Your weekly dose of sports betting tips, news and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
Jacksonville at Kansas City – While professional bettor Rob Pizzola is fond of the Chiefs, he notes their defense has given up 20 or more points in all but one game this season. That one game? It was against Tennessee rookie QB Malik Willis this past Sunday night.
Betting a big underdog like Jacksonville +9.5 is appealing considering their likelihood to score more than 20 points. The Jags are 4th in the league in net success rate and 6th in offensive passing success rate.
They have been competitive when they cut out the red zone turnovers, and the Chiefs offenses isn’t as explosive as in years past. Check out all the great work Rob and company do over at The Hammer.
TCU at Texas – While TCU is undefeated and 4th in the most recent college football playoff rankings, they are more than a touchdown underdog at Texas this week. The Power Rank member numbers agree with the spread (prediction of a 7.8 point win for Texas).
However, the total might be more interesting than the spread.
On Wednesday, most of the market had a total of 64.5. However, the Unabated line, which comes from an ensemble of sharp sports books, had a total of 65.5. In addition, The Power Rank member numbers predict 68 total points.
As of Saturday morning, the TCU at Texas total has moved a point to 65.5. This market movement suggests value in combining the top down approach with the Unabated line with the bottom up modeling of The Power Rank.
Dark horse World Cup contender – On The Football Analytics Show, Ryan O’Hanlon of ESPN talked about how he liked Denmark to have an outside shot to win the World Cup. This team made it to the semi-finals of Euro 2020 played in 2021 without their best player, Christian Eriksen.
In addition, Ryan talks about how analytics has revealed value in set pieces (free kicks, corners) in his new book Net Gains. Denmark has been at the forefront of this data driven thinking, as professional bettor Matthew Benham bought the Danish club Midtjylland and used set pieces to turn them into the winner.
Ryan thinks the national team will also benefit from set pieces. With Eriksen back, he likes Denmark as a dark horse to win the World Cup (Denmark is +2750 at Circa).
Key injuries – The NFL injuries are obtained from ESPN. The college football information is from USA Today.
- Arizona QB Kyler Murray is questionable against the Los Angeles Rams with a hamstring injury.
- Buffalo QB Josh Allen has a right elbow injury and is questionable against Minnesota. Circa has Buffalo -3 as of Saturday morning, which suggests that Allen is unlikely to play.
- Los Angeles Rams QB Matthew Stafford is questionable against Arizona with a concussion.
- Tennessee QB Ryan Tannehill has missed the last two games with an ankle injury and is questionable against Denver.
- Coastal Carolina QB Grayson McCall is out for the season with a foot injury.
- Indiana QB Connor Bazelak missed the last game with an unknown injury and is on track to play against Ohio State.
- Oklahoma State QB Spencer Sanders missed the previous game with an unknown injury, and he is questionable against Iowa State.
- Syracuse QB Garrett Schrader didn’t play last week and is questionable against Florida State. Syracuse had a 20.7% passing success rate without Shrader last week (40.2% college football average).
- Texas A&M Connor Weigman sat out the last game with the flu but should start over Haynes King against Auburn.
Seattle vs Tampa Bay in Germany – On Props & Hops midweek market movement show Between the Lines, German professional bettor Fabian Sommer notes the NFL boomed in his native land in 2013-14. The Legion of Boom was in full force, and Seahawks became the most popular franchise in Germany.
As Fabian puts it: “If you ask 10,000 Germans what their favorite franchise is, the biggest piece of the pie would be the Seahawks.”
Fabian also notes the flight from Seattle to Munich is roughly the same distance as the flight from Tampa Bay to Munich (don’t ask Kyrie Irving to explain why). As of Saturday morning, most books have Bucs -2.5.
Bet early in college football – Analyst Andrew Percival looked at how often you win betting the opening line in the direction that the market closes. In essence, he has calculated your win rate against the opening spread when you have 100% closing line value.
The data is from Sports Book Reviews Online, a site that tracks opening and closing college football data from 5Dimes sports book. The results are staggering.
For example, Andrew found a win rate of 57.2% when betting the opening line and the market moves two or more points. Check out his tweet for more comprehensive results.
College football humor – “Maybe Bryce can make something happen?” SEC Shorts is merciless now that the Crimson Tide won’t make the College Football Playoff.
Football betting with a PhD edge
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