www.jazzsports.com

888 - 600 - 1501

Not a Member yet? Join Now!

• Bonuses & Promotions
• 2009 Football Odds
• King of The Hill Contest
• Sportsbook House Rules

The Colts and Saints Debate by HHA

There is obviously much talk about this Superbowl this week. The team with the better record this season, the Colts, goes against the Saints, who comes with a good record, making them the two top teams this season. This is the most important sporting day in the US, and opinions around the game are divided.

If you take a look at the odds for this game, the point spread is now at 5 (Saints +5, Colts -5). If you think this makes no difference, think again; both teams have very good records in games usually decided by a small difference in points. Indianapolis is at 6-0 in games, with a difference of 4 or less points, while the Saints are at 3-1 in games with a difference of 3 points or less. The history of the Superbowl is full of close and much contested games that have ended with short point margins. Four of the last six games have had victories within a 4 point difference, less than a touchdown!

If you look at past results, the Colts have a record of 9-6-1 against the spread, but 2 of their loses occurred at the end of the season when they were already in the playoffs. The Saints in their last 7 games have only covered the spread one time.

The colts had an average of 25.0 ppg these last playoffs, but they faced 2 awesome defenses on their road to the Superbowl, the Ravens and Jets. The Saints had a 38.0 ppg average, but have faced lousy defenses in the playoffs (for example, the Cardinals) and only in 3 occasions this season have they scored less than 20 points, resulting in 3 defeats. Indy also tried and failed 3 times to go over 20, but at least they managed to win these games. Besides these stats, a very high score is still very unlikely in Superbowl games, even with a good weather report, with just 8 games going over 57 and 2 games just reaching 56. There is without a doubt more questions about both teams' defensive line that about their offensive lines; one magic number is 32 points. 18 teams have reached this number of points in recent history and they have never lost a Superbowl game.,The Colts and Saints have allowed their adversaries to reach this number of points only once in the season, and curiously they both still won.

Take this into account when thinking about totals.

If you want more information about the technical issues of the game and learn some other points of view, you could check nytimes.com, where they not only discuss stats and other ideas around the big debate of the Superbowl, but you also can cast your vote before the Sunday game in their Point/Counterpoint section.