An NFL Puzzle Pick for Sunday
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.
Try to teach a man to fish, but he says, “Why should I have to go fishing, just give me some of yours!” and you KNOW what party he votes for.
(I keep politics out of my columns so I won’t say which one; you know who you are.)
But I digress.
Here’s a game I’m going to buy for Sunday.
(Waiting though, as the opening line is going higher.)
This article is strictly for those who like to handicap themselves (my attempt to “Teach a man to fish.”)
There is no pick in it.
But there is.
You just have to fish for it.
I’ll give you the stats, you can figure the rest out for yourself (or not.)
It gets a little boring sometimes just giving picks and analysis, so I toss in a puzzle every once in a while for bettors who like to figure things out for themselves.
This one is not a brain teaser, not a lot of thought required, just a little data research.
The play is based on the simplest of concepts:
Books don’t like to pay people.
They like to collect from people.
Years ago, when I was a wee young sports bettor, I wondered at what point the Books adjust the line enough to make sure that they don’t keep paying people who are jumping on a team’s winning streak.
Was it three straight games ATS?
Four? Seven?
I put a lot of time into it, using different numbers (between three and eight) and checking out the ATS record for their following games.
And I came up with a decent win percentage for one certain number.
I abandoned it years ago because I developed more sophisticated situational spots to use for my handicapping.
But while looking over this week’s games I noticed something that caught my eye and brought this old system back to mind.
Here are your clues:
2025.
The system (model, method, trend, whatever) has only appeared once (and unfortunately I wasn’t aware that the play was active and didn’t use it.)
November 2nd, New England was playing Atlanta.
The Pats lost ATS.
Look at their results for the five games before the Falcons.
2025: This Bet AGAINST spot is 1-0.
Let’s go back to last year.
2024
November 21st, Pittsburgh was at Cleveland.
They lost ATS.
Look at their results for the five games before the Browns.
You’ll find similar results for Denver when they faced the Chargers on 12/19, Green Bay when they took on Minnesota 12/29, and Minnesota 10/20 against Detroit.
The ATS record for the play that year was 6-2.
Two year record, last year and this season, 7-2.
2023:
Only three games qualified (not including the Superbowl, which is a whole other animal.)
Record: 2-1
Three year record, 9-3.
Teams in this spot have covered at a rate of 75% over the last three years.
But All that Glitters is not necessarily gold.
The two year period before that saw a record of 5-9.
Nothing – no system, trend, model, streak – lasts forever or wins all the time.
The 5-9 doesn’t look good, but Rd spots were 2-2 so you have a sharper edge on Rd spots, like this week’s play AGAINST team (and that clue, re: location, just cut your handicapping work in half.)
My play:
Well, have some fun with it.
See if you can find it.
But don’t become SLEEPLESS trying to figure out who to bet AGAINST (And that movie related clue is the last hint you’ll get out of me.)
For the lazy coconut heads out there who aren’t inclined to do stat work, check out the Forum on Sunday. I’ll post the pick there.
(And if you’re thinking, “Well, he’s going to post it in the forum anyway, I’m not going to try and figure it out. I’ll just get it on Sunday morning” know this – there’s always the chance I might get hit by a bus between now and then.
And you’ll be screwed.)
