Columnist Jeff Haney: Football handicapper is picking the Packers

Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2002 | 10:35 a.m.

Jeff Haney's sports betting column appears Wednesday. Reach him at 259-4041.

Of this weekend's four NFL playoff games, perhaps the most dramatic move in the betting line is taking place in the Packers-Rams matchup at St. Louis.

Sure, the number is bouncing on and off 3 points in Saturday's Eagles-Bears and Raiders-Patriots games -- which always provides a good deal of intrigue.

In Sunday's late game, though, St. Louis opened a 9-point favorite over Green Bay and has already been bet up to minus 10 or 10 1/2 in Las Vegas sports books. Some observers think the number could steam as high as 12 by kickoff.

Professional handicapper Charles Jay disagrees with the direction of the line move.

Jay, operator of the indispensable Total Action website (totalaction.com), thinks taking Green Bay plus the points is a good bet.

"I'm expecting a tight game here," Jay says. "I have no problem grabbing double digits with the Pack in this one."

As is his wont, Jay has handicapped the matchup in a way that's not only in-depth, but also atypical as compared to most mainstream analyses.

"If you're handicapping football games effectively, you're looking at each of these games like a juror might look at a lawsuit," Jay says. "To determine which side has the more valid case, you look at who has the weight of evidence on their side. Not just the amount of evidence, but the quality of that evidence."

Jay admits the game is not an easy one to call, and says at first glance the Rams appear to have plenty going for them.

Consider:

Despite those factors, Jay believes the key angle is this: The Rams ran into trouble this season against teams who were proficient at putting pressure on the quarterback.

And the Packers have that ability.

"I'm referring to four games in particular," Jay says. "Against the Saints (second in the league in quarterback sacks), Giants (seventh), Eagles (eighth) and Buccaneers (11th). The Rams lost two of those games (to the Saints and Bucs) had life-and-death with the Giants and had to go to overtime with the Eagles after blowing a 14-point lead.

"It's not a coincidence that the Rams' level of play took a dip in those games. Kurt Warner is not a mobile quarterback, so when he faces strong pressure, one of two things happens -- either he's going to get sacked, or he's going to have to get rid of the ball early, which can result in mistakes."

Jay points out that the Packers rank third in the NFL with 52 sacks and tied for second in takeaways with 39.

"If they can pressure Warner, which they should ... they can turn this into the kind of game that's very much to their liking," he says.

Jay advises Packers backers to place a small amount of their wager on the money line, which he has seen as high as plus 425 offshore.

At Station Casinos sports books this morning, the money line was Rams minus 450/Packers plus 325.

He uses a formula that takes into account the point spread of each of this week's games and its corresponding money line converted into decimal form. The formula then repeats the process for each possible game in the coming weeks, taking into account the likelihood of each matchup occurring.

Not surprisingly, once the numbers were crunched the Rams emerged as 6-5 favorites to win the Super Bowl, followed by the Steelers (4-1), Patriots (10-1) and Bears 12-1.

Also, the Eagles were 13-1; Raiders 14-1; Ravens 16-1; and Packers 21-1.

Though it might be useful to compare these numbers to odds in Las Vegas casinos, remember that they are simply derived from a mathematical model and do not take into account any "juice" that sports books include when devising their future books.