Looking for sharp sports betting action this weekend? Your curated list of tips, analytics and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
NFL player prop – Robbie Peterson is a professional bettor who goes by ClosingDime on X. For this NFL opening weekend, he is fading Justin Jefferson of Minnesota.
Jefferson struggled to end last season as he failed to have 74+ receiving yards in 8 of his last 10 games. Now he enters this season with the uncertainty around new QB Kyler Murray. ClosingDime likes Jefferson to see a high volume of targets but his model gives a median receiving yards of 64.
ClosingDime likes Justin Jefferson under 73.5 receiving yards, good to -130. Follow ClosingDime on X for all of his insights. He also runs BetSharpMoney, a site with a host of free betting software tools and paid services.
NFL interception prop – Tampa Bay QB Baker Mayfield got his new contract, making him one of the highest paid quarterbacks in the NFL. Having a 2.0% interception rate last season probably helped him in his negotiations (NFL average was 2.2%).
However, interception rate is not a good way to predict future interceptions. My interception model looks at how often a QB throws the football into dangerous situations, which includes both picks and passes defended. Based on this metric, Mayfield is the second worst behind Kirk Cousins among NFL quarterbacks with more than 700 attempts the past 3 seasons.
My model gives a 57.5% chance that Mayfield throws an interception. There is value in Baker Mayfield over 0.5 interceptions, -114 available on the FanDuel app.
The Unabated line – Unabated uses historical data track which sports books have the most accurate spread and total numbers in specific sports. They combine the most accurate books to come up with the Unabated line, a market consensus.
Here are some college football results as of Saturday morning.
- Michigan +4.5 vs Oklahoma. The market had Michigan +5.5 most of the week, but the sharper books have moved this back towards Michigan despite how awful they looked last week.
- Alabama -9.5 at Kentucky. Most sports books have a double digit spread as the Crimson Tide go on the road for the first time in the SEC.
- Texas -1.5 vs Ohio State. This number mostly reflects the consensus, although BetMGM has bounced between Texas -2 and -2.5 on Saturday morning.
Unabated has an amazing suite of software betting tools.
Is NFL preseason data still predictive? A few years ago, Kostya Medvedovsky, the creator of the DARKO NBA player projection system, made the case for using NFL preseason statistics in regular season projections.
Based on data from 2001 through 2019, Kostya found that using point differential in the preseason along with market win totals made for better win total predictions than the market alone. The most impressive results came from using the first three of four preseason games (starters tend to sit the last game). When the preseason data moved the win total prediction by a half win or more, betting on the change from preseason data resulted in a 63% win rate.
However, the NFL has changed in recent seasons, as they have played only 3 preseason games since 2021. Also, starters tend to play less in this era. Using the first two preseason games, the win percentage has dropped to 56%. In addition, the projections with preseason data and market win totals do not show a clear improvement over market win totals alone.
College football humor – Remarkable statistic: Prior to Western Michigan, college football teams were 110,352 – 0 when leading after the end of regulation, dating back to 1869.
Now, teams are 110,352-1 after Michigan’s hail mary over Western Michigan last week.
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