Tuley the Tout: Dec. 9: NFL Week 14

Tuley the Tout

Dec. 9: NFL Week 14

Last week, I went 3-0 with my college plays as I won with UCLA +20 vs. USC, Arizona +7 vs. Arizona St. and Washington +14 vs. Hawaii. I ended the regular season on a nice run, after cutting back on my number of plays each week and focusing on just the games I felt strongest about instead of feeling like I needed to play seven games per week. Of course, it's hard to determine if that was the reason for success or if I just happened to finally get a better handle on the teams. Regardless, that ended a dismal college season as I went 38-49 for a net loss of 15.9 units (I knew I should have bet 7 units a game to erase the deficit

but at least I feel more confident heading into the bowl games, which I'll preview next weekend.

    In the NFL, I logged my second straight 3-2 week with wins on the Bills +6 vs. the Redskins, Jaguars +7 vs. the Colts and Ravens +20.5 vs. the Patriots while losing on the Chiefs +6 vs. the Chargers and Bengals +7 vs. the Steelers. For the season, that makes me 34-32-1 for a net loss of 1.2 units. If playing the selections on the money line, the Bills were the only team to pull the outright at +220 so those same plays would have resulted in a net loss of 1.8 units and are down 2.65 units on the season.

    Here are my five plays, all of which are on Sunday:

Lions +11 at Cowboys (+450 on the ML)...Lions' last stand against Cowboys who can coast to home field in NFC
Giants +3 (-120) at Eagles (+130)...better team getting points...not sure Eagles better with McNabb
Raiders +10 at Packers (+450)...Raiders actually playing well...is Favre really healthy enough to play well?
Texans +3 (-120) vs. Buccaneers (+140)...not much of dropoff from Schaub to Rosenfels...Bucs over-rated
49ers +8.5 vs. Vikings (+350)...Vikes not good enough to be laying more than TD on road, even to 49ers

    Moving to another sport, I'll also go with the underdog in the Floyd Mayweather-Ricky Hatton welterweight title fight on Saturday night at the MGM Grand. The line has been as high as Mayweather -270/Hatton +230 but it has been dropping with Hatton now around +180 or +200. It's common for late money to come back on the favorite so hopefully that happens on Saturday. Here's what I wrote in Saturday's editions of Daily Racing Form:

From this corner, Hatton has a puncher's chance and might not even need a KO to get a decision. He will almost certainly be the aggressor, and even though Mayweather is a great defensive fighter and has a size and five-inch reach advantage, it might be the difference in "heart" that decides this. Mayweather has spreading himself thin with a stint on "Dancing With the Stars" plus other ventures and says it's a bother to scout Hatton by watching tapes of the challenger's fights (this all reminds me of April 2001 when a seemingly disinterested Lennox Lewis lost as a -2,000 favorite to Hasim Rahman after taking time off from training to film scenes for the Ocean's 11 movie). It's not a stretch to think Mayweather might not be at the top of his game while Hatton is hungry for the type of attention and worldwide admiration that Mayweather gets.
I will take a shot with the motivated underdog who has shown that he refuses to lose.