2012 Week 9 NFL Picks

Dallas Cowboys at Atlanta Falcons: Week 9 NFL Pick

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Dallas Cowboys (3-4) at Atlanta Falcons (7-0)

The Falcons are great at home, they’re undefeated, and the Cowboys are a laughing stock. How do they not win by 4 right? Well, as is often the case in betting, when something is too good to be true, it generally is. I think that’s the case here, especially since the line opened at -5 and has dropped despite heavy action on Atlanta.

While Atlanta is 7-0, I’m still not sold on them. 4 of their 7 wins have come by a touchdown or less. They’ve been very reliant on winning the turnover margin, which is inconsistent on a week to week basis. They rank just 19th in yards per play differential and 4th in rate of sustaining drives differential. And they haven’t really played anyone of note, except Denver, and that was not the same Broncos team they are now because Peyton Manning hadn’t gotten going yet. Besides, they go into this game without top linebacker Sean Weatherspoon. Spoon isn’t someone a lot of people know about, but he’s one of the best linebackers in the league and a huge loss for the Falcons.

Dallas, meanwhile, is seen as the laughing stock of the league, but they rank 8th in yards per play differential and 7th in rate of sustaining drives differential. The biggest issue, by far, has been turnover differential so far for them, as they have a turnover differential of -11, 2nd worst in the NFL. The good news is that turnover differentials are incredibly inconsistent, as I said before. Going off that, teams that lose despite throwing for 400 yards are 13-7 ATS in their next game as dogs.

Tony Romo, specifically, has an interception rate of 4.6% this year. Despite his reputation as a turnover machine, his interception rate was only 2.8% coming into the season. In fact, the 13 interceptions he has this year is the most he’s had in a season since 2008, and it’s been 7 games. That will regress to the mean going forward. I’m actually impressed they were able to keep it so close with the Giants despite losing the turnover battle by 4. Their defense is much improved over last season thanks to all the resources they put into it.

We can use the yards per play differential and rate of sustaining drives differential to calculate real line. According to the rate of sustaining drives method, this line should be -4.5 and according to yards per play differential, this line should be a pick em. All of a sudden, this 4 point line doesn’t seem so ridiculous any more. It has all the ingredients of being a “too good to be true” trap line. Atlanta isn’t as good as their record. Dallas isn’t as bad. Atlanta is missing a key player. The already suspiciously low line is dropping despite heavy public action on Atlanta.

Speaking of too good to be true lines, Atlanta’s games seem to frequently have those. They’ve been -7.5 for Carolina, -9 for Oakland, +2.5 in Philadelphia, -3 in Washington, etc. That’s not done on purpose. The odds makers know they’re overrated. As good as they are at home (15-6 ATS as non-divisional favorites), they’ve still almost lost to home to Oakland and Carolina. If they can keep it close with the Falcons in Atlanta, so can Dallas.

Teams almost never go undefeated over the course of a season for a reason. It’s so easy to lose a game you’re supposed to win. Green Bay lost to Kansas City last year. Atlanta can lose to Dallas here. It’s not ridiculous. Besides, this game means so much more to Dallas, who is fighting for their playoff lives and playing for respect. Teams are 124-78 ATS off a loss by a touchdown or fewer as divisional home dogs since 1989.

Atlanta, meanwhile, is already 4 games up in their division. They won their respect game last week as dogs. They won’t care as much about this one. Week 5 or later, undefeated teams are 4-8 ATS as favorites off a win as dogs, 1-8 ATS in non-divisional contests.  Yes, this game is on Sunday Night Football, but the Falcons probably won’t care. They’ve already had a National TV game. Besides, the Texans didn’t seem to care about being on National TV when they lost to the Packers on Sunday Night a few weeks ago. Even if the Falcons win, I think it’ll be another close win for them and another heartbreaking loss for the Cowboys, so I like getting more than a field goal with the Cowboys.

Public lean: Atlanta (new thing I’m adding, siding with the odds makers on bets is not a bad thing to do since they make so much money, so I’m listing this here to allow readers to “fade” the public, if they so choose, in this example, the odds makers win if Dallas covers)

Sharps lean: DAL 28 ATL 1

Final update: This is amazing. Of the 44 sharps in my sample size (those with records of 24-15 or better in LV Hilton), 28 of them are taking the Cowboys this week as one of their top 5 picks, while only one is taking Atlanta. I haven’t seen anything like this before. I’m putting an extra unit on the Cowboys and making this my pick of the week.

