PressBox recently chatted with longtime sports gambling reporter Bill Ordine about the trends he’s noticing in the NFL this season, his picks to make it to the Super Bowl and more.
PressBox: What trends have you picked up on in this NFL season?
Bill Ordine: The injuries to frontline players of all types are alarming. I am particularly taken with the number of injuries that are soft-tissue injuries. The number of guys pulling hamstrings and being out for two, three, four games is pretty alarming. I don’t know what this is all about, but that is certainly a trend. It’s not one that you can wager on, but it’s a real concern. I don’t know if it has to do with the schedule of OTAs or the way that the league runs preseason games.
An old coach that I used to cover would say that hamstrings were all about a lack of conditioning. I know that sounds weird in this day and age when everybody’s got strength and conditioning coaches and that sort of thing, but I don’t get all these soft-tissue injuries that guys get simply because of sudden strain, sudden change of direction. All of a sudden, the guy’s out for three or four games. That’s a trend that I’ve noticed. It doesn’t have anything to do with wagering. These guys are great physical specimens, but there is something going on where they run down the field and in the middle of their pass pattern they come up limping.
PB: We have seen a lot of injuries to starting quarterbacks thus far. How do you handle betting on games involving backup quarterbacks?
BO: I would avoid them, frankly, because who would have ever thought that the guy that quarterbacked the Bears, Case Keenum, would look like Johnny Unitas against the Eagles after not throwing a pass for three years? I would just stay off those games until you have a better sense of how good that quarterback really is. … For instance, last year when the 49ers lost Brock Purdy and they had to bring in Mac Jones … he did just fine. But you wouldn’t have known that until the kid played for a game or two. That would be my advice: Stay off those games until it’s obvious how good or not good the backup quarterback is going to be.
PB: Prior to the season, you thought the Raiders were a solid lottery ticket for futures bets. Do you still believe in them?
BO: I think they are intelligently approaching their quarterback situation. I really loved the signing of center Tyler Linderbaum. I thought that was a really key component to any team. I’ve said many times the reason the Eagles won their first Super Bowl was that it was the quarterback who got hurt rather than the center. Had they lost Jason Kelce, they would’ve never won that Super Bowl, in my opinion. I put a very high premium on that position. I think the Ravens won their second Super Bowl because of the center they acquired from Minnesota, Matt Birk. Not that I’m a genius, but the Minnesota coach told me that his biggest problem that season was losing Matt Birk. The year that they fell apart, it was losing Matt Birk that really hurt the Vikings.
I had this epiphany of how important the position was. I always kind of keep an eye on it. When I saw the Ravens lose that center, I said, “This is not a good thing.” And then I looked at the Raiders and I thought, “Hmm, they’ve got a pretty good running back that they drafted.” They seem to have done something intelligent with their quarterback situation where they drafted a No. 1 guy, Fernando Mendoza. But they went out and got what I thought was a pretty solid pro to hold down the fort in Kirk Cousins. All of these things I thought meant that the Raiders were a pretty good lottery ticket [prior to the season]. … I was just talking about wisely investing a couple of bucks in a team that everybody else thinks is chopped liver. That’s why I liked the Raiders. I thought that they were an opportunity to buy low.
PB: Is the AFC back to being the Chiefs’ conference to lose?
BO: Absolutely. There’s nobody in that conference that challenges them. Patrick Mahomes is absolutely bionic, holy smokes — and fearless. He’s fearless and he seems like he was never hurt at all. That was a substantial injury. We all know what Andy Reid’s track record is if you give him an extra week to prepare for something, right? If they get into the postseason and they’ve got the advantage of byes, Andy’s going to win them. And they’ve got the offensive coordinator back [in Eric Bieniemy]. You should not underestimate the influence of assistant coaches. In their case, Bieniemy is gold. He’s worth his weight in gold.
… And signing the best running back available in free agency [in Kenneth Walker III] — that didn’t hurt, either, and that head coach knows how to use a running back. You look at the list of running backs that he’s had and the kinds of seasons they’ve all had, both in terms of rushing and catching, he knows how to use a running back to their full potential.
PB: Are there any awards futures that you like?
BO: Both Atlanta running back Bijan Robinson and Detroit running back Jahmyr Gibbs look like Offensive Player of the Year candidates. It’s not an original thought, but I think the guy that has a shot at being the NFL MVP is Brock Purdy. I think there are other people thinking in that direction, too. The way he started the season was just terrific. George Kittle is going to help his numbers. They look like they have figured out how to calibrate the amount of usage for Christian McCaffrey. I think there will be moments when guys like Deebo Samuel will [produce] these enormous 80-yard touchdowns. All of this will be cumulative in creating the kinds of numbers for Purdy that you need to win MVP. Even though they play against Seattle and L.A. [in the NFC West], I like them to win the Super Bowl.
PB: Why do you like San Francisco to win it all?
BO: There are all the things I mentioned offensively. Right now — and things can change in a heartbeat — their defense looks really terrific. Between Nick Bosa and Fred Warner, they’ve got this sort of magical mix of youth and veterans that a team needs to win a Super Bowl. Purdy is maturing into that kind of player. If they get to the Super Bowl and they have to play Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, it could be a different story. I think that’s what we’re going to see in the Super Bowl — San Francisco and Kansas City.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox