Week 1 Line Moves

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FULL CREDIT TO CHAD MILLMAN OF ESPN Week 1 NFL line moves, New England Patriots-Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons-Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions-Tampa Bay Buccaneers, more - ESPN

Week 1 can be a blessing and a curse.

Lines go up so far in advance, often before the draft, and guys like, oh, I don't know, Peyton Manning have a surgery that shelves them till T-giving. So the sharpest of the sharps who pounce on the numbers as soon as some place like the Golden Nugget posts are really just playing hedges. Will the Lions draft smart? Did something in the wiseguys' research tell them that the Saints are due for a regression to the mean in forced turnovers? They're guessing, sure, but they are educated guesses.

But this year that was even tougher, as point spreads were posted in the middle of a lockout. The Eagles hadn't yet signed half a Pro Bowl roster and the Bengals hadn't decided they were totally set with rookies as their top two quarterbacks. So when guys made bets, it was a little more guess than usual. In some cases, like getting the Vikings plus-9 against the Chargers (Hey, Fezzik, I'm talking to you) that turned out to be pretty good value. But in other cases, like sharps steaming the Lions from plus-3 at the Bucs to plus-1, that remains to be seen.

That's the beauty of this particular season opener, though -- the swings have been wider because the guesses have been bigger. And I don't expect that to change over the next few weeks. The old adage is that defense figures out how to play faster than the offense. And I don't think you can underestimate the impact the lack of an offseason has had on teams that have new quarterbacks or new receivers. Timing is too crucial. The spreads you see for those franchises are going to be vastly different this week than in Week 4 or Week 5, when passers and receivers have had as many reps as they otherwise would have had during a normal offseason. I am writing this while I listen to the Packers-Saints on the radio on a drive back to central Connecticut from New York. Yes, I can drive and type at the same time. That's how I do it all. (Kidding, a buddy is driving.) Anyway, Aaron Rodgers just threw a beauty of a pass, or at least one that got Kevin Harlan really excited, to Greg Jennings for a touchdown. Boomer Esiason described it as a back-shoulder throw. That only happens when two guys have been playing in the same offense together for a while, and it's why Bookmakers can make an accurate assessment of Green Bay's value. How many back-shoulder throws will Colt McCoy make in Week 1?

Sadly, it often takes many of us until Week 4 or 5 before we've had enough betting reps that we feel comfortable, too.

To help us along, I had a chat with Scooch from the Orleans while I was stuck in traffic in a New York City cab in the middle of Thursday afternoon. Really. I do some of my best work in the back of cars ... just ask my high school girlfriend (you may recall from a previous column how she broke my heart). Scooch ran me through the biggest moves of Week 1 lines in the NFL. Here we go:
Matchup: Cincinnati Bengals at Cleveland Browns

Line move: Browns opened minus-3.5, now minus-6.5

Scooch says: "This is a combination of a few things. A lot of books opened at 3.5 a few months ago. Then Colt McCoy looked really good in preseason. And, even more, the Bengals fell apart. Who do they have to play quarterback? And I'm not sure they gained a yard in the preseason. I'm kidding, obviously, but you get my point. We actually moved up to minus-7, and I think it could get back there again. We only moved down because wiseguys started taking it back to get middles if they had bought the minus-3.5. I could see it going up more at the weekend."
Matchup: Atlanta Falcons at Chicago Bears

Line move: Falcons opened minus-1 over the Bears, now minus-3

Scooch says: "We opened this at three, actually, only because this game is typical of a situation we were beat on last year. A short favorite on the road. The public doesn't seem to take into account home-field advantage the way Bookmakers and sharps do. So we'd open a team like Atlanta at minus-1 on the road and think it was a good number but it would get bet up so quickly. They see that short number and think there is value. Unfortunately, they were right last year. So we adjusted."
Matchup: New England Patriots at Miami Dolphins

Line move: Pats opened minus-4 over Miami, now minus-7

Scooch says: "Boy, New England just keeps looking better and better. They looked good on paper and [Tom] Brady is back in top form. It is going up against a Miami team that is still trying to find its identity, and without a real strong passing attack it's tough for the Fins to compete here. This is another situation where you have a great team on the road. Once this line got above 4.5 there was no difference between that and seven, so it was easy to move it."
Matchup: Oakland Raiders at Denver Broncos

Line move: Broncos pick vs. Raiders, now favored by three

Scooch says: "I think once they made the announcement [Kyle] Orton would be the guy, that was an upgrade, and part of the move was because of that. And then the Raiders and [Jason] Campbell didn't look horrible, but without a high-profile QB who can be consistent, there is no interest. That was sharp money doing this move, and mainly we saw it right after Orton became the starter."
Matchup: Detroit Lions at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Line move: Bucs opened minus-3 over the Lions, now at minus-1

Scooch says: "I am a little surprised to see so much money on the Lions. Even on the season wins total. We had a bunch of steam on them on over 7.5. This is one of the teams people think is on the upswing as long as [Matthew] Stafford is healthy. That's why it was tough to make a line on this one. I guess we are undervaluing Detroit, and sharps are seeing something we probably missed."