Remodeling of Ravens kicks off with Harbaugh's hiring
By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
Updated: January 19, 2008, 5:51 AM ET
By nature, new experiences are supposed to be exhilarating, invigorating, provocative, exciting and, yeah, fresh.
In hiring a new head coach for the first time since becoming full owner of the Baltimore Ravens four years ago, Steve Bisciotti clearly was seeking to combine all of those elements when he selected Philadelphia Eagles secondary coach John Harbaugh as the successor to the deposed Brian Billick on Friday evening.
At first blush, he succeeded on all counts.
The new mantra of the NFL, at least during the current firing-and-hiring cycle seems to be fresher is better. And it is a philosophy that Bisciotti embraced in gambling that Harbaugh, who never rose to the level of coordinator during his 10 seasons with the Eagles, will represent a dramatic change in culture after nine years of Billick's pomposity and overbearing mien.
Coming off a disastrous 5-11 season, the Ravens are in dire need of an emotional makeover, and Bisciotti and general manager Ozzie Newsome feel strongly that Harbaugh is the man to provide it.
A football lifer, and the product of a family steeped in gridiron traditions -- his father, Jack, coached for 41 years at the Division I-AA level, and brother Jim is a former NFL quarterback and the current Stanford head coach -- Harbaugh nonetheless flew below the radar screen during much of his NFL tenure. In part, that's because he spent the first nine seasons of his career as a special teams coach, a position that rarely leads to head coach opportunities.
To coach special teams, a job that people in the league view as far more significant than do fans, you've got to share some of the attributes of the guys you're tutoring. It is, just like serving as the outside "gunner" on the punt coverage unit, a position created for grinders. You'd better have some want-to in your DNA, be a motivated and selfless overachiever, a person obsessed with the tiniest of details, and a man capable of subjugating personal aspirations.
Harbaugh succeeded on all those fronts, save one, because in recent seasons he publicly acknowledged that he harbored a burning desire to be more than a special teams coach. Eagles coach Andy Reid, who himself became a head coach after having never served as a coordinator, could relate to that, and in 2007 elevated Harbaugh to secondary coach. In so doing, he raised Harbaugh's profile, for sure. And when Harbaugh was presented the opportunity to interview for the Baltimore opening, he wowed his audience of interrogators.
His energy, suggested one Ravens official who was part of the interview process, was electric. And for Bisciotti, who inherited Billick from previous owner Art Modell, that was a key.
At age 47, Bisciotti, one of the NFL's least known and least public figures, is the second youngest owner in the league. In hiring Harbaugh as his head coach, a man two years his junior, he gets a contemporary to run his football team for him, a like-minded guy who figures to come in not necessarily attempting to reinvent the wheel, but with an outlook not dented by past failures.
It was clear the Ravens were seeking a younger approach. The average age of the six candidates interviewed for the vacancy created when Billick was jettisoned on Dec. 31 was just 43.8 years. Instead of pursuing veteran head coach Marty Schottenheimer, whose 205 victories are the sixth most in NFL history and who would have represented the safe choice, the Ravens chased his 34-year old son, New York Jets offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer. Only one of the Baltimore candidates, Indianapolis assistant head coach Jim Caldwell, was a 50-something guy. None of the six had previous head coach experience in the league.
The model the Ravens wanted was someone with a clean slate, and that's what they got. It's the direction in which the league is undeniably skewing. Counting the hiring of Harbaugh, and that of Tony Sparano by the Miami Dolphins earlier this week, there have now been 22 head coach positions filled since 2005, and only five went to men with prior NFL head coach entries on their resumes.
Interviewed by UCLA officials last month for their opening, Harbaugh was disappointed at not landing a job that would have put him in the same conference as his more well-known brother, but told close friends on the Eagles' staff he knew his time was coming.
On Friday night it, indeed, arrived, when Bisciotti, ironically a Philadelphia native, decided that Harbaugh was the right man, the fresh man, that he wanted to lead his team.
Copyright (c)2008 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.
Mora man busted for football gambling ring
Posted at: 01/17/2008 08:43:53 PM
Updated at: 01/18/2008 07:07:39 AM
By: Nicole Muehlhausen, Web Producer
A football gambling pool was busted north of the Metro.
Investigators said the NFL betting pool in Mora involves 77 people and has been going on for at least 25 years.
The man accused of running it, Al Sjoberg, didn't tell 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS how much money was involved.
