I've Moved!

We're rebooting Pollis.com in mid-2014, and I have since gotten a gig writing at a new site that focuses on politics, sports, and culture called TheChiefly.com. You can read any of my stories for them here: http://www.thechiefly.com/author/jacob-weindling/.

I probably won't be back to this blog, I own JacobWeindling.com and frankly, it's time I graduated from freakin' blogspot (although it sure as hell didn't hurt FireJoeMorgan.com, that site should be preserved in the Baseball Hall of Fame). Thank you to the five (-ish) people who read this blog regularly (especially to the random person in Russia who kept popping up in my stats, you rock).

I started this blog because I didn't want my writing muscle that I had worked so hard on for 22 years to decay, and your participation validated it in a small way. Now I've moved on to greener pastures, to a site that has as of this writing, has 458 fans on Facebook (I don't have access to the analytics, I just write, but that's not bad for 3 weeks worth of stories, it's not much, but it isn't nothing either). Thank you all for your support, and I look forward to the time in the future when our paths will cross again.

Football Friday

Last week was rough. The only highlights came in my secondary bets, as I went 0-4 in my four biggest swings of the year. In retrospect, betting big on UCLA was kind of stupid given all the preseason bets I have on them. If anything I should have hedged those by betting on Stanford. And Clemson...well, this isn't the first time I've been down this road with that team. I'd like to say that I'm officially swearing off Tajh Boyd and the Tigers for the rest of the season, but I'm weak and I can only guarantee that I will stay away this week (-17 at Maryland is way more trouble than it's worth). It's my birthday so I will try to keep everything short and simple as my jinxing super power feels very strong today.

Football Friday

Man, this has been a funky betting season. I can't get anything right but silly parlays and teasers in the NFL, and the opposite is true in college. I'm proud of my 47-39 ATS record, but I've thrown money away by going 7-15 on parlays and teasers (to be fair, a good amount of those losses were longshot parlays for not a ton of money, but still, a loss is a loss). So we're going to adjust a bit this week. No, not by betting less parlays and teasers in college (the non-ten point teaser makes it's triumphant return this week!), but in the NFL. You'll see. Let's get to it.

Football Friday

Quick tangent before we get to the degenerate stuff: I went to the Bruins-Avalanche game last night here in Boston and have come to the conclusion that win, lose, or draw, the Patrick Roy regime is AWESOME. Board-smashingly awesome. Even if you don't like hockey, you have to appreciate the storyline of a great, crazily intense player coming back to coach the team he lead to greatness. Imagine if Johnny Manziel...nah, if he doesn't make it in the NFL, he'll definitely be hosting Girls Gone Wild videos in ten years. Eeesh, that was an unnecessary cheap shot on a man who has made me quite a bit of money the past year or so. Sorry Johnny, keep doing your thing, on to the picks!

Football Friday

Last week, I made my biggest collective bet this season. Aside from not ever having a chance of winning my biggest one (my assumed shootout between Alabama and Ole Miss was a defensive beatdown and an offensive snoozer), I had a pretty good week, going 18-9 and hitting a nice little parlay in the NFL. You know what this means, right? I have to bet even bigger this week while I regress to the mean! You should treat the picks below as an incredibly valuable treasure. Bet against them and you'll probably hit at least sixty percent; maybe more. I haven't had a losing season since I started putting my bets up on this thing; the crash is inevitable. Jump on board and short my picks before the money making opportunity is gone.

Football Friday

Like Leslie Knope on last night's excellent episode of Parks and Rec, I have themed weeks this year. The first few focused on fading the Big 10 in non-conference play, last week was about home teams, and now it's premature desperation time. My record is right around .500 against the spread, but it certainly does not feel that way (it might have something to do with the fact that I've lost money). So what is the obvious move to make at this point? Increase the amount and the number of bets of course! Let's gamble! Especially since I can't do this with my real cash, because let's face it, I'm not exactly Floyd Mayweather. Let's get to it.

Congratulations @JManziel2 for putting on a fantastic show. He may not be able to make money off himself but I can. pic.twitter.com/Tp3sKyznkq
— Floyd Mayweather (@FloydMayweather) September 22, 2013

Football Friday

In the NFL, home field advantage does not matter as much as it used to (save for several teams where it still matters quite a bit). In college, it's a whole different story. Why? Well, just envision what a hotel with fifty to sixty adolescent males looks like. Yeah, that's part of it. The rest is either obvious, or yet to be understood. And this has been my problem so far in college; I've discounted home field advantage almost entirely. Well, that changes this week. All but two of the teams I picked have one thing in common: their players will sleep in their own bed the night before the game (or at least on their own campus, it is college after all). And that matters quite a bit. On to the picks!