Wednesday, August 30, 2017

NFL futures bets I'd make if I was a betting man

The 2017 NFL season kicks off Thursday, September 7th, when the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots host the Kansas City Chiefs. To the surprise of no one, the Patriots are the odds-on favorites to take home the title once again, despite a now 40-year-old Tom Brady having just lost his No. 1 wide receiver for the season (Julian Edelman tore his ACL in Friday's exhibition victory in Detroit).

New England is currently listed at +400 to capture the sixth championship of Brady's career next February in Super Bowl LII (that's 52 for those who aren't Roman-numerically inclined). The Pats are also +225 to win the AFC.

The teams with the next-best odds to take home the Lombardi Trophy are a pair of NFC clubs, the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers, both listed at +1000. In the AFC, the Patriots' greatest challenger is expected to be the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are +450 to represent the conference in the Super Bowl and +1100 to win it all.

After the Steelers, the Oakland Raiders (+800), Denver Broncos (+900) and Chiefs (+1000) round out the list of top contenders for the AFC title. With the Patriots such an overwhelming favorite, the other three teams in the AFC East all rank among the bottom six in terms of conference title odds: The Miami Dolphins are +2200, the Buffalo Bills are +4000, and the New York Jets are +6600.

So who is a good bet in the AFC? Honestly, nobody. There's not much money to be made on the Pats at +225 and there aren't any teams out there that have a compelling case to unseat New England. If I had to put $100 on somebody to win the conference, I might take the Raiders at +800 or even the Indianapolis Colts at +1800.

For me, it all comes down to the quarterback. Derek Carr emerged as budding star last year and even though he doesn't have much behind him, I like Andrew Luck's chances at +1800 better than a lot of other guys'.

Here are some other football odds I like heading into the 2017 season:

Green Bay Packers at +500 to win the NFC: Aaron Rodgers has guided Green Bay to the playoffs in eight straight years, but only reached one Super Bowl. He's due.

New Orleans Saints at + 2000 to win the NFC: I'll take a 38-year-old Drew Brees over most of the other QBs in the conference, but only five squads have worse odds than the Saints.

Minnesota Vikings at + 2500 to win the Super Bowl: The Vikings are +1200 in the NFC, which suggests their expected to lose Super Bowl LII if they get there--despite the fact that it's going to be played in their own stadium.



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Wednesday, October 19, 2016

More NBA team previews than you can possibly imagine

Last month, I wrote a brief Celtics season preview as part of an NBA blog sharing program where everybody who contributes agrees to post each other's links.  Here they all are, in alphabetical order by team:


Atlanta Hawks
Boston Celtics
Brooklyn Nets
Charlotte Hornets
Chicago Bulls
Cleveland Cavaliers
Dallas Mavericks
Denver Nuggets
Detroit Pistons
Golden State Warriors
Houston Rockets
Indiana Pacers
LA Clippers
LA Lakers
Memphis Grizzlies
Miami Heat
Milwaukee Bucks
Minnesota Timberwolves
New Orleans Pelicans
New York Knicks
Oklahoma City Thunder
Orlando Magic
Philadelphia Sixers
Phoenix Suns
Portland Trail Blazers
Sacramento Kings
San Antonio Spurs
Toronto Raptors
Utah Jazz
Washington Wizards

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Saturday, October 15, 2016

I'm breaking the streak at Day No. 2,055

After 2,055 consecutive days of blogging, I'm taking a break.  Tomorrow, for the first time since March 2, 2011, I'm not posting anything on LucidSportsFan.com.

I originally started this site at the suggestion of someone who enjoyed my sports takes on Facebook.  A good friend of mine urged me to write something "at least once a day," so I stuck with that philosophy.  I soon discovered that I might be able to use it as a tool to help me pursue a career outside of bartending (which I officially announced my retirement from on Thursday).  Because of this blog, I was gradually able to write for (and later edit/manage) bigger and bigger sites until I eventually built up a legitimate resume.  Throughout that time, daily posts on LucidSportsFan.com were what kept me motivated.

In a week, I'll be starting a new full-time job as Creative Copywriter for WHOOP.  I can't say for sure what my plan is for the blog going forward, but I do know that it's time to take a day off.


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Friday, October 14, 2016

Everybody figured everything out way too quickly on "Fear the Walking Dead"


In The Walking Dead, it took quite some time before the characters were anything but 100-percent terrified of the zombies (and why don't they call them zombies, by the way?).  But after several years, everyone still alive finally seems to know what they're doing.  The zombies are no longer the primary concern--people have all learned how to handle them at this point.  Other humans are now the greatest danger.

However, in Fear the Walking Dead, the writers decided to hand over many seasons worth of Walking Dead knowledge and experience to the new cast basically right from the start (I guess they assumed that since the viewers already have this information maybe the show wouldn't work if the characters didn't have it too?).  After only a handful of Fear episodes, everybody is walking around all bad-ass, covered in dead blood and killing zombies with their bare hands.

I don't like it.


RELATED: 'Why don't they have bicycles?' and other similar questions about 'The Walking Dead'


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Thursday, October 13, 2016

After a long and storied career, I'm officially retiring from the sport of bartending

In October of 2011, I wrote a mostly sarcastic blog suggesting it was time for me to get Tommy John Surgery to extend my bartending career.  Here's the first paragraph:

"The past few months I've been a little bit off my game.  I'm not the same up and coming young southpaw bartending prospect that I used to be.  At this point in my career I'm more of a crafty veteran.  And lately sometimes I feel a slight pain or twinge in my left elbow.  I mean, here's the thing: I can work through it.  I can still go out there everyday and get the job done.  But I've lost a little speed on my ice scooping.  My bottle pouring doesn't have quite the same rotation.  And I am definitely missing some velocity on my cocktail shake and follow through.  I'm just not the same out there.  I think if I had the surgery I could come back in a year, better than ever." 

Now, five years later, I'm officially calling it quits.  It's been on my mind for quite some time (I actually started a draft of this post in January of 2012) and it's finally time for me to hang 'em up.  A career that began with a bartending class in Boston, MA in 2000, took me to Richmond, VA, Martha's Vineyard, Sanibel Island, FL, Austin, TX, New York, NY,  and San Diego, CA, is coming to a close back where it all started 16 years ago.

Hopefully this will be more of a Jason Varitek retirement and not a Brett Favre retirement.

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Wednesday, October 12, 2016

I have a new goal in life: Get a Chipotle celebrity burrito card

Danny Ainge showed this off to Celtics media yesterday:


Since first seeing that tweet, here's what I've discovered about Chipotle's custom-made burrito cards:  They allow you to have one free burrito per day, for an entire year (or possibly for life).  Chipotle also doesn't like to talk about them and neglects to offer any info about the cards on its website.

From a 2013 Yahoo Sports Big League Stew article on Bryce Harper's:

"The celebrity card program is small," Chipotle communications director Chris Arnold told The Stew in an e-mail. "And we don't really share enough detail on it to make much of a story out of it."

New life goal: Reach a point where Chipotle deems it wise to give me one of these.


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Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Thank you, Papi


If the picture above is worth 1,000 words, the video below is worth about 10 billion:


Thank you, Big Papi.


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