Sjoberg said he did not know what he was doing was illegal.
His neighbors said investigators should just leave him alone.
"I think it's ridiculous. He's the nicest guy in the world," said Sjoberg's neighbor.
Investigators said if Sjoberg is charged, those charges will come out of Isanti County--despite the fact he lives in Kanabec County.
Copyright 2008 - KSTP-TV, LLC
A Hubbard Broadcasting Company
Early Betting Lines For NFL Playoffs Reflect Late Season Results
The San Diego Chargers have finished the season on a tear. They have put all their early season problems behind them and are coming into the playoffs playing very good football. Odds makers rewarded that today, when they made the Chargers nine point favorites over Tennessee.
The rest of the lines for next week's games also reflect how teams played during the final stretch of the season. The Jaguars are favored on the road against the higher seed, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Jacksonville won a few weeks back in Pittsburgh, and that, coupled with a season ending injury to Willie Parker, leaves the Steelers as home 'dogs.
In Seattle, the betting line is closely related to the two teams playing. Washington finished the season stronger than the Seahawks, but Seattle is still favored by three and a half. They have shown flashes of being in the NFL's elite, and are extremely difficult to beat at home.
The other game this weekend could end up being the toughest to handicap out of the four games. The Giants always seem to do the opposite of what people predict. Tampa Bay has played well enough to be considered a threat, but also poorly enough at times to have experts believe they might have been the beneficiary of a weak division.
The games start on Saturday at 4:30 and conclude on Sunday with a 4:30 game.
December 31, 2007
Posted By Vincent Tapoglia III
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
(c) 2008 Casino Gambling Web, Ltd.
College Football: Duke draws coaches into its Web
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 12/16/2007 01:58:24 AM MST
College football teams have myriad ways of hiring new coaches - promoting coordinators, gambling on up-and-comers, luring away rivals, even settling for NFL rejects (cough . . . Bobby Petrino . . . cough).
Leave it to Duke to add "Internet want ad" to the list.
Three days after coach Ted Roof was fired (he managed a 6-45 record over four seasons), the university listed the job posting "Head Football Coach" on its human resources Web site.
Noticeably absent from the list of qualifications, though, is the ability to win football games. Perhaps that ought to have been prominently mentioned, given that the Blue Devils have won just 22 games in 13 years.
Don't bother heading to http://www.hr.duke.edu to apply, though. The Blue Devils hired Tennessee offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe on Friday. Guess he got to the Web site first.
www.sltrib.com
Ravens expected to wear disguises
When Colts visit Baltimore, they know they'll see plenty of defensive looks
December 8, 2007
By Phil Richards
No one plays defense quite like the Baltimore Ravens. Their objective is to create confusion and pressure. On one play they will throw the proverbial kitchen sink at a quarterback. On the next, they will drop the kitchen sink into coverage.
They did it to Tom Brady during a last-minute 27-24 loss to undefeated New England on Monday night. They will do it to the Indianapolis Colts' Peyton Manning on Sunday.
"You can't be one-dimensional against a team that caliber or against a team like the Colts," Baltimore coach Brian Billick said. "You can't pressure every down. You can't go zone every down. The caliber of quarterbacks you're talking about will tear you apart."
The Ravens have yielded an average of 28.3 points during their current six-game losing streak, but they sacked Brady three times. They hit him six times and defended nine passes.
They held him to season lows in completions (18), completion percentage (47.4) and passer rating (76.3). They accounted for only his fifth interception.
Baltimore's array of looks and coverages is abetted by its ability to disguise them. The Ravens frequently mill around in seeming disorder until just prior to the snap.
"They're going to do things that don't really make sense. They're going to wander around and try to get you confused," Colts right guard Jake Scott said. "It's just a matter of identifying people, identify who has who, and stick with your guys."
That's difficult when, as they did on one down against New England, the Ravens left Patriots left guard Logan Mankins and left tackle Matt Light uncovered, loaded up the right side with five rushers and charged. They sacked Brady.
Manning is considered one of the NFL's best at discerning intent, calculating a weakness and getting his team into a play to exploit it. He also closely guards the instruments of that capacity. He refused to discuss the Ravens' pre-snap activity and changing defenses.
"There are going to be some bad plays," Colts tight end Dallas Clark said. "There are going to be some plays where you're, 'Shoot . . . '
"But it's the type of game where you can't get flustered because you know that just as easy as it was to screw up, it's that easy to get a big play and you've got to be ready to make that happen when the opportunity presents itself."
