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Cowboys snap long playoff skid at expense of EaglesFootball Betting Lines01/10/2010 - Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It took over 13 years, but the Cowboys finally snapped their playoff skid, and accomplished the task by dominating division rival Philadelphia for a second straight week. Tony Romo connected on 23-of-35 passes for 244 yards and a pair of scores in a 34-14 NFC wild card round rout of the Eagles, marking a result that shed postseason trends for both teams. The Cowboys hadn't won a playoff game since Dec. 28, 1996, a 40-15 wild card triumph over Minnesota. Six straight postseason losses followed, but with Saturday's victory the Cowboys gave head coach Wade Phillips his first career playoff win. He had been 0-4 with Dallas, Buffalo and Denver. "It didn't feel like this was the most impossible thing ever that people let it out to be," Romo said. "If you're good enough you'll win. If I wasn't good enough to win a playoff game as a quarterback, then I never would've." Felix Jones rumbled for 148 yards and a score for the third-seeded Cowboys (12-5), who earned a meeting with Brett Favre and the Vikings at the Metrodome next Sunday. Miles Austin added seven receptions for 82 yards and a TD for Dallas, which capped off five consecutive scoring drives in a big second quarter. Dallas throttled the Eagles, 24-0, last Sunday in Arlington to win the NFC East, and the Cowboys followed up that effort with more impressive defense in the first playoff game at their new stadium, much to the delight of owner Jerry Jones. "We felt confident going in. We had good preparation all week," Phillips said. "We had just beaten them six days earlier. We felt like if we played our game, the way we played previously, we'd be fine." The Cowboys held the ball for nearly 40 minutes and forced the Eagles into a litany of mistakes. Donovan McNabb finished 19-of-37 for 230 yards with a TD and one interception for the Eagles (11-6), who were a No. 6 seed a year ago when they advanced to the NFC championship game before losing to Arizona. Same seed this year, but much different result. It was the first playoff-opening loss for Eagles head coach Andy Reid. He had been 7-0 in such situations during his first 10 seasons as Philadelphia's coach, although the Eagles have never won the Super Bowl. "When you get your tail kicked it's not a great feeling," Reid said. "I wasn't expecting it. I thought we'd do better, but we didn't." Big play-maker DeSean Jackson was limited to three catches for 14 yards and a TD for the Eagles, while Jeremy Malian had seven grabs for 146 yards and a score. Maclin's scoring catch came from Michael Vick. Since 1970, 20 teams have gone 2-0 against an opponent in the regular season and then faced that club in the playoffs. It's resulted in 13 sweeps, including this season between these teams. Dallas got the ball after the opening kickoff and marched from its own 20 to the Philadelphia 1, but an offensive pass interference call, coupled with a sack, pushed the team out of field-goal range. Despite a scoreless stalemate in the first quarter, the Eagles weren't able to move the ball, gaining just one first down, and that was via penalty. The Cowboys then used a huge second quarter to bury the Eagles, on the way to a 27-7 lead at the half. On the third play of the period, Romo rolled to his right and threw a one-yard touchdown pass to tight end John Phillips to cap a 55-yard drive. The score came one play after a 40-yard pass interference penalty on Sheldon Brown. Just two plays from scrimmage later, Vick threw a short pass to Maclin, who got the ball on the left side of the field and raced 76 yards to the end zone. The big scoring play occurred in part because cornerback Mike Jenkins fell down. The Cowboys then got a huge break. Sean Jones came up with a diving interception on the first play of Dallas next possession, but Phillips threw the red flag to challenge and the call was overturned. The Cowboys marched 85 yards in 10 plays, capped by Tashard Choice's one-yard TD run with 9:14 remaining in the half for a 14-7 lead. After a Philadelphia punt, Shaun Suisham tacked on a 25-yard field goal. A poor handoff exchange by Vick and Leonard Weaver led to a fumble later in the quarter and the Cowboys took over deep in Philadelphia territory. Romo made the Eagles pay with a six-yard TD pass to Austin on a bubble screen to the right side with 1:55 left in the half. Another mistake involving Weaver resulted in the Eagles falling further behind. He caught a short pass over the middle, but was stripped of the football by linebacker Bradie James. That allowed the Cowboys to take over at their own 42 with 51 seconds left and it results in a 48-yard field goal from Suisham with two seconds left in the half for a 27-7 cushion at the break. Jones rumbled 73 yards off right tackle for a score with 5:33 left in the third before the Eagles finally cut into the deficit with a four-yard pass from McNabb to Jackson for a score, but that came 1 1/2 minutes into the final quarter. Instead of an onside kick, the Eagles gave the ball up and the Cowboys trimmed 8:12 off the clock on the ensuing drive before punting. McNabb was then caught from behind by DeMarcus Ware, who stripped the football, leading to another turnover in Philadelphia territory. Game Notes The six-game postseason losing streak for Dallas tied an NFL record...The 92,951 tickets distributed established a single-game NFL postseason non-Super Bowl record...Cowboys right tackle Marc Colombo returned from a broken leg and started. He had missed the previous seven games after suffering a broken left fibula in the first quarter of the November 15 game at Green Bay...The 228 combined penalty yards set an NFL postseason record.
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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?" A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook. In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small. "Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets." But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?" Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year. This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here. Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions. In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries. No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning. And that's all any bettor can ask for. To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs. |
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