David Alcaro: The CHieF

I don’t want to be a homer, but the only 2 large line moves in tonight’s NFL preseason action both involve the New York Jets and New York Giants. In both cases the line has moved against the New York team. The Pittsburgh Steelers are 6 point favorites at the Giants in the new stadium, the line opened at 1, but moved after both of the Giants’ first and second string quarterbacks Eli Manning and Jim Sorgi were ruled out of tonight’s game. Ben Roethlisberger will play for the Steelers at quarterback, it is not known if he will start, but would have to play with the first team, so the Steelers are going deeper into the game with their regulars on offense. Head coach Mike Tomlin indicated starters would go around 24 snaps. Byron Leftwich and Dennis Dixon are both very capable quarterbacks as well. Rhett Bomar will start at quarterback for the Giants and see almost all of the action. I think this is a lot to ask of a young player, I think the Giants will be very conservative on offense and want to get out of this game with a healthy quarterback. The Giants have a win under their belt in the preseason, even though not a home game it was at the new stadium. I think the Steelers win this game easily 23-10. The total dropped from 36 to 33.5 with the Giants quarterback news, I am not suggesting taking either the under or the over.

The Carolina Panthers are now 1 point favorites over the New York Jets after opening as 2 point home underdogs. The Jets who played 5 days ago are planning on playing starters only in the first quarter. It is expected that the Panthers will go deeper with their starters. It is interesting commenting on the Jets as viewers of HBO’s Hard Knocks get such an inside look at the team and coaching staff. I didn’t seem that the Jets were worried so much about losing that first preseason game, though I’m sure they want to sure up that second team defense that was called out. With the Panthers going deeper with starters and I’m sure wanting a win at home I expect the Panthers will win 19-13. The total hasn’t budged and wouldn’t go either way.

There is a third game worth taking about and that is Cleveland Browns who is now a 4 point favorite at home against the St. Louis Rams after opening 2.5 point favorites. I can’t pick up anything news related on this line move and think this is an the public showing just how badly they want to bet against the Rams. I think the conventional wisdom is that St. Louis is so lacking of talent that it doesn’t matter which units are matching up. I have to agree with public here. The Browns won their first preseason game 27-24 over the strong Green Bay Packers while the Rams lost 28-7 to the Minnesota Vikings. The Rams were completely dominated in that game at home and would expect the same to happen tonight as the Cleveland Browns will roll 25-9. As you can see I’m staying away from totals in this weeks games.

Picks will be coming soon.  We end the first set of preseason games tonight with the opening of the new Meadowlands (Giants) Stadium, which I promise to try to call by it’s eventual sponsor, even though (sorry Jets) so many will call it Giants Stadium for quite awhile.

Now the pre-season will start to get interesting from a handicapping perspective.  I will keep a close eye on any line movements and look at local papers and twitter to try to determine how teams plan to play their personnel in the up coming games.  Also you see the importance of good backup and third string quarterbacks, these teams have huge advantages in pre-season games.