Your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
How to make accurate predictions – On The Football Analytics Show, professional sports bettor Mike Craig talked about how he works as part of the college football team at Right Angle Sports (RAS). These two statements stood out:
- Before their second Sunday meeting, everyone comes up with their own plays before the meeting. This independence is critical for making accurate predictions, as James Surowiecki writes in his book The Wisdom of Crowds.
- The team has 10 people on it, and each has a defined role. This diversity leads to a more manageable work load for team members.
Mike also likes Wake Forest side against Army, as he doesn’t think the latter can stop QB Sam Hartman and the Demon Deacons. Wake Forest -16.5 is widely available as of Saturday morning.
Atlanta at Tampa Bay – The market has moved in favor of Tampa Bay, as Atlanta TE Kyle Pitts is out with a hamstring injury. Pitts has the second most targets from QB Marcus Mariota this season.
However, professional bettor Rob Pizzola still sees value in Tampa Bay side. The Buccaneers are fully healthy on offense with the exception of WR Julio Jones (a game time decision with a knee injury).
Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay should have their way with an Atlanta defense that has the second worst pass rush grade according to PFF. Rob likes Tampa Bay -10. In addition, the member numbers at The Power Rank have Tampa Bay by 11.8 points.
Check out all the fantastic sports betting content Rob and his team produce at The Hammer.
NFL passing success rate – On The Football Analytics Show, I ask guests for a surprising prediction. Over the past two months, the Jacksonville Jaguars have been the answer on multiple episodes.
Two reasons have been given.
- They have competence at head coach with Doug Pederson.
- Second year QB Trevor Lawrence has the talent to thrive with better coaching.
After four games, Jacksonville has a 50.0% passing success rate, 4th best (43.0% NFL average this season). A new page at The Power Rank now shows passing rate numbers for all teams on offense and defense.
Injuries – Unless otherwise noted, this information is from USA Today for college football and ESPN for the NFL. This list starts with college this week as the SEC gets hit with key QB injuries.
- Alabama QB Bryce Young injured his shoulder in the last game and is questionable at Texas A&M.
- Texas A&M QB Max Johnson broke his hand and will probably miss the rest of the season. Haynes King probably starts, but he lost the job earlier this season to Johnson.
- Arkansas QB KJ Jefferson has a head injury. While he will make the trip to Mississippi State, he is questionable to play.
- Kentucky QB Will Levis, an NFL prospect, seems to have hurt his finger last week. He is questionable to play against South Carolina.
- Oklahoma QB Dillon Gabriel left the previous game with a head injury, and he is questionable against Texas.
- Texas QB Quinn Ewers is expected to play against Oklahoma for the first time since his injury against Alabama.
- Miami QB Tua Tagovailoa is out with a head injury against the New York Jets. Teddy Bridgewater will start.
- New England QB Mac Jones is doubtful, and back up Brian Hoyer is on IR with a concussion. If Jones can’t play, the Patriots most likely start rookie Bailey Zappe, who played last week against Green Bay.
- New Orleans QB Jameis Winston is doubtful against Seattle. Andy Dalton will start for the Saints if Winston can’t go.
Baseball predictions – While the New York Mets lost game 1 of a three game series to San Diego last night, they start Jacob deGrom on the mound today.
My numbers give the Mets a 62.7% chance to beat the Padres in a must win game. However, this estimate might be low. deGrom has not pitched in over a week, and the Mets will be more likely to ride their ace tonight into the late innings.
To check out MLB post season predictions, check out the public predictions page at The Power Rank each night around 10pm Eastern.
The life of a professional bettor – Simon Hunter of The Action Network portrays himself as a professional bettor, but the Circles Off crew had so many questions about his appearance on the Ross Tucker Show.
For example, Hunter claims to limit his services to 100 clients. Why would he do that? And the term client makes his syndicate seem more like a tout service.
This episode of Circles Off with Rob and Johnny will leave you equal parts amused and confused. Rob reached out to Simon, but he declined coming on Circles Off.
Worst NFL game ever? – Russell Wilson and Matt Ryan combined for zero touchdowns and four interceptions in a train wreck of NFL game on Thursday night. At least Ryan had the excuse of pressure in his face all night long.
Annie Agar captured the essence of a 12-9 game with seven field goals:
Annie became a social media star during the pandemic with her teams on a Zoom call videos, and her latest on NFL week 4 is hilarious and worth checking out until the very end.
Football betting with a PhD edge
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Other emails offer analysis of college football and NFL games that founder Dr. Ed Feng has bet based on the analytics he developed from his Stanford PhD.
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