A pretty big portion of the public is convinced Manning is less effective in the postseason than in the regular season. Why wouldn’t this move the Vegas line at least a little bit? Conversely, Brady gained a strong reputation for being clutch early in his career. This obviously might impact the Vegas line a bit.

Yes, the lines have their issues but are, as a general rule, the most accurate predictor of future results — even more so than the SRS or pythagoras. Opening lines actually are grounded in the mathematical model, but they also are equipped to account for extra information and the wisdom of crowds. Sometimes that wisdom can be exploited (i.e., sharps “fading” the public), but over a large enough sample the error between the final margin of a game and its line follows a normal distribution centered around zero.

Re: Richie – My understanding is that they are aiming for even action on each side, in order to guarantee themselves profit on the vig. That’s not the same as predicting the final score, but amazingly, it works out to be the same thing in the long run.