Dallas Cowboys 24 Atlanta Falcons 20 Upset Pick +175

Pick against spread: Dallas +4 (-110) 5 units

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Oakland Raiders: Week 9 NFL Pick

stevenlourie 2012 NFL Picks, 2012 Week 9 NFL Picks, Buccaneers, Raiders

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3-4) at Oakland Raiders (3-4)

After unimpressive wins over the Jaguars and Chiefs, the Raiders now sit at 3-4 and are somehow in the AFC playoff mix. However, they still aren’t very good. They have a point differential of -42. They got blown out in Oakland and in Miami and they weren’t impressive in either of their last 2 wins against crappy teams. They beat the Steelers in Oakland, but the Titans beat them in Tennessee. They also lost at home to San Diego and while they played the Falcons tough in Atlanta, so did the Panthers.

The Buccaneers, meanwhile, are at 3-4 as well, but they come from a tougher conference (the NFC is 20-12 against the AFC) and they’ve had more impressive wins. They also have a +31 points differential and they have yet to lose by more than a touchdown all year. Josh Freeman is 82 of 143 (57.3%) for 1309 yards (9.2 YPA), 10 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions in his last 4 games.

He’s a natural deep ball thrower who was afraid to throw deep last season, throwing longer than 20 yards through the air on just 6.5% of his throws, by far least in the league, despite being accurate of 52.8% of them, 3rd best in the NFL. This year, thanks to new found chemistry with free agent acquisition Vincent Jackson, he is going deep 6th most in the league, 13.5% and, more importantly, has the 3rd highest accuracy percentage, 56.7%, completing 16 of 30 for 669 yards and 3 touchdowns, with 1 drop. I believe this is here to stay.

In spite of this, Oakland is favorites here, even if only by 1 point. The yards per play method actually suggests they should be 5.5 point favorites, but the rate of sustaining drives method suggests this should be a pick em. Tampa Bay has the momentum right now, so I don’t think there’s line value either way. Tampa Bay is also in a good spot as dogs before being favorites. Teams are 86-49 ATS in this spot since 2011. They host San Diego next week.

Meanwhile, Oakland is in a bunch of bad spots here as favorites. Bad teams in general struggle as favorites and I think they are a bad team. Demonstrating this, the Raiders are actually 9-27 ATS as favorites since 2003, going back to the year after their last winning season. Furthermore, home favorites are 146-225 ATS before being dogs in 3+ straight since 1989, which makes sense since those teams to be bad teams. Oakland’s next 3 games send them to Baltimore, home for New Orleans, and to Cincinnati.

Speaking of that Baltimore game, they could be 10 point dogs there. Teams are 25-48 ATS as favorites before being 10+ dogs since 2002. Again, bad teams are bad as favorites. When they are coming off another game in which they were dogs, that record is 17-34 ATS. This goes well with the sandwich game trend. Favorites are 81-117 ATS before and after being dogs since 2008.

Teams are also just 2-10 ATS as favorites before being 10+ dogs after a win as dogs since 2002. That expands to 8-21 ATS since 1989. They could also be just 7+ dogs next week, but it wouldn’t make much difference. Since 1989, teams are 29-57 ATS as favorites after being dogs before being 7+ dogs, 13-31 ATS after a win as dogs.

These are all variations of the sandwich game trend and they demonstrate the fact that bad teams struggle as favorites. We’re getting points with the better team here, I believe. All of the trends are against Oakland. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay is rested off Thursday Night football. Teams are 114-93 ATS on Sunday Night after Thursday Night. They’re also in their 2nd straight road game. This tends to be a good spot. Teams are 191-138 ATS in their 2nd straight road game since 2008, including 94-61 ATS in their 2nd straight as road dogs and 30-19 ATS off a win as road dogs. It’s strongest with road dogs off a road loss, but there’s a trend in this situation here too.

