Playoffs....tech angles part III

Crummy first week, and very good second week....here's what we got.

1)  Away teams with more than 13 wins on the season in the conference championship.....2-8 ATS (-7.2), 1-9 straight up (-11.2)

This comes with a caveat.....there used to be 16 games and now there's 17, so take this angle with a grain of salt.

2)  Away conference championship round teams off an underdog win....5-8 ATS (-1.0), 4-9 straight up (-4.9)......Bills, Commanders

3)  Conference championship round away dogs that have the greater points/game margin than their present opponent....3-7 ATS (-4.2), 3-7 straight up (-4.5).....Bills

4)  Conference championship round away dogs that have the lesser points per game margin than their present opponent....20-15 ATS (0.1), 12-23 (-5.6).....Commanders

5)  Conference championship round away dogs that have won their last three road games....8-15 ATS (-3.59), 6-17 straight up (-8.91)......Commanders

6)  Conference championship round away dogs that have won less than three out of their past three away games....12-5 (+2.6), 6-11 straight up (-3.1)....Bills

7)  Conference championship round away dogs playing an opponent that is unbeaten at home.....2-4 ATS (-4.6), 1-5 (-10) straight up......Bills

8)  Conference championship round away teams after playing a game where both they and their this  week's opponent rushed for over 130 yards....6-2 ATS (+5.8) 6-2 (+4.0)........Commanders

9)  Conference championship round away dogs that are playing a team that rushed for less than 100 yards last week 4-6 ATS (-2.8), 2-8 straight up (-8.2).....Bills

10) Conference championship round away dogs that are playing a team that rushed for greater than 150 yards last week...8-4 ATS (+3.8), 7-5 straight up (-1.4)......Commanders

11)  Away dogs in the conference  championship round who won four out of their past six regular season games....8-4 ATS (+2.15), 7-5 straight up (-1.17)..................Bills

12)  Away dogs in the conference championship round who won five out of their last six regular season games.....9-9 ATS (-4.00), 4-14 straight up (-8.28) ......Commanders

Commanders are on their fourth straight road game, Eagles playing their fifth straight at home. Commanders also fall under the 40 point rule. 

13)  An away dog in the conference championship round where both teams rush for over 100 yards...7-2 ATS (+5.8), 3-6 straight up (-1.6)

Yeah?....what are the ATS records under these scenarios?

I have home favorites playing their fourth straight home game in the playoffs as being 4-5 ATS and away dogs on their 4th straight away game as being 1-5-1 ATS, 0-7 straight up (-10.1)

@Indigo999 

It's rare to see one team on four straight away games vs a host team on their fifth straight at home. Probably not enough data in that scenario. But more often than not a team that scores 40+ in a playoff game is a play against team their next game out. Not sure of the exact numbers.

14)  Home playoff teams with a line of less than -3.5 who have the greater winning percentage than their present opponent, but the lesser per game scoring margin....7-13 ATS (-2.6), 7-13 straight up (-1.6).....VERSUS Chiefs

@Indigo999

What about the Lions trend this year. Teams playing the Lions, win or lose, usually lose the following week. 

You can have all the trends in the world and it still won’t make sense rationalizing it as a means of capping the game that’s about to occur. Best of luck betting against the Chiefs 

Plays:

1)  Bills +1'.......1.5 units

2)  Bills moneyline .5 units

If ever the Bills are going to beat the Chiefs it will be this year.

[Quote: Originally Posted by JoseAlonso787]You can have all the trends in the world and it still won’t make sense rationalizing it as a means of capping the game that’s about to occur. Best of luck betting against the Chiefs[/Quote

LOL!

Everyone's perception is different...that is what makes a sports betting  market, or any other market for that matter......thanks for talking sense to me.

Couldn't agree more 

My biggest play of the season 

@Indigo999

 Disregard the 40 point thing. It doesn't apply in the divisional round. My bad.

15)  Teams off playing the Lions the last two seasons have gone 11-22-1 ATS (-4.5) 14-20 straight up (-2.8).  Away dogs after playing the Lions the past two years.....1-5-1 ATS (-6.4), 1-6 straight up (-11.4)

16)  Home favorites after playing the Rams the past two seasons 9-2 ATS (+5.2), 10-1 straight up (+12.6)

Question: Half the trends you put up suggest fading the Bills, so why did you end up putting more the stock in the ones that suggest backing them? I guess I am asking what your method is for choosing which trends to follow for a particular game. Thanks. 

One weighs up the information and then decides what is most relevant....even for me, who is 80% data driven I will use some right brain to make a final determination.

I knew going into this weekend's games that I would fade the Chiefs if they won regardless of who won in Buffalo.  The biggest factor in making my pick is that both Baltimore and Buffalo have been on the doorstep and this season's version of the Chiefs and Mahomes are much worse than the previous versions.  It is my belief that both the Ravens and Bills are at least as good or better than they've been in recent years.  Even when the Chiefs were rocking, it took a pretty big series of events for the Chiefs to steal a conference final versus the Bills a couple of years ago in the last 15 seconds.

