American Football -NFL 2009/10
One of the great advantages of betting on American Football is the constant stop/start nature of the game. This gives us the chance to re-assess and take profits or even close out before the market moves against us.The television coverage for the NFL is very good -with Channel 5 doing their bit by showing both Sunday & Monday night football.
Games can also be seen on Sky Sports every Sunday -with highlights and feature shows throughout the week.
If you're new to the NFL scene or maybe someone who only tunes in for the Superbowl, but would like to know more then we will answer your questions:
a) How Is It Set Up?
b) Who Plays Who?
c) So Which Are The Best Teams?
d) What's With All The Statistics?
e) What Are The Betting Opportunities?
f) Where & When Can I Bet On NFL?
How Is It Set Up?
The 32 teams divide into two conferences, National and American -both of which have four regional divisions (North, South, East and West), each consisting of 4 teams.
The NFL regular season runs over 17 weeks and if a team goes all the way to the Superbowl they will play at least another two games.
The season runs from early September through to late December, with the play-offs taking place in early January.
Who Plays Who?
Teams play the others in their division both home and away and also eleven other teams -some from their own and some from the other conference.
So Which Are The Best Teams?
This season there's only one team in the NFL with a perfect record; the Tennessee Titans. Having a great Quarterback (QB) doesn't guarantee success -but this time round Brett Favre, formerly of the Green Bay Packers, is leading the charge towards the Superbowl with his new team -the New York Jets. Other teams making waves this season are Carolina and the New York Giants.
What's With All The Statistics?
Like most American sports, they believe that if they can measure it then they can manage it (and analyse it of course!). Hence, the game is awash with numbers, but all these figures can be helpful to the punter -as we get an insight into how many points may be scored in each game by whom and how defenses measure up against certain types of offense (running or rushing).
The site that has all the info that you could ever want or need is NFL stats.
What Are The Betting Opportunities?
Just like soccer, you can bet on the seasonal outcomes or individual games -although betting in-running is limited to the televised games.
The spread firms Sporting Index, Spreadex and IG Sport usually set spreads for the winning margins and the number of points scored in each game. These spreads are quite small so its unusual to win or lose too much, unless you are playing in high stakes. A more volatile market is the shirt numbers of touchdown scorers -with wide receivers wearing a shirt number of anything between 10-89 !
If you take a long term view and want to have a bet that gives you some interest for 5 months then why not try to pick the winners of the National & American Conferences and also the NFL Superbowl winner.
Paddy Power offers prices on all these title races and there is lots of value out there with the New York Giants (7/2) and the Carolina Panthers (5/1) for the Superbowl itself.
Where & When Can I Bet On The NFL?
A great site to bookmark is nfluk.com as they provide excellent background information and franchise news. The tv schedule for the NFL can be found at livesportontv.com whilst theres several places to bet on American Football. Sporting Index (SI) have a fantastic range of markets on all aspects of NFL, IG Sport have live, weekly and long term markets. Spreadex rank alongside SI as the market leaders in NFL spreads with many live games and long-term markets.
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