Posted on 10/18/2007 5:28:49 PM

NFL Betting: The Trouble with Leftwich

By BetUS Staff

We touched last column on the perils of doing your NFL betting homework and making your picks early in the week. Once again (to paraphrase Roddy Piper), just when you thought you had all the answers, the Atlanta Falcons have changed the question.

At least we can’t blame shoddy reporting this time. And it’s not like it wasn’t in the cards. But it’s still going to be a whole new ball game on Sunday when the Falcons visit the New Orleans Saints. Coach Bobby Petrino announced on Wednesday that his starting quarterback against the Saints, and for the rest of the season, will be Byron Leftwich. Joey Harrington will watch from the sidelines.

The NFL odds budged ever so slightly on Tuesday afternoon, the same day Petrino says he made the decision in a staff meeting to bench Harrington. The Saints had opened as 9-point favorites, but that spread drifted to 8.5 points, where it remained at press time after the official announcement. Not that we’re insinuating the line move had to do with the quarterback change. If anything, the switch from Harrington to Leftwich could make it more difficult for the Falcons to cash in.

Harrington has been a human punching bag ever since he came out of college. He led the Oregon Ducks to a 25-3 record in three seasons as a starter, finished fourth in the 2001 Heisman voting, and was drafted third overall by the Detroit Lions in 2002. A long and painful story made short, Harrington has improved bit by bit as a pro, but he’s never shaken off the “bust” label.

The quality of the teams he’s played for has a lot to do with it: Detroit, Miami, and now the rebuilding Falcons. The advanced stats are in Harrington’s favor: Last year, he was 29th among starting QBs in DPAR (Defense-adjusted Points Above Replacement) at 5.7, despite playing just 11 games. Leftwich had 3.7 DPAR in six games for the vastly superior Jacksonville Jaguars before missing the rest of the year with an ankle injury.

This year, Leftwich lost his starting job to David Garrard and was released. Harrington, meanwhile, is 13th among quarterbacks after six starts at 19.4 DPAR, just behind Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger (20.3) and ahead of Denver’s Jay Cutler (18.6). Those two QBs won’t be benched anytime soon.

The Falcons’ problems go far deeper than the man behind center. The Saints might not have the talent to fully exploit Atlanta’s injury-riddled offensive line, but unless the Falcons’ wide receivers were dropping those Harrington passes on purpose last week against the Giants, putting Leftwich on the field appears purely cosmetic at best.

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