Vegas: Still Loves the Skins

Steelers rise to top of Vegas’s rankings on the Skins’ shoulders. (By Jonathan Newton - TWP)

The Redskins’ loss to Pittsburgh was, by a pretty significant margin, the team’s biggest deviation from Vegas’s expectations this season. In several games, the Redskins have flirted with the spread into the final moments; this time, favored by about 2.5, they lost by a healthy 17-point margin.

But Vegas is slow to change, and so Pittsburgh’s rating goes up by about one point, according to the Las Vegas Sports Consultants, and Washington’s rating goes down by about one point, and both teams remain in the NFL’s top-five elite.

The Redskins (judged 5th best in the NFL) are still virtual locks to be favored in three of their remaining road games, which come against Vegas’s 27th (San Fran), 28th (Cincinnati) and 29th (Seattle) best teams. They will be favored at home against Dallas, but the games at Baltimore and home against Philly and the Giants are all too close to call.

(Quick aside: Some Redskins fans have taken to bringing me their complaints about the politically liberal mainstream media. I usually try to defend my industry from charges of bias. Yeah. Well. I just joined a stream of co-workers going down three flights of stairs to where employees could claim one (1) free commemorative copy of today’s paper. I had to take the stairs because the elevators were filled. And sure, this was a historical paper, but if today’s historical paper was about the historical nature of Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential win…I dunno.)

Washington’s two losses are to Vegas’s two best teams. The Redskins’ are 3-2 (straight up) as home favorites, 1-0 as road favorites, and 2-1 as road underdogs.

Anyhow, the point is, if they sweep the three cupcake road games and take one of the toss-ups, that’d be 10-6. Likely good enough. But it sure could get interesting.

Some more rankings from around the Web: ESPN.com says Washington is 5th, the Football Outsiders’ math stuff says Washington is 8th, Sportsline says Washington is 7th, SI.com also says Washington is 7th, the Sporting News says Washington is 5th, while Yahoo!, as does Fox Sports says 4th.

The full week 10 LVSC report:

1. Pittsburgh 144.1
2. New York Giants 144.0
3. Tennessee 143.0
4. Philadelphia 142.0
5. Washington 141.1
6. San Diego 140.7
7. Indianapolis 140.0
8. Tampa Bay 139.9
9. Green Bay 139.8
10. New England 139.6
11. Carolina 139.5
12. Buffalo 138.6
13. New Orleans 138.6
14. Jacksonville 138.2
15. Minnesota 138.1
16. Arizona 138.0
17. Baltimore 137.9
18. New York Jets 137.6
19. Chicago 137.4
20. Dallas 136.5(With Romo, they gain 3.0 points and move to 11th)
21. Denver 135.7
22. Houston 135.4
23t. Cleveland 135.2
23t. Miami 135.2
25. Atlanta 135.0
26. St. Louis 133.2
27. San Francisco 132.0
28. Cincinnati 131.5
29. Seattle 130.7
30t. Detroit 130.5
30t. Kansas City 130.5
32. Oakland 130.1

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