Just when you think you’ve seen it all in terms of bad gambling losses the Gambling Gods gave us two endings that were literally beyond belief this weekend. 

USC vs. Stanford

The line in this game was USC -24.  The score with 3 seconds left in the game the score was USC 45-17.   Stanford had the ball at the Trojan 25 with one last play to try and get the meaningless back door cover.  And then it got weird.  Instead of taking one last shot at the end zone Jim Harbaugh sent the field goal unit out.   Who the fuck does that?  A field goal would have made the final score 45-20 which means USC still would have covered by a point.  Regardless it was a very strange decision by Stanford.   But not to be outdone Pete Carroll pulled an equally mystifying move by calling a timeout to ice the kicker.   Let me repeat.  Pete Carroll tried to ICE THE KICKER in a 45-17 game on with 3 seconds left!  At that point we had officially left planet earth.  Anyway in response to the timeout Stanford changed their mind and sent the offense back on the field.  Naturally they connect on a 20 yard td to end the game.    Final Score USC 45 Stanford 23.   The Cardinal cover by a point.  I’ve literally never seen anything like it. 

Vs.

San Diego at Pitt  

Now onto to Sunday.   The line in this game was Pittsburgh -4.5.  They are up 11-10 when Troy Polamalu scores a defensive TD to end the game and give the Steelers the miracle cover.   But as you can see the referees decide to review the play even though it has no impact on the outcome of the game and the players were headed to the locker room.  Even more shocking is that the refs say Tomlinson made an illegal forward pass which is an automatic dead ball and took the score off the board.   But the best part is that after the game “referee Scott Green said the officials made a mistake and realized the touchdown should have counted, though it wouldn't have affected the result.”   Huh?    So let me get this straight.   The refs reviewed the TD even though they knew it wouldn’t affect the result.  They reversed the TD even though they knew it wouldn’t affect the result.  Afterwards they say they made the wrong decision, but it doesn’t matter because it didn’t affect the result.    Umm, well if getting it right doesn’t matter because it doesn’t affect the result then why did this play get reviewed in the first place?It makes no sense!  Oh and did I mention that the Steelers had a TD called back by a phantom holding penalty 2 minutes before this play occurred and the penalties in this game were about 100-2 against Pittsburgh and 75% of the betting public had the Steelers in this game? Hmm, something doesn't smell right here. Tim Donahy has nothing on the NFL. Only in Vegas baby!  Only in Vegas!

Anyway as far as what the worse gambling loss was I vote for the Pittsburgh game.   Yeah the Stanford vs. USC thing was bad, but at least the refs didn’t openly fuck you in the ass and then laugh about it afterwords which is exactly what seemed to happen in the Steeler game.  Either way if I had SD or USC I promise you I would have killed somebody by now. 

Vote 1 for USC and 10 for Pittsburgh