I Guess

     I do not gamble on games. I tried it once in Las Vegas over 25 years ago and it was on baseball. I did not win. After that misadventure, I never thought about doing it again. Despite my cousin's husband in California pestering me when it comes to betting on NFL football when he is in Nevada.

     Odds makers in Vegas know what they are doing. They are playing with house money and they make the odds with scientific precision based on mathematical principles. Given that I became a trial lawyer  as a profession, math was not my strong suit. Thus, bucking the odds like gamblers do, would be a foolish pursuit.

     I do not play fantasy sports. I find that the drafting and studying of rosters each week is too demanding for me. Why invest money like that based upon a player's performance, which is subject to too many variables. I leave my gambling like that to the stock market with the advice of professionals who have studied so many trends and corporations that their predictions are much more likely to lead to success than figuring out if Brandon Marshall will have a great day versus the Cleveland Browns or if Bryce Harper is truly the center fielder I want for my team given his sub-par 2016 season.

     Only rarely have I had the opportunity to participate in a Super Bowl pool. Those are based on number combinations for quarters, half time and the end of the game. I did not do too well there. Like a lottery, it is mere chance. I play the Mega Millions lottery for the sheer ridiculousness of believing that if I was to be lucky, it would be a huge financial windfall. I think the best I have done is win $10.00. My parents once won $1,000.00 which led to a nice day at Monmouth Park where the New Jersey lottery picked a winner of a $1,000,000.00.  It was not my family. 

     I have participated in NCAA Tournament basketball pools. I once finished third. Predicting the outcome of 65 games involving squads that can catch fire at any given time is a very difficult exercise. Since now I do not have access to a pool (besides they are technically illegal) and I scrupulously avoid the lure of CBS Sports, ESPN and other "sanctioned" pools, I make my selections for fun. Usually, by the end of the full first round I have routinely mistakenly picked the outcome of 6 to 7 games, one of them being the play-in games. 

     So my investment in gambling on games is a no odds pool that I jointly play with my daughter on NFL games. For 17 weeks, we try to figure out who is more adept and gives us hope that we picked correctly. The first couple of weeks are a crapshoot--how well a team can do based upon supposed experts feel for the team coming out of training camp or coming off of the prior year makes predicting the winners of 16 games nearly impossible. Who would have thought that the Jets would lose to the Bengals at home in Week 1, after a near miss for the playoffs last season? Could we know how good New England was going to be minus Tom Brady for four games as a result of his Deflategate suspension? 

     The first 3-4 weeks involves a lot of luck or the happenstance of a critical injury to a player, thereby dooming a team. Yet who could have foreseen the poor starts the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers had? That the Cleveland Browns weren't going to win a game until Week 16? Or that the Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers, the latter in the last Super Bowl, would have crummy years? Who foresaw the Miami Dolphins making a concerted late run to a Wild Card berth? And the Philadelphia Eagles would start out red hot only to falter badly and fall out of playoff contention behind a promising rookie quarterback? With so many teams just above .500 and contending for the playoffs, it is hard to decide who to support on a weekly basis. 

     Last year we collectively won once. This season we were on the precipice of a possible winning weekend dependent upon the tiebreaker--how many total points would be scored in a Monday Night contest. We did not win. It is hard enough trying to get to a position of being in contention for winning the pool in any given week--figuring out how many points will be scored is even more unpredictable. 

     Here we are in Week 16. We started off with defying the odds that the New York Giants, who had a 99.8% chance of making the playoffs before the Thursday night game with the Eagles, would lose to the sub-.500 Philadelphia team. But the game was at Lincoln Financial Field, the Giants are much better at home than on the road and the Eagles had not been swept by the Giants in many years. Logic dictated to me to go with Philly.

     While there were many close contests this weekend, there were only a couple of upsets. Somehow I saw the Browns, at home, beating the San Diego Chargers; no team really loses all of their games in a season just as much as it is so rare to go undefeated during the regular season.  The Jaguars surprised me at home; then again could I have known that Tennessee star QB Marcus Mariota would break his leg? I went with the Chicago Bears at home despite their mediocre record, based on the prior week's close game versus the red hot Packers and a hunch that the Washington Redskins were overrated. Blew that one badly. Plus I gave the Seattle Seahawks way too much credit at home versus Arizona, but then again it was a meaningless game because Seattle was not going to do much to improve its stock from being the NFC West champs. 

     I have the feeling we are in the running for the weekly prize (which I have no idea what amount that is) based upon tonight's game between the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Texas. While the game means more to the Lions, even they would be playing the Packers next week at home for the NFC crown no matter what tonight's outcome is. Yet Dallas, who has only lost to twice to the Giants is our pick--they have only lost at home once this year, and that was by one point to New York on Week 1. 

     There you have it--my semi-educated prognosticating of NFL games. It is fun although somewhat addictive. Maybe we will win tonight. If not, there is next weekend, which may have nothing at stake for anyone other than Green Bay and the Lions nest Sunday night. My prediction is that game will go down to the wire. Whichever team I choose as my winner, after all, will only be based on a guess.