Your weekly digest of sports betting tips and news, delivered at 10am Eastern every Saturday.
Bud Elliott and closing line value – Headlines proclaim the winning record of someone’s bets. However, closing line value is a better metric with which to evaluate bets, especially with a small sample size from the current season.
Bud Elliott of 247Sports posts his college football bets for the next week every Sunday. For his week 7 predictions for sides and totals (last weekend’s games on October 16), the market moved in his favor on 30 of 36 bets. Only 6 games stayed at the same value or moved the opposite way.
Bud got closing line value on 83.3% of his bets, an excellent rate. While there is no more value in his week 8 bets, get notified of his Sunday column by following Bud on Twitter.
Injuries – Unless otherwise noted, these injuries were checked with ESPN NFL injuries and Don Best college football.
- Tampa Bay will be without four of its high-profile players against Chicago: TE Rob Gronkowski, WR Antonio Brown, LB Lavonte David and CB Richard Sherman.
- San Francisco QB Jimmy Garappolo will probably play as he recovers from a calf injury. The same cannot be said for QB Trey Lance, who is dealing with a knee injury.
- Kansas City WR Tyreek Hill returned to practice Friday and should be available.
- Indiana QB Michael Penix Jr. has continued to deal with a shoulder issue and didn’t play last week. It is uncertain whether he will play against Ohio State.
- Georgia QB J.T. Daniels is on the mend and practiced this week, per his head coach Kirby Smart. Stetson Bennett may still be starting though. Georgia is off this week and plays Florida next week.
- Dallas QB Dak Prescott has a strained calf, but the Cowboys are on a bye this week.
Dr. Bob NFL Model – The sports betting industry demands constant evolution. Otherwise, the market leaves you behind.
For over 30 years, Bob Stoll has been using analytics for football betting. On The Football Analytics Show podcast, he talks about how he recently hired a talented analyst to develop an NFL model based on air yards, QB pressures and play calling among other factors.
He also talked about his release on Saints at Seahawks; time stamps for all episodes of this podcast are available at The Power Rank.
For Prop’s Sake – The prop market can be a solid way to add to your bankroll if you believe a total will go over or under. Ben Brown at PFF put together these charts showing which props to target if a total goes over or under. This analysis suggests an edge on passing touchdowns and passing yards.
Two Roads Converge – On FanDuel Sportsbook, both the Titans and Chargers are +2200 to win the Super Bowl. However, one is coming off of an upset win against one of the best teams in football while the other suffered a lopsided defeat. Despite the same odds, these two teams have traveled different paths to this point.
The BetQL Daily crew says the dip is better than the bump, so the Chargers deserve more consideration at this point. BETLQL Daily streams on the Audacy app & Twitch 9am to 12pm ET Monday through Friday. Edward Egros appears on the the show every week.
An Unusual Request – Normally, NFL teams get a bye week after playing a game in London. However, Miami requested that they play after their trip across the pond so that they could have their bye later in the season.
A team has played the week after a game in London on four other occasions. Those teams went 2-2. While this is a small sample size, Miami is a 2.5-point underdog against Atlanta. The Power Rank sees value on Miami side so it’s possible the market is over adjusting for jet lag.
Math humor – From @deelomas on Twitter:
Picked up a hitch-hiker. Seemed like a nice guy. After a few miles he asked me if I wasn’t afraid he might be a serial killer? I told him that the odds of two serial killers being in the same car at the same time were extremely low…
Don’t think about conditional probability. Just laugh.
Data driven betting information
These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:
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