Hey guys, what happened to my beloved Tampa Bay Buccs? Followed them since 78 liked the Salmon bros...not sure what happened after their stint at the SBowl...took a liking to NFL after reading about the real mean machine with Mean Joe Greene, Randy White and cant remember the others in the Great Pittsburgh Steelers (now there was a team)...was an Earl Campbell and Franco Harris fan in the 70's for running backs and later followed the great Montana...Marino and Favre...

Love the game and it looks like theres some opportunities to wager and win too lol! Good luck for the season!

Good oppurtunities to Wager AND win too. LOL!!!! Good one Desi ya old man. Your showing your age just like me. I hated the Steelers back then because they always won!!! They were great though and now I like that team alot. Again Mr. Irony over here in the states has something, Randy White (the manster) of the Dallas Cowboys is from, you guessed it, little old Delaware (second smallest state in the US). Heck, we're only about 100 miles long and 15 wide at the top and 25 at the bottom. Very small but we got heart! Just look at all the talent that comes out of here. Randy White, Rich Gannon, Anthony Anderson (of your Pittsburgh Team) - my fat buddy Duke who works at Delaware Park used to be faster than him when they both played at Temple-now he ways 300 lbs. His real name is Delmar. The Niners have a kid from Newark High named Kwajme or something like that who is pretty good too. See, we're like the Rodney Dangerfield of states and get busted on all the time, even though Rhode Island is smaller. How many athletes do they have?????????????

Desi I also have to respect your loyalty to the Bucs as they really stunk it up for a long time. I can only think of one team who was ever that bad and I've always been loyal to them. I loved John Brodie and Gene Washington and OJ Simpson for that matter ( hey, he might have been the best running back ever so ya can't deny him that, just throw him in jail). That's when the league was great!!!! Steve Spurrier used to QB the Niners after Brodie and now I can't stand him. TB lost the man, John Gruden. He was the reason for their success. THe only coach in the league with guts enough to tell some cry baby superstar (Keyshawn Johnson) to pound sand, we don't need you. Gruden really called his bluff. Keyshawn yeah or neah Des?

NFL Week one Game one LOST ONE! The Oakland Raider's, misled by QB Kerry Collins' fumble on his own 8 yd line, along with WR Randy Moss' three dropped passes that led to the Raiders having to punt, and usually reliable Field Goal Kicker and date rape drug mixer, Sebastian Janikowski missing a common 39 yard field goal helped the NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (- 7-= -7 1/2 pts.) win and cover the spread 30-20 in the NFL's season opening game at Foxboro Stadium (or whatever corporation is calling the stadium their's now) in Foxboro, Massachusetts outside Boston. This was NE's 20th straight win at home and the Raider's 10th season opening loss in the last 11 years.

NE was led by QB TOM BRADY's usual mistake-free game and the same for the rest of the Patriots' team as well.

I still feel I had the right side in this game and am not surprised I took a bad beat here. It happened in the playoffs two years ago as well but this time the Raiders had no referee's to blame. Coach Norv Turner will whip this rag tag bunch of misfits into a lean and mean fighting machine by season's half point. Beware the line value though as OAK is somewhat a public team becaause of their bad boy attitude. Squeaky clean Tom Brady and the NE PATS are definitely the class of the AFC and should be tough to beat outright, but if they get points once this season I would be surprised. They have a tough couple of weeks ahead of them with road games at Carolina, Pittsburgh, Atlanta,and Denver while playing at home only one more time (San Diego on October 2) before late OCT! Look to play against them in these upcoming weeks. They will make or break their season in this scheduling fluke--that gives them a huge advantage in the frozen weather of NE in late NOV and DEC. Wonder who the NFL is routing for?????

Isn't it funny, Saratoga how one's bet can determine how one views an outcome. Lucky me, was on New England (-7.5) and I can't agree that the Oakland loss was a "bad beat". It could be argued over a friendly (and I stress friendly) beer that the difference was a missed 39 yard field goal that would have gotten you the smiles instead of me. However NE did miss a point-after which would have made the difference 8 points. Also the last 6 pointer was a bit of a gift as the Pats were into time management and not worried about giving up a TD. If you take away the first 5 minutes and the last 5 minutes it was 30-7 being Oakland only had 1 73 yard score. DEpends which side of the field you are on.


Arguing over spilt milk is good over the beer, but what I really like about your post is your indication of the future for these 2 teams. Written them down in the little black book as I think you are spot on. Oakland looked terrific in that first drive and a couple of held catches could have really opened up the running game for them. I don't think it will be too long before they catch a weak defensive by surprise and score big time. Their defense did look vulnerable but the 2nd half as you point out could have gone in a different direction if not Collins made the turnover. Oaklnd receiving points could be good. The stats show total yards was Oak 351 to NE 379, so the stats were very close and you are right, the turnover made all the difference to the momentum of the match.

The Pats looked very good and to my mind have plenty of improvement in them. But, as you say a tough schedule coming up and if the line makers follow the press, we may see 12 point spreads which are very difficult for a road team to cover.

Enjoyed your write-up and hope you have time to give us more. I think you are in the USA so you may be interested to know that down here we get the Sunday Night and Monday night games on ESPN pacific and Fox does 1 game either live or a replay on our Monday morning. After the NRL and AFL seasons are over in November they will show two. This week we are getting Detroit and the Packers. Biggest trouble is its hard to get real excited as 6 am is too early for having that beer.

Hey Karla! You're right about who you have swaying your opinion, but I do usually remain objective in these matters. I wouldn't call the OAK loss a real bad beat, but I just wanted to stress the game was a lot closer than the final indicates. The FG really wasn't the determining factor either like you said, but if Oak makes a few less mistakes the game changes. i didn't play them very heavy,even though I did love 'em. I'm glad you won, too. NE schedule is strange but it could really help them in the cold december conference games.


I figured that you would get the night games down under, but I thought they would start at like 10 am or 11 am (14 hour diff???) How many time zones between Mel and Perth??? and how many hours???

6 am is too LATE for having that beer!!! LOL

12 noon in New York is 2 am on east coast of OZ and 11 pm in perth.


So det/gb kicks off at 6 am, just in time for breakfast.

you should be in bed now, california dreamin'

Good analysis by both of you, im so glad i found a place were i can discuss betting and more in general NFL. Oak's secondary worries me a bit, but pretty impressive performances by both teams.

Im going to try and get up for the packers game but i dont know if im that enthusiastic this early into the season.

Rams -5.5 is a steal against the horrible niners, i expect them to win no more than 4 games this season.

Darn Andrew! Does everybody in OZ have to bust on my once proud 49'ers?!?!?!
LOL!!!!! They are terrible but those kind of teams play loose and sometimes are quite overvalued due to a favorite betting public, so tread carefully when giving points to bad teams. I made a living for 20 years with those kind of players. But you are probably right in this one. OAKLAND is not as good as I initally felt, but they still are eligible to improve and may get some decent prices. So the game you get on Monday morning is actually our 4 PM Eastern game. I thought they would show the Sunday night game as it would be on at 10 AM for E. OZ. LAte enought to quaff a few brewskis before heading into work. FAAHSTERS. Austrialian for breakfast! LOL