This would be a bigger pick if we were getting line value. This line shifted 2 points in the last week because of Tampa Bay’s strong showing on Thursday Night Football and Tampa Bay is a public dog this week. However, I still like the Buccaneers. Instead of putting 3 units on the spread and 1 on the money line, I’m putting all 4 on the money line. It’s not worth the extra 15 cents to get protection from a one point loss.

Public lean: Tampa Bay (new thing I’m adding, siding with the odds makers on bets is not a bad thing to do since they make so much money, so I’m listing this here to allow readers to “fade” the public, if they so choose, in this example, the odds makers win if Oakland covers)

Sharps lean: TB 14 OAK 4

Final update: Another sharps lean lining up with one of my big picks. Good to see. I think I’ll add a unit. I feel really good about this week.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 27 Oakland Raiders 20 Upset Pick +105 5 units

Pick against spread: Tampa Bay +1 (-110) 0 units

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Baltimore Ravens at Cleveland Browns: Week 9 NFL Pick

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Baltimore Ravens (5-2) at Cleveland Browns (2-6)

Road favorites are 42-15 ATS off a bye. That makes sense. Road favorites tend to be very good teams and very good teams tend to be extra focused with a week off. The Browns kind of got screwed over by the schedulers because they have two straight games at home as dogs against a team coming off a bye. Last week, they hosted the Chargers and were 3 point home dogs. However, the Chargers didn’t deserve to be road favorites, especially against the underrated Browns, who are now 4-3-1 ATS on the year. As a result, the Browns were able to pull off a “surprising” upset.

This week, however, they face a Ravens team that does deserve to be road favorites and divisional road favorites off a bye are 20-3 ATS since 2002. They certainly didn’t look like it before the bye in a 43-13 loss to the Texans. Because that loss came immediately after the game in which they lost Ray Lewis and Lardarius Webb for the season, a lot of people assume that they’re going to play like that going forward. However, the defense is not at fault. Yes, they allowed 420 total yards, but before they lost Lewis and Webb, they were already allowing 396.7 yards per game and they were 5-1.

The reason they were 5-1 despite poor defensive play was their offense, which was averaging 385 yards per play going into that Houston game. Against Houston, they managed just 176 yards of offense. Joe Flacco did what Joe Flacco does on occasion and had a terrible game. He went 21 of 43 for 147 yards, 1 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions.

However, as inconsistent as Flacco is, he always bounces back. He has won his last 14 straight games off a loss. He’s 5-1 ATS off a loss of 10+. He’s also 3-1 ATS off a game in which he threw more than 20 incompletions. He should have a bounce back game against a much easier Cleveland defense, especially off a bye. He’s 4-0 ATS off a bye.  The defense won’t play well, but they weren’t playing well before the injuries either and they still went 5-1.

Contrary to popular belief, they have yet to miss Lardarius Webb or Ray Lewis. Besides, as much as the Ravens struggle outside the division as road favorites, they’re 5-2 ATS in the division in the Joe Flacco era. On top of that, teams are 30-16 ATS before being 10+ point favorites since 2011. Teams tend to be extra focused in this spot. The Ravens host Oakland next week. Meanwhile, the Browns are in a bad spot as home dogs off of a close home upset (1-3 points). Teams are 21-34 ATS in this spot since 2002.

We are getting some line value with the Browns as the yards per play method says this line should be -2.5 in favor of Baltimore and the rate of sustaining drives method says this should be a pick em. However, that Houston game where they lost the yards per play battle 5.5 to 3.0 and the first down battle 27 to 12 skewed both of those statistics. They should be able to bounce back and the trends are in their favor.

Besides, in the AFC North, the Browns and Bengals have always had trouble against the Ravens and Steelers. The Bengals and the Browns are a combined 22-63 against the Ravens and Steelers since 2002, when the divisions were realigned. Specifically, the Browns are 5-16 against the Ravens. They’ve dropped their last 9 against them and they are 3-6 ATS in those 9 games. I don’t think they’re good enough to beat the Ravens yet.

This would be a bigger play on the Ravens, but there are two things stopping me. The first is just that I’d be more comfortable with the Ravens if the line was -3 or lower. I’m confident the Ravens will win, but they’ve had some close calls this year (wins by 31, 1, 7, 3, and 2), so I’d be more confident if they had field goal protection.

