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Line of Scrimmage: Norv Turner - Bad Things Happen in ThreesFootball Betting Lines02/20/2007 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - They're rejoicing in Denver, Kansas City, and Oakland right about now. Norv Turner is an NFL head coach for the third time, having taken over for Marty Schottenheimer in San Diego, and the rest of the AFC West is licking its collective chops. "Aw," you insist. "Give Norv a chance!" No thanks. Turner got nine seasons worth of chances, minus those final three games of 2000 in which Redskins owner Daniel Snyder sent Norv on an early, ineptitude-forced vacation. The record - 58-82-1 in nine years with Washington and Oakland - should speak for itself. The number of playoff appearances and postseason wins - one each - should too. Norv Turner is simply not a quality head football coach, and I'm not sure that a Chargers Super Bowl win, which could realistically come as early as next season, would necessarily prove otherwise. Turner might just raise the Lombardi Trophy next February in Glendale, but at best, he's a caretaker in the class of Barry Switzer or George Seifert. At worst, he's a disaster. With the Redskins and Raiders, he was the quintessential "player's coach" albeit one that had little clue how to actually motivate those players. He was even-keel to a fault, rarely inspired greatness in important division or rivalry games, and more or less left both franchises in worse shape than he found them. "Yeah," you're telling me, "but that great offensive mind!" That great offensive mind, which indisputably functions at a John Nash-like level when Turner wears the coordinator's headset, loses some of its cellular activity when Turner assumes the head coaching reins. In his seven years with the Redskins, Turner's teams were top 10 in the league in yards exactly once. The Raiders finished in the bottom half of the NFL in both points and yards in each of Norv's two years in Oakland. And look at all those great signal-callers that the purported QB guru helped guide in his nine seasons as head coach. Heath Shuler became the next Sonny Jurgensen, right? Turner seemed to have a great rapport with consummate winners Jeff George and Kerry Collins, too. The best quarterback Norv coached in the close-to-a-decade he spent as a head coach was probably Trent Green, who the Rockne-like Turner let walk away via free agency after the 1998 season. Are the Chargers headed on a path to destruction simply because they hired Turner? Of course not. San Diego still has the best offensive player (LaDainian Tomlinson) and defensive player (Shawne Merriman) in the league, has a bright young quarterback in Philip Rivers and other first-rate talents like tight end Antonio Gates and nose tackle Jamal Williams. With that nucleus and the bitterness of last season's shocking playoff exit in their rear-view mirror, you can expect the Chargers to win the AFC West and make a serious run at the franchise's first Super Bowl title. But the very same would have happened had the Spanos family and co-conspirator A.J. Smith hired Mike Singletary, Mike Zimmer, Rex Ryan, Ron Rivera, or someone else who hadn't already proven himself to be an utter failure as a head coach. The same would have also happened had the Chargers hired Barry Switzer. Which in a way, they did. ...AND IN SAN FRANCISCO Fans of the 49ers should be fearful too. Turner's departure leaves a gap at offensive coordinator, and early speculation has centered on the possible promotion of San Francisco wide receivers coach Jerry Sullivan to the position. The 62-year-old Sullivan has a ton of experience as an NFL assistant, but his only year as an offensive coordinator in the league ended in abject failure. Sullivan steered the attack of the 2003 Arizona Cardinals, who finished dead last in the league in scoring (14.1 points per game) while going 4-12 and hastening head coach Dave McGinnis' exit from town. Finding a credible coordinator candidate at this late stage of the offseason is problematic, but I've got one - Mark Whipple. Whipple was quarterbacks coach in Pittsburgh for the past three seasons, and was the odds-on favorite to become offensive coordinator if either Ken Whisenhunt or Russ Grimm had been tabbed as new head coach of the Steelers. Instead, Whipple is out of a job, an ignoble fate for a man that helped mold Ben Roethlisberger into one of the top young quarterbacks in the league.
<< Lightning try to rebound against Panthers
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The first-place Tampa Bay Lightning will attempt to avenge a weekend loss to the Florida Panthers when the Southeast Division rivals complete a home-and-home series tonight at St. Pete Times Forum. Florida got the upper ha
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Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mark Martin won the 2007 Daytona 500. Sure, he didn't get the trophy, the huge check or drenched by champagne in Victory Lane, but that doesn't change the fact that he won the race. In typical N
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It's less than a month until the NHL hockey betting season opens at MySportsbook.com and preparations are underway for another battle in the race to hoist Lord Stanley's mug in 2007. As cup crazy fans prepare to place their bets, one online sportsbook ,MySportsbook.com, is offering hockey betting lines on the 2007/2007 Stanley Cup , who will bring it home this upcoming season. Despite a poor showing in last season's playoffs and the loss of Steve Yzerman to retirement, the Detroit Red Wings are early favourites at this online sportsbook with wagering odds of 6-1. The Wings will look to offensive powerhouse Pavel Datsyuk and newly appointed captain Nicklas Lidstrom to lead one of the league's most prominent franchises. Always a threat are the Ottawa Senators, with newly acquired goaltender Martin Gerber from the Stanley Cup champion ,Carolina Hurricanes. The Sens are second best in the rankings at a 7-1 bet, and odds makers at this sportsbook are optimistic that the Ottawa squad will fare better than last season's Eastern Conference semi-final upset to the Buffalo Sabres. Also worth noting are the defending Stanley Cup champs Carolina Hurricanes, a 10-1 bet to repeat. Behind the Canes are the New Jersey Devils, Calgary Flames, Buffalo Sabres, Philadelphia Flyers, and Anaheim Mighty Ducks all sit at 12-1. In the basement are the Washington Capitals, Chicago Blackhawks, and St. Louis Blues who all have 100-1 odds to win. To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your hockey betting needs.
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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