[Raji]

The most incredible thing about this Monday Night Football matchup between the Giants and the Browns is that at some point in the recent past someone thought that it would make for a good game.



Given the total mess that Cleveland has been this year, it is hard to remember that at this time this year they were the darlings of the league and Derek Anderson was on the lips of every member of the media. Heck, going into this season, the team was greeted at their training camp by chants of Super Bowl, Super Bowl! And their fans weren't being ironic, either. Rarely does a team so badly underachieve compared to widely held expectations. Cleveland has just been bad.

The line movement has been interesting only in that it is doing almost exactly what you could have predicted. It opened with the Giants favored by a touchdown, was almost immediately pounded up to nine on heavy New York action, and then has sat at that level since. About two-thirds of all bets are on the Giants. There is one interesting aspect to it, though. The line can still be found at some online books as low as 7.5, but at other books that have it a nine the price is as high as -130. It would seem, then, that some books are facing much more upwards pressure than others.

The total opened at 43, and is available both at that point and at 43.5. The fact that it hasn't moved upwards despite heavily tilted public over action is a clear sign that the books already knew where the action was going to be and weighted the number accordingly.



It didn't exactly take a psychic to foresee the public's whims, either - the public loves the over, and the over hasn't lost on Monday night yet this year, so there is zero incentive for the public to change their habits. I'm only half kidding when I say I'm a bit surprised the books didn't set the number at 58 or so - they'd still get a big pile of public money on the over.

As if things aren't bad enough in Cleveland, they may now be without their best player. Tight end Kellen Winslow has accounted for almost a third of all receiving yards for the team, and he has nearly twice as many yards as anyone else. He was in the hospital on Thursday and Friday nights, though, with tests being administered to determine and treat a mystery illness. Rumors abound about the type of illness, and if any of them are true then you know Winslow just isn't comfortable (hint - groin issue).



He hasn't been ruled out of action yet, but it seems likely. That's a blow for an offense that was already reeling - they are dead last in passing in the league. On the other hand, Winslow has been so fragile throughout his career that surely the team had thought that has absence at some point this year was a possibility and planned accordingly. Or maybe that's giving Romeo Crennel and his staff too much credit.

Those who don't like or believe in the Giants, and I count myself firmly in that group thanks to a hatred of Eli Manning that borders on irrational, will point to their schedule as the key reason for their success. They have beaten two really bad teams in Cincinnati and St. Louis, a badly struggling one that can't travel east in Seattle, and a Washington team that is impressive now but clearly needed another week of preseason action when they faced the Giants.



This game presents another less-than-full challenge for a team that could be 5-0 without barely breaking a sweat. If that thought is a bit repulsive than you could grasp at a bit of algebra - the Giants struggled to beat Cincinnati in overtime, the Browns beat the Bengals in their only win, so therefore maybe Cleveland is up for this challenge. To their advantage, Cleveland is at home. They covered their last seven spreads at home last year, and are 1-1 ATS in Cleveland this year.

Raji