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Thanksgiving edition! Kirk and Matt get $100 each and find a way to turn it into mashed potatoes. Here are the holiday picks...
Welcome back to Oddball! Our weekly NFL gambling competition. The rules are simple:
We each get $100 to make NFL bets every week.
We must bet the entire $100.
We'll post our picks every Thursday and recap how we did every Tuesday.
We can only bet on stuff that will be resolved during the week (no futures).
Loser must eat an entire well-done steak at Applebee's.
Any profit you make in a given week can be banked and used later. Any portion of the $100 that you don't lose, cannot be used later but does count towards your overall total for the season.
Now that the rules preamble is over, let's get to the picks and see which one of us will be the bigger turkey.
Matt's Picks
$100.00 available to bet this week -$38.50 last week +$171.29 for the season
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope you get to enjoy lots of food, family time, and football over the next days. Just don't eat any cranberry sauce. That stuff is awful. Anyway, here are my picks for this week's slate.
Commanders +12.5
Straight up ATS (-110)
This is just way too many points for a divisional game. I know the Commanders just got beat by Tommy DeVito, but they are still pretty capable on offense. They're 12th in the league in points scored, so I think they are going to be able to hang around in this one.
Real quick, without looking it up, do you know which quarterback leads the NFL in passing yards this season?
It's Sam Howell. Seriously.
Plus, the Cowboys are notoriously terrible against the spread on Thanksgiving, covering just once in the last decade. Dak Prescott has played in six Thanksgiving games and is 1-5 against the spread.
Anyway, there are a million trends and you can cherrypick the numbers to support whoever you want to take here. The bottom line for me is that the Cowboys probably looked a lot better than they are, beating up on the lowly Panthers. Meanwhile, the Commanders probably look a lot worse than they are, getting smacked around by the terrible Giants. The public will want to hammer the Cowboys, so it just makes sense to go the other way.
💰$22.00 to win $20.00
Giants
Moneyline (+140)
Who the hell are the Patriots to be catching 3.5 points on the road? Not only is this line too high, but I think Tommy DeVito and the boys are going to win this one outright. The Patriots have no interest in winning another game this season. They are a game out of pole position for the #1 overall pick. All Mac Jones does is make horrific decisions, and seems to have lost the confidence of his team and his coach.
Real quick, without looking it up, do you know who has thrown the most touchdown passes for the Giants this season?
It's Tommy DeVito. Seriously.
Somehow the guy has started one game and has already outperformed Daniel Jones and Tyrod Taylor (who still isn't speaking to me, by the way).
Anyway, maybe this is a homer pick. But do you really think the Giants should be plus money at home against the 2-win Pats? I don't.
💰$11.34 to win $27.22
Texans +7.5 & Browns +8.5
6-Point Teaser (-134)
What is Thanksgiving if not an opportunity to remember your roots and give thanks to what got you here? In that spirit, there needs to be a teaser on my card this week. Let's go ahead and take both of these short dogs through two key numbers. Uncle Jack loves it!
Dopey Denver cost you some money on Monday night with that awful 2pt conversion. How come you like them so much? I went to Denver once for the welder's convention and it was awful. I don't know if it was the altititude or the marijuana smoke, but I felt lightheaded the whole time I was there. Me and Tony went out to grab a beer at 5:00 PM and you're Aunt Susie found me wandering the hallway of the hotel nine hours later wearing nothing but a tie-dye ski cap and a pair of tube socks. Humiliating. Just like Russell Wislon's performance against the Browns D will be. But let me tell ya which Q.B. is not going to get humiliated. The real MVP T.J. Shroud. This is a huge game for our hero, with a chance to pull even with the Jags in the A.F.C. Central. I saw a Black Friday commercial where Shroud threw a football over a Kmart on the fly and knocked out a bum sleeping in the alley behind the store with it. He's a true patriot and an American icon. We're sad you won't be able to come over for dinner on Thrusday. Colin said your going to the in-laws. Well I hope they at least have real turkey unlike this tofu abomination he's makeing us eat this year. Little tree hugger won't even let us put any milk or butter in the mashed potatoes. I'm gonna wait til he goes out for his pre-dinner "walk" and then sneak over to Cracker Barrel for some real home cooking. God Bless America and God Belss chicken fried steak. Amen.
