Pinnacle Sportbook - The Pulse

[BangTheBook]

Pinnacle Pulse
The Inside Line From PinnacleSports.com by Simon Noble

The talk of this NFL season has been how the Indianapolis Colts have
dominated their opponents on their way to an astounding 12-0 start. Only
the 1972 Dolphins have finished with an unblemished regular season record
and no team has gone undefeated since the schedule was expanded to 16
regular season games. With this in mind, one has to wonder what the
chances are that Indianapolis will win out its last 4 games.

Next up on the schedule are the Jacksonville Jaguars, the only team to
have a second-half lead against the Colts. In their first meeting,
Jacksonville was up 3-0 before losing 10-3. The moneyline on this game at
Pinnacle Sports is -316/+296, which suggests that Indy will win this
match-up 74.7% (306/406) of the time.

At 12-0, Indianapolis has already clinched a playoff spot and if they
defeat the Jaguars, the Colts will also secure home field advantage
throughout the playoffs. This adds a new twist to the equation: Will Coach
Tony Dungy rest his key players? When interviewed, he was unsure. A
quarterback has about a 1 in 16 chance of getting injured if he plays a
full game. For this reason, it's common for playoff-bound teams in
meaningless games to rest key starters. Despite Dungy's ambiguous answers
to questions on resting players, I think he'll maintain his focus on
winning the Super Bowl.

If they reach 13-0, the Colts would then host the Chargers with home field
advantage locked up. If this game were played two weeks earlier, the Colts
would be about an 11-point favorite (-830/+750). In that scenario, Indy
would win about 88.7% of the time. In past seasons, the lines have
adjusted about 6 points for teams in "rest situations", but the resting
teams have done poorly against the spread. I believe we are therefore
likely to see an 8-point spread adjustment, so resting most starters would
change the line to Colts -3 (-150/+140), suggesting Indy would win 59%.

Beating San Diego would make Indianapolis 14-0, and they would next visit
Seattle. The Seahawks have already won their division and would likely be
playing for home field advantage. If neither team were resting, the
visiting Colts would be about 4-point favorites. Assuming the Colts nap
and the Seahawks don't also take the afternoon off, the adjusted line
would be Seahawks -4 (-185/+175). In either case, the 4-point favorite
should win about 64% of the time.

Should the Colts be 15-0 heading into the final week of the season, they
would be heavy favorites at home versus Arizona. Super Bowl aspirations
aside, I'm not sure Coach Dungy could rest his players at home against a
cakewalk opponent with history on the line. If the Colts played full
strength, this line would be about -18 with a greater home field advantage
than normal. Resting would still make the Colts a solid 10-point favorite.
The Colts will win 94% if they don't rest, or 87% if they do.

In conclusion: if Indy chooses to rest its players, I calculate the
chances of them going 16-0 as:
(0.747) (0.59) (0.36) (0.87) = 13.8%, or -654 (No) / +594 (yes).

However if Indy plays for history, the odds of going 16-0 adjust to:
(.747)(.887)(.64)(.94) = 40%, or -155 (No) / +145 (Yes).

Do you have an opinion on whether Indy will finish 16-0? Have you read
something I've missed about Tony Dungy's willingness to risk injuries to
Peyton Manning, Edgerrin James and Marvin Harrison while chasing a perfect
regular season record? Or do you have some other insight? You can bet your
opinion at PinnacleSports.com as we are now offering odds on the prop:

Will Indy go 16-0?
Yes +146
No -164

We have also seen interesting line movement on Indy's AFC South match-up
against the Jags this week as well as on the following games listed below.

Indianapolis (-7.5) at Jacksonville

With starting Jaguar QB Byron Leftwich out for another few weeks, the Jags
will once again rely on replacement David Garrard. He led Jacksonville to
victory against Arizona and Cleveland, but faces a much stiffer test
against the third-ranked defense of the Colts. A win for Jacksonville
locks up a wildcard position, whereas an Indy victory in any of its last 4
games will secure home field advantage throughout the playoffs.

We opened the game at Colts -7. Indy is clearly a public team and we are
taking four times as many bets on them as the Jaguars. The sharps seem
split on this game with some playing Indy at -7 and significantly more on
Jacksonville at +7.5.

Chicago (+6) at Pittsburgh

The Bears have relied heavily on defense during their current 8-game win
streak by holding opponents to 8.5 points per game, picking off 10
interceptions with 337 interception-return yards and scoring 3 TDs. Not
surprisingly, quarterback Kyle Orton has been part of a very conservative,
run-based offense that minimizes mistakes, but only generates 16.8 points
per game.

Pittsburgh also boasts an above-average defense allowing less than 19
points per game. With Roethlisberger starting, the Steeler offense has
been productive with 337 yards per game. Unless the Chicago defense can
score or generate several turnovers, a more balanced Pittsburgh team is
the favorite to prevail.

This has been our highest volume game of the week thus far. We opened this
game at Chicago +4 and took several early hits from sharps on Pittsburgh.
The market price has crept up since until it topped off at +5.5 and +6. At
this price, we are seeing the professional players side with Chicago.

New England (-3) at Buffalo

At 7-5, a New England victory would be enough to clinch the mediocre AFC
East division (whose other three teams are a combined 11-25). The Bills at
4-8, can still mathematically win the division by winning out the season
and there are also a few scenarios where a 7-9 team could still win the
division.

We opened this game at -3 -125. While the public is favoring the
Patriots, there is dissent among the sharps. A majority of the pros are
taking Buffalo +3 +115, while a few are favoring New England -3 whenever
the price drifts to -115 or better.

And now for something completely different.

Miss World Finals

Over 100 of the most beautiful women on earth will gather in Sanya, China
this Saturday to compete for the title of Miss World 2005. I can only
think that our red blooded odds makers have had way too much time on their
hands this week, as they have created individual odds on over 40
contestants to win the Miss World title. Believe it or not, we have seen a
very strong move and sharp money show for Miss Philippines, where our
opener of +2000 was driven down to +500.

We also originally offered Miss Namibia at +1000 to advance to the finals
of Miss World. Knowledgeable sharps with an eye for the ladies have also
pounded this number down to -500.

Pinnacle Sportsbook