‘Good to beat Vegas’
Athletes citing disrespect as a major motivating factor feels as old the sports media itself.
Even teams that are favored and expected to win find a way to claim nobody was picking them.
One thing players often refer to is the point spread. A team that sees itself as the underdog at the betting window often cites that fact after a win.
“Las Vegas thought we would lose and we proved them wrong” is a commonly heard rallying cry in jubilant locker rooms.
It’s tough to remember anyone being as specific about a slight from the oddsmakers as Buffalo receiver Mike Williams was on Sunday.
He started out fairly generic.
“Its kind of good to beat Vegas,” Williams told the Syracuse Post-Standard. “I think a lot of guys took that personal and went out and played hard. That was No. 1 on the bulletin board right there.”
That would be the portion of his comment we’ve come to expect. Then he took it up a notch.
“I think that was the first time a one-win team was favored over a winning team,” he added. “We kind of took it personal and went out and played.”
Williams is indeed correct. He was citing a statistic that was referred to on several national shows by RJ Bell of Pregame.com.
Bell repeated several times last week that not only had a 1-6 team never been favored over a winning team, none of those teams with winning records had ever been less than a 4-point favorite.
Oddsmakers had clearly forgotten how unbelievably awful Geno Smith could be against a good defensive line.