💰$66.66 to win $50.00
Kirk's Picks
$100.00 available to bet this week -$145.25 last week -$643.51 for the season
In the spirit of thanks, I am continuing to give to you, the loyal reader, even as this season has slipped away entirely and I question my manhood on a daily basis.
On a positive note, it's mathematically impossible for me to go -$1,800.00 for the season as I sprinkled in a few winners in there.
I'm thankful for math.
So again, to give back in that spirit of thanks I'll be handing out one of the stupider bet groupings you'll ever encounter for this wonderful holiday.
As I sat crying in my shower yesterday, I was thinking about waterfalls. What if one week instead of tying my hopes and dreams to one team that is out to get me, I created a scenario where each bet is dumber and harder to hit than the last? A cascade of increasing futility that will not phase me if I lose one?
Each bet will add an additional leg that must be hit. Why not!? I'm about to have Turkey and Cake. If by some chance, even one of these hits, then that will be the gravy.
The Waterfall of Futility Bet
1. Correct Score (+8000)
Lions 27 - Packers 17
💰 $10.00 to win $800.00
2. 2 Leg Parlay (+138)
Lions ML, 49ers & Seahawks Over 43.5
💰 $10.00 to win $13.89
3. 3 Leg Parlay (+1513)
Packers ML, Cowboys ML, Seahawks ML
💰 $10.00 to win $151.33
4. 4 Leg Parlay (+2634)
Amon-Ra St. Brown, Romeo Doubs, AJ Dillon, David Montgomery (ATTS's)
💰 $10.00 to win $263.40
5. 5 Leg Same Game Parlay (+1350)
J Goff Over 1.5 Passing TD's, J Love Under 1.5 Passing TD's, D Prescott Over 1.5 Passing TD's, Sam Howell Over 1.5 Passing TD's, B Purdy Over 1.5 Passing TD's
💰 $10.00 to win $135.00
6. 6 Leg Same Game Parlay (+5502)
David Montgomery, S. LaPorta, Christian McCaffery, Brandon Aiyuk, Tony
Pollard & CeedDee Lamb (ATTS's)
💰 $10.00 to win $550.28
7. Same Game Parlay (+6280)
S. LaPorta Over 44.5, R. Doubs Over 39.5, C. Watson Over 42.5, A. St. Brown
Under 83.5, K. Raymond Under 12.5, A. Dillon Under 11.5, D. Montgomery Under
4.5 (All Receiving Yards)
💰 $10.00 to win $628.08
8. Same Game Parlay (+4903)
Lions -7.5, Cowboys -12.5, 49ers -7, GB @ Detroit Under 46.5, Washed Up @ Dallas
Over 48.5, 49ers @ Seahawks Over 43.5, B. Purdy Over 1.5 Passing TD, D. Prescott
Over 1.5 Passing TDs
💰 $10.00 to win $490.39
9. Same Game Parlay (+24298)
J Gibbs Over 47.5, D. Montgomery Over 67.5, A. Dillon Over 46.5, T. Pollard Over 64.5, B. Robinson Over 41.5, R. Dowdle Under 24.5, C. McCaffery Under 75.5, Z.
Chabonnet Over 55.5, D. Samuel Over 10.5 (All Rushing Yards)
💰 $10.00 to win $2,429.88
10. Same Game Parlay (+11100)
Washed @ Cowboys Over 48.5, Cowboys -12.5, D. Prescott Over 275.5 Passing YDS, S. Howell Under 251.5 Passing YDS, D. Prescott Over 1.5 Passing TDS, S. Howell Under 1.5 Passing TDS, C. Lamb Over 93.5 Rec YDS, J. Dotson Under 32.5
Rec YDS, T. Pollard Over 64.5 Rushing YDS, B. Robinson Over 41.5 Rushing YDS
💰 $10.00 to win $1,110.04
Bonus Pick
$100.00 available to bet this week -$100.00 last week +476.67 for the season
I have nothing clever left to write. It took like an hour and a half to make those dumb ass picks and enter them in Fan Duel.
Note: This isn't counting towards our weekly total. Just a camaraderie bet to show that we're still friends despite the trash talk.
FanDuel Thanksgiving Special: Any 4 of these 5 dudes to score at least 1 touchdown:
Christian McCaffrey
Jahmyr Gibbs
Brandon Aiyuk
Sam LaPorta
Jake Ferguson
💰 $100.00 to win $900.00
Reminder to send your comments, questions, and general mockery to hello@illandodd.com and we'll respond if we feel like it!