In the first week of NFL action, two top AFC teams from the 2006 season were matched up against the NFC championship pairing of Chicago and New Orleans. This would give handicappers and fans a great chance to evaluate where the conferences stood right now, on the cusp of the 2007 campaign.

Defending Super Bowl champion Indianapolis absolutely crushed NFC runner-up New Orleans 41-10, putting over 450 yards in the stat book. San Diego, coming off a 14-2 campaign, shut down defending NFC champ Chicago 14-3. That’s a combined rout of 55-13, in games where the AFC teams were roughly touchdown favorites.

Even though everyone knew the AFC was much better, the wagering market still understated the nature of that edge to an extreme degree. Of course, what’s true at the top of the heap may not be true for the conferences as a whole. Were there other AFC/NFC matchups last weekend that might shed some more light on handicapping potential?

There were two:

• Miami of the AFC would have covered at the end of regulation, but ended up pushing as a 3-point underdog at Washington of the NFC in a 16-13 loss.
• Oakland, the worst team in the AFC last year lost at home to the NFC’s Detroit 36-21 as a small favorite.

So, it wasn’t a clean sweep for the AFC. It’s clearly not safe to lay points with bad AFC teams! But, over the four-game stretch, the AFC was 3-1 ATS at the end of 60 minutes, with a combined scoreboard advantage in regulation of 89-62 versus a combined spread of about two touchdowns.

For now, you’d have to conclude there’s an advantage for the stronger conference that isn’t yet properly reflected in Las Vegas pointspreads. Let’s see if that continues in a whopping 10 interconference games on the schedule the next two weeks.

THIS WEEK (AFC team listed first)

• Houston at Carolina
• Jacksonville hosts Atlanta
• Miami hosts Dallas
• Kansas City at Chicago

NEXT WEEK

• San Diego at Green Bay
• Kansas City hosts Minnesota
• Pittsburgh hosts San Francisco
• Baltimore hosts Arizona
• Cincinnati visits Seattle
• Tennessee visits New Orleans

With powerful Indianapolis and New England NOT listed, we’ll have a much better sense of how the conferences as a whole stack up against each other after those games are played. Then, we can use that knowledge the rest of the season if the lines aren’t reflecting reality.  But where’s the best place to take advantage of that knowledge?

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