NFL Weekly Picks – A Technical Analysis

Written by: Stirling Steelehttp://weekly-picks.com/The NFL Football season is fast approaching. The memory of last seasons dramaticfinale is still fresh in a lot of minds and speculation is abound as to what the seasoncoming has in store.Many will start office NFL weekly picks contests and perhaps your local club will haveit's own sweeps or selection competitions. Some will venture further afield and actuallytake a punt with legal bookmaking firms and get their money down on NFL weekly picks. How punters arrive at these selections is the topic of this discussion.Many approach the question of which team will win from what is known as a'fundamental' approach. That is, which team on the raw facts and figures is superior allowing for things such as home ground advantage, weather and injuries.Others will approach the task of a profitable play from what is called a 'technical' aspect.In using a technical approach one considers many factors including the market price onoffer from bookmaking firms. Market psychology is a major aspect and it is here I willconcentrate our discussion for today.For simplicity we will focus on the market known as At The Spread (ATS) where oneteam is afforded a points advantage or handicap over the opposition. For example, theGiants maybe afforded a 3.5 point start over the Browns. This means you will win your bet if either the Giants win the game outright or even if they lose by up to 3 points. If you were to bet the Browns ATS in this scenario the Browns would need to win thecontest by at least 4 points for you to collect.The market is set by a handful of leading Bookmaking firms in the week leading up tothe game. The remaining Bookmaking outlets then set their lines (or market) byfollowing the lead set by the major Bookmaking firms.When setting the early markets the major Bookmaking firms make an assessment of where the line (market) should be according to their considered and expert opinion. But before offering those lines the firms make further computations – in particular theymake an allowance of where they believe the broader public opinion would expect the

market to be established.So on the one hand we have Bookmakers opinion and on the other hand the assessed public opinion market line which in some instances could be identical. The leadingBookmaking firms then set the early market lines at a comfortable balance between thetwo.It is critical to profitable performance to understand the psychology at play here. The broader public opinion tends to over estimate performance, good or bad, the impact of injuries, the effect of weather, home ground advantage, last game performance, rumors,and the list goes on and on. The broader public opinion has a short memory span. Itover emphasizes the impact of recent events as against long term trends. There isn'troom enough in this paper for a full discussion on this critically important facet of profitable punting whether it be on the NFL or any other sporting event.For illustration purposes I will mention two aspects of NFL market phenoma that youcan test and compare yourself.The first involves the prior season Super Bowl Champions. History dictates they perform very poorly ATS in the first three games of the season following. The broader public over estimates their ability into the new season and the Bookmakers set their early ATS lines accordingly in anticipation of such irrationality. There is profit to bemade by blindly backing against the previous season Super Bowl Champions ATS for the first 3 games of the new season.Turnover statistics are a compelling indicator of which team wins a game outright. Theteam committing more turnovers during a course of a game loses almost 90% of thetime. And more importantly the broader public are well aware of this fact andoverestimate it's effect into the future.In arriving at a pick the broader public will assess turnover statistics and over estimatethe chances of the team with the superior turnover record. For our purposes will start to pick teams ATS with a markedly worse turnover statistic after 3 games into the newseason. So if a team is averaging at least 1 more turnover more per game than thecurrent opposition, then the team with the worse turnover record becomes the pick ATS.Simple.This approach becomes even more profitable as the season progresses. Historicallyteams with the worse turnover statistic at mid-season go on to improve (minimize)turnovers over the concluding part of the season. Think about it. And think about the