The 2nd reason is that the public is heavily betting on Baltimore. I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case after their fluky blowout loss to the Texans, but it is. I hate betting on heavy public leans. It is good to see, however, that the line is climbing along with the heavy public lean, so there’s no danger of this being a trap line. The Ravens should be the right side though, so it’s a significant lean. That 20-3 ATS trend is hard to go against.

Public lean: Baltimore (new thing I’m adding, siding with the odds makers on bets is not a bad thing to do since they make so much money, so I’m listing this here to allow readers to “fade” the public, if they so choose, in this example, the odds makers win if Cleveland covers)

Sharps lean: BAL 15 CLE 6

Final update: Of my 6 big plays this week, 5 of them lined up with heavy sharps leans. I feel really good about this week. However, I’m staying put at just 3 here. I really wish we had field goal protection with the Ravens though.

Baltimore Ravens 27 Cleveland Browns 20

Pick against spread: Baltimore -3.5 (-110) 3 units

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Kansas City Chiefs at San Diego Chargers: Week 9 NFL Pick

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Kansas City Chiefs (1-6) at San Diego Chargers (3-4)

Side note: It’s week 9 already?!?!? What?!?!?!?

On Thursday Night, the rule of thumb is to take the home team, assuming they’re favorites, as home favorites are 45-27 ATS on Thursday Nights. This makes sense. The home team not only doesn’t have to travel on a short week, meaning they get more valuable time to practice, game plan, and rest, but they’re also typically a more veteran, experienced team who won’t be fazed by playing on short rest. This trend didn’t work last week as Minnesota lost as home favorites to the Buccaneers, but there’s a simple explanation for that and it’s just that Minnesota is not a veteran, experienced team, despite being favorites, which is why it wasn’t a big play on the hosts.

San Diego is the more veteran, experienced team here and playing at home, but they’re also divisional home favorites. Divisional home favorites are just 17-16 ATS on Thursday Nights. This makes sense. Having familiarity with a team, like the Chiefs do with division rival San Diego, nullifies some of the effects of being a young, inexperienced team on the road on a short week. Besides, while the Chargers are technically a veteran, experienced team, you can’t really say they won’t be fazed by playing on a short week. I’m not sure there’s anything that you can say won’t faze them considering how horribly coached they are.

Philip Rivers has a strong career record off a loss as favorites, going 14-9 ATS in this situation in his career, including 12-6 ATS when favored again. This makes sense because good quarterbacks always tend to bounce back after disappointing losses. However, I’m not sure this is the same Philip Rivers anymore. I thought his high turnover rate from 2011 was an outlier and that he’d bounce back, especially since he played so much better in the 2nd half of last season (14 interceptions in games 1-8 and 6 in games 9-16). After all, Eli Manning threw 25 picks in 2010 and he didn’t have such a bad 2011.

However, Rivers’ struggles seem to have carried over into this season. Not only has his turnover rate remained the same, but his YPA of 6.8 YPA is a career low and down over a whole yard per play from his “disappointing 2011.” He doesn’t look like the same player as he was from 2006-2010. Some of the blame falls on his supporting cast. The Chargers have 10 draft picks in the first 3 rounds in the last 3 years and only 2 of them have been used on offensive players, including one, Vincent Brown, who is currently out with an injury (the other is Ryan Mathews). At the same time, no late round picks from those 3 drafts have stepped up and become starters offensively.

Meanwhile, they’ve let key offensive players like Vincent Jackson and Darren Sproles walk out the door without replacing them and key cogs in this offense from Rivers’ heyday like Marcus McNeill, Kris Dielman, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Antonio Gates are either retired or not playing at nearly the same level, without being properly replaced. Some of the blame can fall on Rivers himself. In his age 31 season, he doesn’t seem to be the same player, for whatever reason. Either way, I don’t see his season turning around this week, especially off 3 days rest.

For the Chiefs, they have a different kind of quarterback issue, namely that all of theirs suck. However, the lesser of two terrible quarterbacks is starting this week as Brady Quinn suffered a concussion, meaning Matt Cassel will make this start on short rest. I thought the decision to start Quinn was a mistake (unless the goal was to secure the #1 overall pick).

