The Province

ROB LONGLEY’S YOU BET

- twitter.com/longleysun­sport rlongley@postmedia.com

Beyond the obvious of the sheer volume of the number, it didn’t take much playing time to see how precarious it is to lay two full touchdowns and a field goal is in the NFL. Long before the Bills had secured the upset of the season — and one of the greatest in NFL history relative to the point spread — their 27-6 win over the Vikings, Buffalo had virtually guaranteed a cover when a Minny defender ended a sure stop with a mindless headshot penalty. The next thing you know, Buffalo’s rookie QB Josh Allen was diving for the end zone and 17 was 24. The point spread was irrelevant from then on essentiall­y as the Bills romped. And that be yet another lesson — no matter how much you like a team in the NFL, once the spread gets past two touchdowns you’re plying with a fire when backing a favourite ... How crazy was the Bills score? They won by more points (21) than what they were getting (17) ... What does the off-field sniping and on-field poor play get the Steelers? Yes, they may be favoured in the Monday night but the majority of money in that contest keeps flowing towards the surprising Bucs who are just 1½-point home underdogs. So an over-achieving team vs. an under-achieving one after two weeks. Good luck figuring that one out ... Back to the Vikings for a minute, the so-called bridge jumpers of the world — those that dump huge amounts on the money line for a huge favourite to win straight up at a small routine were out this weekend. And you guessed it, according to several reports out of Vegas, they were on the Vikings ... And the other stat widely used this week as it pertains to the Minnesota-Buffalo game: NFL faves of 16 points or more over the past 16 seasons were 39-0 straight up before the Bills surprise and those favourites were 18-21 vs. the spread ... Bookmakers are going to have fun with the Chiefs the rest of the season both in deciding how many points to give and how high the over under should climb. Riding their outstandin­g rookie quarterbac­k Patrick Mahomes the Chiefs opened as 4½-point favourites and were bet up to 6½ for their game against the 49ers while the over-under was 55. With a final score of 38-27 in favour of the Chiefs, you get the point ... The closer they got to opening kickoff, the more the Saints were viewed as live underdogs, closing as the two-point road puppies in Atlanta. They needed overtime to do it, but New Orleans prevailed with a 43-37 win. Word is the comeback and win was a killer for the Vegas books.

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