Gambling defenses make big plays. They also can yield them.
Baltimore defensive coordinator Rex Ryan has an unorthodox and effective system, to be sure. But players such as tackles Haloti Ngata and Kelly Gregg, linebackers Ray Lewis, Bart Scott and Terrell Suggs, cornerbacks Chris McAlister and Samari Rolle and safety Ed Reed make it.
They rank sixth in total defense at 294.2 yards a game. They are third against the run, allowing 78.9 yards a game and 2.8 yards a rush.
"They're going to wait and not show their hand until the last minute, but it still comes down to playing," Colts coach Tony Dungy said. "You have to run your offense and they're going to run their defense and you've got to block the guy you see and complete passes.
"It's not as much espionage as you might think. It's still football."
Harrison doesn't practice
Dungy said a decision on whether wide receiver Marvin Harrison (knee) would play for the first time in seven weeks probably would be made Sunday morning, but Dungy's comments were made prior to practice and he expected Harrison to participate. Harrison did not practice Friday.
Tackle Ryan Diem (knee) was listed as questionable but said he would not play.
Copyright 2007 IndyStar.com. All rights reserved.
Patriots-Colts 'Perfect Bowl' could turn out to be a dud
Nov 02, 2007 04:30 AM
Dave Perkins
The Indianapolis Colts are breaking brand new gambling ground against the New England Patriots Sunday in what the hype machine is calling the Perfect Bowl.
Never before has a Super Bowl champion started the season 7-0, then received points at home in its eighth game. Which certainly tells us what the betting public, and plain old football fans, think of these for-the-ages Patriots.
The Patriots are 8-0 and running up scores regularly. They are taking a chance, leaving starters in meaningless games, to have someone take out, say, Tom Brady with a knee shot. This has been suggested and not only by Canadian hockey fan-types hoping for a little Bobby Clarke-Valeri Kharlamov "justice.'' Perhaps the Patriots are running up scores to lash back at the NFL for the overblown fines levied for getting caught spying - videotaping signals - from the hopeless New York Jets. (The New York coach, Eric Mangini, blew the whistle on his former boss, coach Bill Belichick, and the Patriots might beat them by 60 points when they meet again in December as payback.)
Anyway, this weekend's game in Indiana is the most souped-up regular-season game in years. Never before have two unbeaten NFL teams met so late in a season. The Pats and Colts have a strong rivalry and their star quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, are either way the NFL's leading quarterbacks. Since the 2002 realignment, each of those QBs has won 67 games, the league's best total.
Several streaks and trends will be extended or crash to a halt, depending on the outcome and start with the betting, because that's such a vital part of any NFL game. The Pats are 8-0 straight-up and 8-0 against the point spread (and 13-1 in their past 14 ATS). It's clear which number is more remarkable: the betting figure.
Las Vegas sets point spreads not to indicate which team will win by how much, but to entice equal betting action on both sides, at which point the house pockets the 10 per cent juice and happily waters the flowers. This time, the public, which is getting rich this season on the Patriots - or should be - is betting them heavily and with both hands. The Pats opened as four-point favourites, a line bet up to 5 1/2 or even six points in some places. Some other houses are raising the premium on betting the Pats from the standard 10 per cent to 15 or 20 per cent. And still the money keeps coming; the various trends websites show public money running 91 per cent in favour of the Pats.
Which brings us back to that opening paragraph: people are happily and wilfully betting on something to happen that has never happened before. This violates one of the first rules of gambling, but so dominant and other-worldly are the Pats this season that no one is thinking twice now about old saws.
The Colts, as Super Bowl defending champions, have the great safety Bob Sanders, very likely the league's best defensive player, healthy for this one. They are 13-1 when he plays in the past two seasons. Likewise, the Colts, themselves a healthy 5-2 ATS this season, have won three in a row against the Pats, including last year's AFC championship encounter. In that one, the Pats led 21-6 at halftime, but Indy amassed 311 second-half yards and emerged with a 38-34 victory and a trip to the Super Bowl.
It should be great TV, but let's be careful, too: most overhyped games, in all sports, turn out to be duds.