Is there  conflicting data?....yeah, a ton of it in both games.....this week of all the weeks is the most difficult in the playoffs.  I don't have a weighting system for angles or anything like that if that is what you're curious about.  I have done well in the playoffs and if this bet loses I will still have been a successful post-season. 

I am not into talking people into plays or critiquing someone's methodology, cough, cough....but, I've always wanted for a successful capper to take someone through the A-Z of his thinking process, rather than "yeah, I really like the matchup in this game." or "the Packers are really gonna be fired up for this game.", etc, or even more common here, to list their plays with no explanation at all.

No one goes into a rationale, perhaps  because I suppose if you lose you look foolish...it's a pity.

The Super Bowl is often much easier to pick....I like the Bills to win it and will almost certainly be on them if they win this coming weekend.

Thanks for taking the time and explaining the thought process. I find it pretty fascinating myself how these historical trends can predict outcomes and wonder if teams themselves can somehow use them to buck those very trends.

For instance, you had multiple several trends all indicating that somehow the Lions were in a terrible spot even though they themselves didn’t think so and had no idea of the mountain of historical trends working against them and predicting their demise. Had they known, would it or could it have made a difference in their approach to the game? Just thinking out loud here, but if I were an NFL team I’d hire stat guru like you to tell me these things and then a cadre of sports psychologists and other professionals who could help my team defeat / overcome history. 

I totally agree that someone with this methodology would help an NFL team to alert a coaching staff to possible poor performance coming into a game.

As far as fading trends, I think there is a good rationale for that....Jowchoo on this forum had a massive year this year, probably the best of anyone on this site.  As far as I could tell, his methodology was to find a team that had four or more performances above or below 500 and then to fade that trend in a teaser. 

For example if the Raiders were 0-4 to the OVER in the year to date, he would play them OVER their next game in a teaser, the rationale being that everything reverts back to the mean.  

It's hard to argue with his results, as he hit over 60% on over 400 plays and I do find it interesting that of all the cappers that I have seen on this forum, he is the only one that has detailed his approach, which is systematic in nature, and he is also been one of the best cappers here....I don't think that is a coincidence, as the universe gives back to those that give.

I did this once in a very simplistic manner many years ago in baseball....I would look at home favorites or left handed pitchers, etc....and when they had won or lost three days in a row I would go the opposite...the bookmaker I had at the time said he'd never seen someone who had been as successful as I was over that season.

I will definitely look at emulating Jowchoo's methods next season in the NFL.

It is interesting that coaches are now well aware of phenomena like let down spots and trap games (I hear them talk about it in interviews) and try to anticipate and prevent it for their team, but those are so obvious compared to the level of influence that hidden historical trends, like those you find, have on the outcome of a game. That’s whole other level of performance related data and predictors. 

I believe I have seen Jowchoo’s thread but I did not know what his methodology was until you explained it. One method I’ve been using is watching line movements and comparing the ones between a sharp book and a square book: the difference is sometimes night and day. For instance, I got worried about my Detroit pick last night when the line at the sharp book dropped to -7.5 -110 before the game and it was still at -8.5 -115 at DraftKings. Meanwhile the ML fell to -490 while it was still -550 at DraftKings. When Detroit took a 7 point lead, the line at the sharp book hardly budged while the line at DraftKings went up, making Detroit a bigger favorite. 

quick look just going back 3 post seasons, teams scoring 40+ were 1-4 SU next game.  The lone winner was 49ers vs Dallas 1/22/23

trends are always worth reading up on, and I999 always posts really good ones

that is interesting about what you say about tracking line movements...that is an art and science unto itself.

Another way, perhaps similar, is to look at power ratings, either Massey or Sagarin and come up with a line and for the NFL, going anti-value.

It worked well this past weekend.

For the coming week, we'll look at Sagarin's predictor ratings for the NFL, and then giving 3 points to the home team

Washington.......23.27                                          Buffalo 28.24

Philly................27.92........-7.65                          KC       22.89 .......+2.35 

The plays would be Washington and the Chiefs as we would say that Vegas knows more than a computer.....they would have their own accurate power ratings and the fact that there is a disparity between the public line and what some computer nerd has put out, we side with Vegas, after all they own multi-million dollars castles and we don't.....

wouldn't it be a great Superbowl if Wash and Buff made it.  Rematch of the XXVI 1992 game.  Wash hasn't been back since.  Bills went 4 years in a row in the mid 90's

Here are some NCAA football angles.......

16)  Take the a team in the NCAA playoffs when both involved teams have played at least one playoff game,...our team has the less strong average line for the season-to-date compared to their present opponent.....8-4 ATS (+1.2)....6-6 (-3.1).....Notre Dame's average line this season has been -11.6 and Ohio State's has been -20.

17)  Take the team in the NCAA football playoffs that has the better average covering margin season-to-date after each team has played at least one playoff game.....9- 3 ATS (+6.3), 9-3 straight up (+6.8).....Notre Dame's average covering margin this season was +9.8/game and Ohio State's was +2.3/game

game type=PO and p:game type=PO and op:game type=PO and tA(ats margin)>oA(ats margin)

Plays:

1)  Bills +1'.....1.5 units

2)  Bills moneyline......1/2 unit

3)  Notre Dame +9.....1 unit