Led by Chris Long and Robert Quinn, the St. Louis defense should be pretty stout. That's the good news. That Sam Bradford, who will make nearly 12 times more than Russell Wilson this season, is their quarterback is the bad news. Bradford, now in his fourth year, is still very pedestrian by NFL standards, unable or unwilling to push the ball vertically down the field, almost as if Lane Kiffin is calling the plays.
What all this means from a betting perspective? St. Louis seems to be a little overvalued at this point, and the number tomorrow against Atlanta seems a little short.
A couple thoughts and blatantly ripped off stats before getting to The Super Play of the Day ...
The Crew doesn't care about Thayer Evans. Maybe he's a good reporter. Maybe he's terrible. We simply have no idea.
Up till now Evans was perhaps best known for a piece that appeared in The New York Times nearly five years ago detailing a pitched recruiting battle between Texas and Oklahoma for highly rated prospect Jamarkus McFarland (who incidentally turned out to be awful). Longhorns coach Mack Brown was portrayed very poorly in the story, which was later found to contain a number of half-truths and misrepresentations, all of which fueled Evans' reputation for being an Oklahoma PR flak masquerading as a journalist.
Even so, such misdeeds do not automatically disqualify Evans from producing serious investigative pieces. Everyone makes mistakes, and it's often not fair to judge someone solely on the basis of their worst moment. He didn't rape or murder anyone. And the mere fact that he remains employed and has seen his journalism career flourish seems to suggest that he can write a little bit, even though one of his peers think he would have trouble spelling 'cat' without the benefit of spell check.
Still, this much seems obvious: Given his past, Sports Illustrated showed a remarkable lack of judgment by letting Evans share a byline with George Dohrmann for a five-part investigation it recently published alleging widespread malfeasance within Oklahoma State's football program. His presence unnecessarily cast suspicion on the feature from the start.
But even more troubling is that SI basically took several months to conclude that Americans watch porn on the internet. Among the alleged NCAA violations are widespread academic fraud, rampant drug use, illegal payments to players and prospective recruits receiving sexual favors. In other words, shit that happens everywhere.
Their investigation is neither explosive nor surprising (and according to this and this, not very credible). And while that's clearly more of a reflection on college football and the NCAA than it is SI, the fact is that most fans simply don't care, having long ago accepted that it takes more than a little bit of willful blindness to unconditionally wrap your arms around any college football program...
Alabama has been favored in 43 straight games, according to Johnny Detroit of pregame.com...
A $100 money line parlay on Army, Akron and Tennessee would pay $409,500...
This morning's sharp/square report courtesy of Todd Fuhrman, former sportsbook director at Caesar's in Las Vegas: Pros are on Bowling Green, UL Monroe and UCLA, while dudes like us are betting Stanford, Louisville, Maryland, Ohio St and Notre Dame...
Non-gambling take: Tiger Woods is a terrible dude...
Super Play of the Day
Illinois +10
*2-1 for the year
other plays
UCLA +4.5 (if you can still find it, and you can't)
Alabama -7 (if you can still find it, and you can't)
Arizona St. -3.5 (if you can still find it, and you can't)
*these are terrible, do not follow them
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