(c) Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2007
Jimbo's Guide to Football Gambling
Thu Oct 25, 2007 12:25 pm by Huddle Network
How to Entertain Yourself During a Hawks Bye Week
-- Jimbo Rhodes, Inside the Hawks
Six years ago, when I turned 18-the legal gambling age in our great state of Washington-I started doing some experimenting in gambling. I've been through some good times and bad (mostly bad), but I've learned a few things.
By no means am I an expert or professional gambler. Don't worry. We all know That Guy who tries to teach everyone how to gamble, even though he's the same guy who will hit a 12 against a 6 in blackjack, call every big blind in poker because he expects to flop the nuts every hand, or puts chips on every roulette number. He actually thinks he knows what he's doing, and some people actually listen to this idiot who has no idea what he's talking about. He's like the gambling equivalent of Bill Plummer or Bob Weiss.
Sportsbook.com, the greatest non-porno website on the internet, has rewarded my loyalty in my early years by putting a free $10 in my account before every football season for the last three years, even though I haven't put money on my account in almost five years. With a minimum bet of $5 on straight wagers and $1 on parlays (which can kill you if you're not careful), my free $10 is usually gone by Week 3.
...Until this year. After Week 7, I'm still alive and well, and improving every week. Not since the 2004 season have there been this many patterns and sure things that happen every week. Yes, there is more parity than ever in the NFL, as every team is vulnerable to losing every week (except the Patriots and Colts). But if you know what to focus on, you can do fine. Here are some pieces of advice to live by, and remember, I'm going against the spread for my advice. Oh, and feel free to use me as a referral if you sign up so I can get my bonus money.
- Rule Number One of all sports gambling: NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER BET ON YOUR FAVORITE TEAM. I can't stress this enough. When you're analyzing match-ups and point spreads, your bias will prevent you from making any accurate assumptions. You will focus on the opponent's weaknesses more than you should, and you'll underestimate the shortcomings of your own team. Remember, never bet on your favorite team. Especially if your favorite team is the Seahawks.
- Do your research. Losing a bet is no fun, but it's especially troubling if something comes up that you weren't prepared for. You don't want to say the words, "What the hell was I thinking?" on Monday morning. That's really no fun.
- Don't bet on baseball ever. I know it's tempting with the World Series coming up, but think about it this way: A really good baseball team (we'll use 93-69 as the standard for this) wins about 57% of the time. A really good football team (we'll use 12-4 as the standard) wins about 75% of the time. And yet, odds makers use about the same money lines. Stick to football.
- Along those same lines, don't bet on basketball either.The losing team will foul to stop the clock at the end of games, meaning the score to a "close" game can be by 12 points just from free throws in the last minute. The spreads are almost totally random.
- Bet on the Patriots every week, and the Colts if they're playing a good team or if they are in primetime. The Pats cover every week, thanks in part to the fact that they've been blatantly running up the score all season. Ironically, I said to only bet on the Colts if they're playing a good team. Remember, the Colts always win, but they don't always cover the spread. When they play bad teams, oftentimes the spread is too high, and they run out the clock instead of running up the score like the Pats do.
- Never bet on a team with a crappy quarterback. Should seem obvious, but there are people out there who bet on Joey Harrington every week.
- Bet against the Dolphins and Rams every week unless they're getting just an insane amount of points. When a team sucks as bad as these two do, something good has to come of it. Take advantage.
- Bet against the Broncos, Saints and Ravens, especially if they're at home. You could almost throw the Seahawks into this mix (except for the home field part), but we won't, because you're not going to bet on your favorite team. Overrated teams are your money makers, and they'll give more points at home than they should, especially since these cities don't have the home field advantage they've had in the past, except for the Ravens, who still do when it comes to winning, but not when it comes to the spread. As for the Saints and Broncos, their home field advantages have dwindled more than anywhere in recent memory (the Saints because everyone jumped off their bandwagon, and the Broncos because their fans are oblivious to their .500 football team with Rocktober going on), and yet, the odds makers have them laying way too many points every week.
- Don't bet on a heavy favorite with a conservative coach. Back to the Colts example. Remember, conservative coaches don't run up the score, which is what you need to cover a big spread.
- Don't bet on a team that plays its home games in a warm-weather city playing on the road in a cold-weather city. This rule applies much more in January, when the weather is much worse in many places, and when the pressures of the playoffs combine with the crummy weather. But it still could work. When you look at match-ups in Denver, New England, New York, or other places that have potential snow or cold weather, check the weather report before the game.
- Most of all, have fun and don’t lose money you can't afford to lose.
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