49ers take away a key divisional win

Football Betting Lines

09/18/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - This past Sunday's game between the San Francisco 49ers and St. Louis Rams was a classic example of give and take. As in the 49ers offense giveth and the 49ers defense taketh away.

San Francisco managed just 186 yards of offense and fumbled the ball away twice. Luckily, the defense managed to force and recover three fumbles of its own to help the 49ers pull out a 17-16 win.

Two of those St. Louis turnovers were forced on the Rams' first two possessions of the second half. The first came when San Francisco's Bryant Young sacked Marc Bulger, forcing the ball loose just shy of midfield.

On their next drive, the Rams seemed about to pad their 13-7 lead, as Bulger hit Torry Holt across the middle of the field. Holt dashed across San Francisco's 10-yard line before Nate Clements stripped him from behind. The ball rolled out of bounds in the end zone, giving the Niners the ball. San Francisco scored a touchdown on the resulting drive to go in front.

"They (the Rams) made a good catch, throw and catch," said Clements. "It's something I've been working on in practice, always run to the ball because you never know. I kept running and never gave up on the play and I saw the ball and punched it out."

However, a turnover of their own nearly cost the 49ers later on, as quarterback Alex Smith was sacked and fumbled early in the fourth quarter. That led to a Rams' field goal and a two-point Niners' deficit.

Late in the game, though, the Rams' Dante Hall, usually so dangerous when returning kicks, muffed a punt that San Francisco's Marcus Hudson recovered at the Rams' 26. Joe Nedney then booted a go-ahead 40-yard field goal with 3:28 left.

The San Francisco defense took over from there by forcing a four-and-out, including a stop on 4th-and-7, before standing tall on what turned out to be the Rams' final possession of the game. Young again got to Bulger, setting up a 3rd-and-17 for St. Louis in the waning moments. After a 14-yard pass play, the 49ers held their breath as the Rams' Jeff Wilkins left a 56-yard field goal try short.

The victory bolstered the confidence of the 49ers revamped defense.

"We knew we were going to win the game, we had that mentality," said Clements, one of the new additions. "The last two-minute drive, that's the situation we love and we knew we were going to pull the game out. It wasn't a sense of urgency where everybody was panicking, we just knew we were going to win if we just go out there and play our defense."

San Francisco is 2-0 for the first time since 1998 and used a lot of pressure on the quarterback to get there. The team posted six sacks against the Rams, led by Young's two.

"It's always important, any game you play in, to apply pressure," Young said. "Even if you don't get the sack, making (Bulger) throw when he's not wanting to throw, that was big. We were able to get some pressure off the edges through our four man (rushes) and through our zone pressures as well."

HEAVY HEART

Normally, 49ers running back Frank Gore runs with a punishing shoulder to compliment breakaway speed. On Sunday, though, the Pro Bowl back ran with a heavy heart.

Gore turned in a game-deciding performance in the win over the Rams this past weekend, just days after his mother Liz passed away after battling a lengthy illness.

"When I got up this morning, it was tough getting up," Gore said. "Every time that it is game time, all I know is that stadium. Me and my mom would talk on the way to the stadium. This morning, I just kept looking at my phone. She didn't call. It's tough, you know. I shed a few tears and it was tough to get up, but I decided to play and I had to do my best. "

Despite the personal loss, Gore rushed for 81 yards and a pair of scores, pointing towards the sky in tribute after each touchdown.

Gore said he knew his mother was watching over him, especially on his big fourth-down play in the third quarter that resulted in a score. Facing a 4th- and-1 with under three minutes left in the stanza, Gore took a handoff and busted through the line for what ended as a 43-yard touchdown run that gave San Francisco a 14-13 edge.

"They (the Rams) had nine in the box. We had eight," Gore said of the run. "Everybody on our side of the ball got a hat on them and I got through. They had a hand on my leg and I kept pumping and got down to the secondary. I made a move on the safety and that was it. When I crossed the goal line, she had to be with me on that one."

Gore showed immense commitment to his team by playing so soon after the passing of his mother, an attribute that wasn't lost on Smith, who said he knew how close the running back was to his mom.

"He is so dedicated to this team and how much loves being a part of this team and helping this team win," Smith said. "He had the two touchdowns and the big run on fourth down. I know he was excited and I was happy for him."

YOUNG AGAIN

The 49ers are 2-0 for the first time since 1998, which was also the last full season in which Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young played with the club. Young suffered yet another concussion the following year and retired at the end of the 1999 season.

San Francisco finished the 1998 season 12-4 and bested the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Wild Card game before falling to the Falcons the following week. The Niners have made the postseason just twice since, including their last visit in 2002.

WHO IS HOT

Patrick Willis and Manny Lawson are forming an explosive linebacker duo. Willis, San Francisco's first-round pick in this past draft, is adapting quickly to the NFL and has 19 tackles (14 solo) through two games from the inside spot.

Lawson, a first-round pick in 2006, has added pressure from the outside, posting 12 total tackles and a sack so far.

WHO IS NOT

Smith is not off to the start he would have hoped. He has thrown for only 252 yards -- 126 in each of the first two games -- and has yet to find the end zone, although he hasn't been intercepted yet either.

Smith's current QB rating is 69.1.

"I know we can be a lot better. I know it," Smith said after the win over the Rams. "I think everyone in there knows it. That is the scary thing, 2-0 and we have a long way to go for improvement. We have a lot of games in front of us and we need to keep improving."

NEXT UP: ONE FOR THE THUMB

A battle between a pair of five-time Super Bowl champs is on the horizon for the 49ers, who travel to Pittsburgh to take on the 2-0 Steelers on Sunday.

San Francisco, which last won a NFL title in 1994, is 10-8 all-time against the Steelers, having won four of the last five matchups. The 49ers recorded a 30-14 win at home in their most recent meeting with Pittsburgh, which occurred in 2003.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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