2005 Indianapolis Colts NFL Handicapping Review

 

By Tom Wilkinson

 

Week one of the regular season saw the Colts face the Patriots at New England in what was the most highly touted game of that first week, as well as a playoff rematch of the previous season and likely playoff preview for 2004. The Colts gave their all but lost 24-27, which was a push against the sports betting odds. The bigger sports handicapping question from that game, however, was how Indy would respond afterwards. Many online sports betting blogs insisted that the Colts would not recover from their loss at New England for many weeks, and that they were frauds. These proved to be typical overreactions as Indianapolis clobbered the Titans at Tennessee the very next week 31-17, easily beating the sports betting odds as 2.5-point chalks and proving their resiliency, along with getting the ever fickle sports betting masses back on their side.

In fact, the Colts won and covered four consecutive games against the sports betting odds after that opening loss to New England. Unfortunately, they became overvalued and while beating Jacksonville at home in week 7, the failed to cover the inflated 9-point sports betting line. Many that made football picks on the Colts ignored Jacksonville’s solid play in the week’s leading up to that game.

A trap game was next for the Colts who were going into Kansas City to face the Chiefs and their rabid fans who sought revenge for their home playoff defeat at the hands of the Colts in 2003. One of the best sports handicapping trends in all of sports is KC as a home dog and it was proven yet again as the Chiefs won 45-35 as 1.5-point dogs. For sports betting players that can sense trap games with their football picks, this one was in all caps and bold faced-type.

Part of sports handicapping football picks is realizing that its not good to lay a lot of points against the sports betting odds with teams that have weak defenses. This was validated in the Colts’ next game, a 31-28 home win over Minnesota. The Colts were a 7.5-point favorite, failing to beat the online sports betting board. Indy did go on to beat the online sports betting boards in 5 of their next 7 games, failing to cover only against teams with good offenses while beating the sports betting odds against weak offensive teams. The Colts were unreliable and proof of the danger to sports betting players laying lots of points on weak defensive teams against good offensive teams. Streaky Indy beat the sports betting odds 9 out of 16 times in 2004.