Cassel was turning the ball over at an incredible rate, but that was bound to regress to the mean eventually. Right now, he has a interception rate of 4.9%, almost double his career rate of 2.5% (not including this season). Meanwhile, they have a turnover differential of -18. That won’t continue. Not only are they on pace to shatter the record of -30 (they’re on pace for -41), a record that’s stood since 1965, turnovers differential is also inconsistent on a week to week basis, as seen here.  Even if they break that record and finish with say a turnover differential of -31, that’s an average of -1.4 per game the rest of the way, which is barely half as bad as what they’ve done through 7 games (-2.6 per game).

Cassel also offers a career YPA that was over a yard per play better than Quinn’s. Even last week in relief against the Raiders, he looked much better than Quinn ever did in his limited action. Before Cassel went down, this team ranked better in yards per play differential and rate of sustaining drive differential than they do now. With Cassel back under center, that should improve and unless he continues to throw interceptions at a rate almost double his career rate and the Chiefs continue to lose the turnover battle at a record pace, they’ll look improved with Cassel under center. They won’t be good or anything, but they should be able to hang with a Charger team that isn’t very good either.

Even at their current yards per play differential and rate of sustaining drives, we are getting line value with the Chiefs at +7.5. The rate of sustaining drives method gives us a calculated “real” line of +7 and the yards per play method gives us a calculated “real” line of +6.5 and that’s including some of Brady Quinn’s playing time. Again, they won’t be good with Matt Cassel under center, but the Chargers aren’t very good either and as long as Cassel is starting, the Chargers don’t deserve to be more than touchdown favorites over them.

The trends also say Kansas City is the right spot. Divisional home favorites like the Chargers are 10-27 ATS off a loss as non-divisional road favorites since 2002. The Chargers lost to the Browns in Cleveland last week. Meanwhile, teams with 1 win or fewer like the Chiefs are 77-42 ATS as divisional dogs after week 8 since 1989. I think the reason for this is twofold. One, these tend to be huge respect games for the bad team. Two, they have an advantage in a divisional game that they wouldn’t have in any other game because it’s a divisional opponent that they know, so they’re undervalued based purely off their record.

I hate betting on a team like the Chiefs, especially as dogs on a Thursday Night, but I like the Chiefs to keep this close for a small play. Unfortunately, San Diego is also my survivor pick this week on a bad week for survivor. Everyone in my top-14 in my Power Rankings has either already been picked or is playing another top-14 team, except Denver who travels to Cincinnati. It was close between the Broncos and Chargers for survivor this week, but I hate picking road teams. San Diego is #15 and Kansas City is #31, so I like the Chargers to win, though I think the Chiefs will cover the 7.5 point spread. Also, I like the under as the under is 70-52 on Thursday Nights.

Public lean: San Diego (new thing I’m adding, siding with the odds makers on bets is not a bad thing to do since they make so much money, so I’m listing this here to allow readers to “fade” the public, if they so choose, in this example, the odds makers win if Kansas City covers)

San Diego Chargers 17 Kansas City Chiefs 13 Survivor Pick (HOU, NE, NO, BAL, SF, ATL, CHI, GB)

Pick against spread: Kansas City +7.5 (-110) 2 units

Total: Under 41.5 (-110) 1 unit

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Week 8 NFL Picks Results

stevenlourie 2012 NFL Picks, 2012 Week 9 NFL Picks

Week 8 Results

ATS: 7-7 -1 unit/-$270

SU: 11-3

Upset Picks: 3-0 +490

Over/Under: 1-1 -10

Total: +$210

Public Results ATS*: 6-8 -1 unit

2012 results to date

ATS: 57-56-5 +10 units/-$395

SU: 74-44

Upset Picks: 22-21 +$1540

Over/Under: 5-2-1 +280

Parlays: 1-0 +100

Total: +1535

Survivor: 6-2 (HOU, NE, NO, BAL, SF, ATL, CHI, GB)

Public Results ATS*: 51-65-2 -31 units

*I’m doing this to see how the general public does. Based on percent of bets on each team, if the more popularly bet team covers, it’s a public win, if not, it’s a public loss. If a team that has 50-59% of the action on it covers, the public gets “one unit,” if they don’t cover, they lose one unit, 60-69% is 2, 70-79% is 3, etc.