NFL Notebook: Arizona win resuscitates sports books
(January 12, 2010 7:09 AM) –

NFL Notebook by Micah Roberts |

There haven’t been ooh’s and aah’s in Las Vegas sports books all season like what was witnessed by the thousands who saw Sunday’s Packers-Cardinals Wild Card matchup. The game resembled like Arena Football league type of game with non-stop action, surely not an NFL game, at least by the standards set from the three previous uneventful Wild Card games over the weekend.

However, unlike the old Arena league games, this game was the most heavily bet game of the weekend.

Usually, the final game of the playoff weekend always has the most wagers just because of all the repeat wagers after the other games are over. Sometimes, their winning bets from earlier games are rolling over from someone feeling lucky, or sometimes it’s the unlucky who are trying to recoup their losses from the other games.

By Friday of last week, before any of the games started, several sports books were already reporting that the Cardinals game had the most action of the four games by far – both from the Sharps and small money. The ticket count ratio was 6 to 1 at many books in favor of the Packers and the actual cash wagers resembled the same ratio.

When the opening line came out last Sunday night, many opened the game with the Cardinals a 3 (EVEN) or 2½-point favorite. That number continued to slide down all week until finally making the Packers a 1-point or 2-point favorite by Thursday. By kickoff on Sunday, most books closed with the Packers as a 3-point favorite – a 6-point swing in many cases.

Everyone had Packers fever. The public had just witnessed the same game last week in Arizona with Green Bay winning easily 33-7, despite the Cardinals not playing many of their starters. They had just seen the Jets dispose of the Bengals like they did last week and the same with the Cowboys thumping the Eagles again … so, why not the Packers, too.

The Packers offense had been so crisp the last few weeks led by Aaron Rodgers and the defense had been almost equally as strong.

The variable missing from the Cardinals loss last week was Kurt Warner, who played one of the best games of his dazzling career leading Arizona to the 51-45 overtime win. Talk all week had been about how Warner said he may retire at the end of the season, a hope all the Packer-backers wished he had done before the game.

At the conclusion of the game, everyone had to catch their breath from the frenzied pace of the game, and the cashier windows in the sports books looked more like a Tuesday morning during basketball season than an NFL Sunday.

The sports books’ entire weekend rested on that one Packers decision.

http://www.gamingtoday.com/race-sports/story.bv?storyid=24250

Should there have been a F M call ? Yeah, probably but there wasn’t. There were several other missed calls too. Fact is K W had his way with the Pack’s pass D THAT’S what won them the game. I’m a bigtime Packer fan but that’s the way it goes. Whoever said the Pack blew it on the first two turn overs was probably right. The Pack couldn’t get it done is all there is to it.

Can’t believe I’m saying this but GO BRETT & the VIKES !

Bite your tongue Norton, bite your tongue …..