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NFL: Mike Kern Ponders the Pro Football Teaser

Two teams? Three teams? Your winnings go up but your odds go down

They call them teasers for a reason, as my good friend constantly tries to remind me when I get all excited about playing one.

But for reasons even I sometimes don’t understand, I don’t let that deter me.

Yes, the sports books have a welcome sign out with my name on it. But it’s all in good fun, right?

There are upsets in the NFL every week. That doesn’t stop me from coming up with enough games where I think I can move the spread enough to cover the near upsets. Does that make sense? Yo, sometimes it works. And other times you end up in the Fraud Five.

And the world keeps spinning.

By this time of year, you should have a pretty good idea of which teams stink and which don’t. Even though there’s no such thing as givens, you can formulate a barometer. It’s just a matter of making sure that some combo of two teams or even three can all avoid being the lead story on SportsCenter. As I’ve found out, close doesn’t count.

This week, there’s a few possibilities I’m looking at. I usually look to play home teams. And I try to avoid divisional match-ups. Other than that, I’m not concerned about who can cover. I’m focusing on who can’t or shouldn’t lose. Still hardly an exact science.

Dallas, coming off its first bad game in awhile, is giving 7 points to Tampa Bay at home. If I can get the Cowboys down to -1 I’m fairly confident. But I need to find a viable partner. I was considering New Orleans giving 7 to visiting Pittsburgh. But Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh. Scares me a little. Yet there’s no other game around a touchdown that works for me.

So what about a three-teamer with the Colts giving 9.5 to the Giants in Indianapolis, and the Patriots laying 10.5 at home to the Bills. It fits my ground rules. Could the Colts lose? Maybe, but they’ve been playing really well. Could the Patriots go down? I doubt it. Ditto the Cowpokes.

Only trouble is, going two-for-three is the same as going 0-for. So tease away.

If I did one of these every week, I wonder if I could come out ahead. Just a thought.

NFL