another successful NFL season for everyone involved with the newsletter. i think we've set aside a nice little corner of this site where we can discuss NFL handicapping and come up with some good plays each week without the avalanche of nonsense and useless information that pervades the nfl forum.
two items of note from yesterday that are worth noting. for some reason, people want to give extra points just because a team that needs the win is playing one that doesn't. as we said in the newsletter, if this is your angle for a bet, it's a bad idea. obviously, everyone in the market knows who needs to win and who doesn't. the line is going to reflect that and in many cases, over-reflect that. i would never assume this means a team is likely to cover. some teams don't handle that pressure well. plus, the team that doesn't need to win is often as motivated by an opportunity to ruin another team's playoff chances, albeit without the pressure of having the playoffs on the line. and of course, most importantly, the line is often inflated. in that scenario, all else being equal, give me the team that is motivated with no pressure and a couple of extra points of value over the team that is also motivated, has more pressure and is giving a couple extra points.
secondly, one of our QB angles went 2-0 yesterday after going 2-1 the week before. what we are talking about is when the line moves against a team that is starting a backup Qb when the backup could easily be as good or better than the starter on any given sunday. so, what we look for is a team with an average to bad starter (Smith, Fiztpatrick, Hoyer) losing his job for whatever reason to a backup and the line moving against that team. it doesn't really matter who the backup is.
yesterday, we had shaw starting for cleveland over hoyer/manziel. could anyone legitimately say would would do better on any given sunday among shaw, hoyer and manziel? i wouldn't think so. so, if the line goes up because shaw is starting, those are free points. in this case, the line went way up. that made it an auto play.
KC was a little different. smith is more of an established QB but he hasn't played well at all lately. daniel? who cares how he is. more importantly, who knows how he is for one game. the line shouldn't move off of 3 down to 0 going from smith to daniel. ultimately, it only moved half a point but the 3 to 2.5 move is a huge half a point especially with a tight game between two teams that know each other well with a low total.
keep those in mind for next year. or, just subscribe to the newsletter because we'll be ready for them.
now, on to the playoffs. for some reason, people bet more during the playoffs or feel like they need to bet every game. the playoffs are harder. there's rarely, if ever, value to be found. at least the value we tend to look for. when there are only 4 or 2 games a weekend, the line is going to be right. the question is whether you can pick the right side of a fairly valued line. that's never an easy thing to do.
normally, there are a couple of matchups we really look forward to in the playoffs. this year, i can't think of any. i'd like to bet against Pitt at some point and denver. not sure what else right now.
we already started the discussion last night. i'll just vopy and paste those over and go from there.