Bob Costas on overtime

Pretty small edge!!!!!!

If this was a bet, 60% would translate into -150 odds.  What you are saying is that a game with -160/+140 odds is a virtual pick 'em. 

Ummm...I'd like to bet against you.

Blame Kubiak...not the kicker

https://www.covers.com/postingforum/post01/showmessage.aspx?spt=21&sub=100595550

Whats more like -120/even?

The odds of a 60% team winning?!?

Its a basic mathematical fact that if a team is 60%, their true odds are -150.  If a team is 40%, their true odds are +150.

This isn't an opinion.  Its simple math...using a formula that we all know (or I thought we all did).

I mean you can debate whether a team has a 55% chance of winning or a 65% chance of winning and with all the situational statistics, etc.  the number is always open to debate. 

But once you know what that number is, you convert that number into true odds and there is no "like xxx", it is xxx. 

What you just said was the equivalent of saying a dollar is more like 65 cents than it is 100 cents.

It just makes no sense.

I'm sorry.  I might have come off as a condescending jerk.  Sometimes internet me gets the best of me.

Here's the formula.  For favorites:

-100 * Odds of winning/odds of losing

For Dogs

+100 * Odds of losing/odds of winning

So a 60% team is 60/40 = -1.5 * 100 = -150

A 40% team is 40/60 * 100 = +150

If you want to do it the other way to get percentage odds when your quoted odds its:

Favorite: oddsoffered/( oddsoffered-100)

Dog: 100/(100+oddsoffered)

So in this case its -150/(-150-100) = -150/(-250) = 60%

You program these formulas into Excel. 

Is it 60% on the opening drive; 73% overall??

That is a huge advantage.  73% is almost 3-1...roughly the same as the Yankees best pitcher facing the Nationals worst in Yankee Stadium.

I always thought the number was less than 50% on the opening drive...60% overall.  Haven't looked it up recently.

Honestly, anything over 52% is just wrong.  What do you think of my bidding idea?  It would basically guarantee 50%...plus it would be as quick and easy as a coin flip.

OK....saying a team is 40% to win doesn't mean they are going to lose.  I don't know why people think like this.  Obviously, 40% teams win sometimes....ummm 40% of the time. 

Its still not nearly right.

No its not 90%....but the NFL will routinely stop the game and bring out the sticks to see if someone is one or two inches short.

They will stop the game for minutes to analyze about a millimeter's distance on replay. 

Then a really close game ends in a tie and they give an enormous head start to one team based purely on random chance. 

Its a strange way of doing things....

Its also another example of a system that made sense initially but  nobody would have thought was a good idea if they just thought of it is allowed to stay purely out of inertia. 

In London, they made a law in the late 1800s that taxis had to carry a bale of hay in case their horses got hungry downtown.  Of course, soon thereafter, taxicabs started changing from horse drawn carraiges to motorcars.  They didn't change the law until 1976!!! Taxi drivers were still hauling around hay for no good reason well after we landed a man on the moon. 

Don't let fear of change get in the way of removing stupid rules.

...and your point is....