The Buffalo Bills ended the longest playoff drought in American major pro sports Sunday in miraculous fashion.
Football
Norman Freedman is 83 but vividly recalled details of a bad beat he suffered 40 years ago, when Earl “The Pearl” Monroe mysteriously turned his apparent $2,000 win into a $100 loss.
Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore came up with an interception of Matt Ryan late in the first half of New Orleans’ 23-13 win over Atlanta on Sunday when a deflected pass came to rest on his backside as he lay facedown on the field.
Most avid sports bettors and poker players can write a book on bad beats. It would be a tragicomedy about the most agonizing losses of their gambling lives that double as miracle wins for other bettors.
There is absolutely no practical way to explain what happened at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, much less with the Raiders this season, as they were essentially eliminated from the playoffs in losing to Dallas 20-17.
New England, which closed as a 3-point favorite at MGM Resorts sports books and a 2½-point favorite at most other books, escaped with the win and drove a stake through the hearts and wallets of most Pittsburgh backers, including one high roller in particular.
Philadelphia’s odds to win Super Bowl LII were moved from 4-1 to 10-1 in the wake of quarterback Carson Wentz’s knee injury.
The Raiders’ playoff hopes remain alive, but the postseason seems more like wishful thinking after a 26-15 defeat at Kansas City that wasn’t close.
The Crimson Tide is a 1½-point favorite over Clemson, which upset Alabama 35-31 in last season’s national championship to avenge a 45-40 loss to the Tide in the 2016 title game.
The Eagles, Patriots and Falcons all covered double-digit spreads and the Panthers delivered a last-minute cover as favorites went 9-3 against the spread Sunday and Las Vegas sports books were thrown for a loss.
The Raiders returned to Oakland Coliseum for the first time in five weeks and won a game they absolutely needed, 21-14 over the Denver Broncos.
Detroit was a 1½-point favorite over Minnesota on the look-ahead line at the Westgate sports book, but public money on the Vikings has made Minnesota a 3-point favorite.
The other lesson we learned was that it’s better to be called a square than a loser.
How the Raiders arrived at a 27-24 victory against similarly imperfect Miami before 65,139 at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday night would take at least several chapters of your average L. Ron Hubbard tome to digest.
If not for a pair of great escapes by Atlanta (4-4) in wins at Chicago and Detroit, its season could be classified a disaster.