LT Profits
Seattle Seahawks +3.0
The Seattle Seahawks fits nicely into what we like to call a GAP system on Friday night, and they get the call as road underdogs when they visit the Minnesota Vikings.
The first step in this system to group each team into either the Good, Average or Poor category (ergo, GAP) based solely on their win totals of last season. Well, the Seahawks grade out as Good while the Vikings grade out as Average, This is significant because higher classed road underdogs are 77-51, 60.2 percent against the spread the last seven preseasons.
Looking at the specific teams, the Seahawks are a nice 6-2 straight up and ATS on the road during the preseason over the last four years. They also like to get off on the right foot in these exhibition games, going 4-1 both SU and ATS in the last five openers. Conversely, the Vikings have lost their last two August openers and since they are a popular pick to win the NFC Central, they will in all likelihood be more concerned with staying healthy than posting wins during this preseason.
Finally, the Vikings have been distracted lately by all of the talk concerning the acquisition of Brett Favre, which may result in their corps of young quarterbacks pressing a bit in an attempt to impress.
Pick: Seahawks +3
San Francisco 49ers +3.0
The San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders have had a couple of joint practices this summer, so they are both somewhat familiar with what to expect this week, which automatically gives value to the underdog.
Besides the 49ers are a very young team that may seemingly get as many wins this preseason as they do the entire regular season, so they probably have the greater motivation to win early between these two teams. Then again, that would be nothing new considering that the Niners are 3-2 straight up and 3-1-1 against the spread vs. their Bay Area rivals the last five years in preseason.
Now the Raiders are expected to improve this season, thanks to their first round draft pick Darren McFadden, but you just know that they will handle Run DMC with kid gloves during the exhibition season, not wanting to risk a serious injury. Thus, we will see the same last place team as last year for the most part, at least in the early weeks.
Look for the underdog Niners to pull a confidence-building upset here.
Pick: 49ers +3