 49ers credit, they let the Cowboys make those mistakes, took the win – and will play next week against the Eagles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n BUT I didn’t get that “championship” feel from the 49ers – that doesn’t mean they won’t win against the Eagles. The Eagles are very good and were dominant in their win – but the Giants had that “happy they won last week” look – so the game will be interesting … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The NFL “divisional playoffs” were this weekend (January 22, 2023) – I thought the “better teams” all won today (Cincinnati beat Buffalo, San Francisco beat Dallas) Bengals The final score was Bengals 27 – Bills 10. To my eyes the Bengals are playing like a championship team – I’m not predicting anything, just saying that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-gaming","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}