What is going on? These guy lost to Evansville earlier in the year, but today should be payback, right?

1 comment  |  Add a comment

Monday night Football game Week 7:

In my pickem group, I have Baltimore -8 as my pick. It moved from Baltimore -7.5 on Monday to -8 on Wednesday. However, the pointspread didn't stop traveling since then and has gone up to -10 in most places according to Vegas Insider. My pick on Baltimore was made earlier in the week and based upon what I thought certain outcomes would be. So, given enough information I might bet the opposite now. I'm just weighing information right now and thus my decision of my pick is in flux.

1.The first thing to consider is the point spread change. It started from a "favorites'" point spread of 7.5 and moved to 10, another "favorites' pointspread". (Just as clarification,numbers on or just over field goals, touchdowns, and combinations of both veer towards the favorite winning the spread the majority of the times where as 2.5,6.5,9.5,13.5 are classical dog spreads.) So, why the point spread movement? Nobody was added to the lineup or subtracted via injury that I know of. So, I think money is the reason. Based on the likely assumption that money is the reason for the change in point spread so far, it means the books probably would like Jacksonville to win. They'd like Jacksonville to win because the money placement is so lopsided or lopsided enough that even their usual 10% cut will lose money if Baltimore wins the spread. So, does it matter if it's sharp's money or public money? I'd say yes, but in this case there will be so much money dumped on Baltimore that the sharps may have picked up the lower line and the public the higher line of 10 and probably going towards 10.5 and even 11 before kickoff.


2. Related to point spread change is popularity of the pick. How popular is Baltimore and how does this popularity relate to other Monday night records of popularity? The tool I'm using is yahoo's pickem for popularity. I think it's fairly accurate since it doesn't exclude anyone that is making picks regardless of money. Baltimore -10 is at 85% in week 7. This alone means nothing, since the Jets(last week's favorite) was at 82%. But combined with due factor, might be somewhat plausible.

3. Due factor concering Monday nights. It's known that Monday nights historically have lots of dogs that win at a higher rate than Sunday. Many times the dog wins outright. However, this year we really can't say that has been the trend, look: Week1 New England Favorite wins ATS, Raiders Push, week 2 Giants favorite wins ATS, week 3 Dallas favorite wins outright by 2 but does lose the spread(So, Favorites lead 2-1-1 if you're keeping count), Tampa Bay favorite wins outright but loses ATS (2-2-1), Detroit favorite wins ATS (3-2-1), Jets favorite wins ATS(4-2-1), and now Baltimore, the favorite ???? To me it looks like Baltimore is due to lose looking at this pattern.

Also on due factor, I think it's sometimes relative to look at Sunday night's game when analyzing Monday's night outcome. Sunday night historically has favorites that win at higher percentage than the rest of Sunday ATS. This year it started kind of upside down but then leveled out.... W1 FAV wins... W2 DOG,W3 DoG, W4 DOG, W5 Fav, W6 Fav, and W7 Fav (yesterday's blowout by the Saints). So, Favorites are back to their winning ways. But, combined with what usually happens on Monday night, this would indicate a Baltimore Loss ATS in week 7.



4. Something I caught on the live Cover's broadcast was the concept of "Margin of winning or defeat". They applied it to a college team and were saying that if a team blows out the spread on another team by more than 15 points( I don't remember the exact number here) on 10(again, I don't remember the exact # here) straight games, one should go with the streak. Obviously, this is the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of streak or due factor. In this case, they might be right. But I'd say in an overall conceptual kind of way, point spread adjustments are made to make it more difficult for a team to continually repeat their outcome. As evidence of this, I think I've only see one instance in the NFL where a team lost more than 7 consecutive point spreads. But anyways, you have to look at ATS results of specific outcomes. I'm new at this and want to see if anything comes up, but let's look at tonight's game of Baltimore @ Jacksonville. Baltimore ATS Margins per game are:
+26.5,-18.5,+24,+12,+8 Jacksonville's ATS margin per games from week 1 to current week are=>+3,-20,-2.5,-4.5,-7.5,+8.5. Notice how each team's margin is very close from the last game(8 vs.8.5). Notice how Baltimore is on a streak of winning their spreads, but at a reduced margin (+24,+12,+8) This pattern seems to be dropping right? If it continues to drop, Baltimore will lose the spread because the spread is at 10. I can't really tell anything looking at Jacksonville's margins ATS, but maybe somebody else sees something and can enlighten me.


5. Ok, so you call bull$hit on the aforementioned points. I'm still not sure, but I respect either opinion. What about Baltimore's schedule and their straight up outcomes? Baltimore wins huge at home in a revenge match against Pittsburgh in week 1. Then go on the road and lose to a much worse team, Tennessee in week 2. Well, Balitmore just beat Houston at home and now is going on the road to play Jacksonville. Doesn't this feel like the same position? Jacksonville did beat Tennessee in week 1 and only lost to Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh last week by 4. Since the sample size is so small, we can't rule out that Baltimore has trouble on the road. Their one victory on the road came against the lowly St. Louis Rams. This seems to point to Jacksonville and the points.

So, based on the above reasons I'm switching my earlier pick of Baltimore - points to Jacksonville + points.

Anyone have any reasons to pick Baltimore minus the points? I'd love to hear them.

0 comments  |  Add a comment