(Warning...this is going to be a very long post...get comfortable, this will take a while. I've been working on this for a couple hours).
I read Nolan's article yesterday and I was somewhat skeptical about his theory about books putting out "bad lines" this year, and this contributing to a higher % of favorites covering. I mulled it over during the day, then decided, I need to know the answer. Is this truth or myth?
To be honest, I went into this about 90% convinced it was myth. What I uncovered may have changed my mind though. I've got to admit now that I think Nolan may be onto something. The lines this year are in fact lower than in the past. Not by much overall, but in certain situations, definitely.
These are all my closing lines, so other people will get different, but probably similar, results. (A couple important notes before I go further... First, I keep Pick Em games listed separately. Since there is no favorite or dog in the game, these games can't be evaluated. Second, I use closing lines, as late as I can get them, from Olympic. This may not be standard for everyone, but I've been using these #'s for years, so I continue to use them to keep consistency in my records. To change my methods now would make comparisons with older stats less meaningful. And thirdly, I did not count this past week's MNF game due to the shift to a neutral site, so that's why one game is missing...)
Ok, here is what I did....
I went through all of the games, adding 2 points to each dog that didn't cover, to see what difference it would make to the ATS result. Pick Em games were excluded. Since there was no favorite, who's to say which side you add the points to? Now I admit 2 points is pretty arbitrary. 2 pts in one game is not the same as 2 pts in another, particularly if you are crossing over a key number, say, moving a line from +2? to +4?. And in many cases the closing number is a big factor; if it was a half point higher or lower it would often change the result. But I think 2 pts is pretty generous.
Regardless, going into this, I did not expect it would change the outcome of more than maybe 4 or 5 games. I was wrong.
Games whose ATS outcomes would have changed if the dog was getting 2 more points:
Week 1
NY Jets - Push into a Win (+1)
Cleveland - Loss into a Push (+1.1)
Oakland - Loss into a Push (+1.1)
Week 2
San Francisco - Push into a Win (+1)
Chicago - Loss into a Push (+1.1)
Week 3
NY Jets - Loss into a Win (+2.1)
Week 4
No changes
Week 5
Detroit - Push into a Win (+1)
Week 6
Chicago - Loss into a Win (+2.1)
Philadelphia - Loss into a Win (+2.1)
Week 7
Houston - Loss into a Push (+1.1)
Week 8
Cleveland - Loss into a Win (+2.1)
Net change, if you bet 1.1 units to win 1 unit on every dog, every week, and received 2 extra points on each dog: +15.8 Units
That of course assumes that you bet every dog, every week. Not too many people do that, but it seems meaningful nonetheless.
It also changes the season stats from this:
ATS
Favorites: 61
Dogs: 48
Pushes: 3
Pick Em Games: 4
56% of games covered by the favorite
Road Dogs ATS: 40-38-3 (51.3%)
Road Favs ATS: 22-8-0 (73.3%)
Road Teams ATS: 62-46-3 (57.4%)
...to this...
ATS
Favorites: 53
Dogs: 55
Pushes: 4
Pick Em Games: 4
49.1% of games covered by the favorite
Road Dogs ATS: 47-32-2 (59.5%)
Road Favs ATS: 20-8-2 (71.4%)
Road Teams ATS: 67-40-4 (62.6%)
This little change is enough to give the dogs the overall edge against the spread. So much for the argument by people who claim "the spread doesn't matter". That is the most bogus belief out there. The spread matters A LOT.
The odd thing is that this doesn't explain the tremendous rate at which Road Favs have covered this year. Of those 11 games listed above in which the ATS result would have changed, the underdog was the home team in only two of them (Week 1 - Cleveland; Week 7 - Houston). So even if this theory is true, it's not the reason for the huge % of Road Fav covers this season. But it does illustrate the importance of a couple of points added to the spread.
=====================================
So are the favorites this year laying fewer points than in years past? I just had to add that up too....
Yes, they are...but not by a large margin.
Through 8 weeks last year, there had been 75 home favorites, laying an average of 5.54 PPG. This year, 81 home favorites have laid an average of 5.01 PPG. The difference seems larger than that. Last year there were quite a few more games where teams were laying a TD or more.
As for the road favs...through 8 weeks last year, 39 road favorites had laid an average of 4.06 PPG. This year, there have only been 29 road favorites, laying 3.8 PPG. Really not much difference at all.
Keep in mind as well, Houston was an expansion team last year, leading to some rather large spreads. In one week last year Philly was an 18? point favorite against the Texans. We haven't seen a spread for any game even remotely approach those heights this year. So some of the gap between the # of pts being laid last year and this year can simply be attributed to the fact the Texans are more competitive with a year under their belts.
The one thing that does stand out, out of all this, is that there have been a lot fewer road favs, period. Would some of the teams that were favored on the road last year be road dogs this year? Possibly. Maybe some of the weaker road favorites from last year have been weeded out...and what remains are road teams that truly are superior to their opponents.
In any event, I think the lesson from all of this is that you must always pay attention, and adapt to what is going on this year. Just betting all the dogs, or doing what always used to work will not get the job done. If you get lazy and stop working at this you are going to lose. They are always going to try to change the game on us, so we must continually observe and adjust to what is happening.
Well, that's more than enough typing for tonight. Congrats to anyone who made it all the way through this book.
I read Nolan's article yesterday and I was somewhat skeptical about his theory about books putting out "bad lines" this year, and this contributing to a higher % of favorites covering. I mulled it over during the day, then decided, I need to know the answer. Is this truth or myth?
To be honest, I went into this about 90% convinced it was myth. What I uncovered may have changed my mind though. I've got to admit now that I think Nolan may be onto something. The lines this year are in fact lower than in the past. Not by much overall, but in certain situations, definitely.
These are all my closing lines, so other people will get different, but probably similar, results. (A couple important notes before I go further... First, I keep Pick Em games listed separately. Since there is no favorite or dog in the game, these games can't be evaluated. Second, I use closing lines, as late as I can get them, from Olympic. This may not be standard for everyone, but I've been using these #'s for years, so I continue to use them to keep consistency in my records. To change my methods now would make comparisons with older stats less meaningful. And thirdly, I did not count this past week's MNF game due to the shift to a neutral site, so that's why one game is missing...)
Ok, here is what I did....
I went through all of the games, adding 2 points to each dog that didn't cover, to see what difference it would make to the ATS result. Pick Em games were excluded. Since there was no favorite, who's to say which side you add the points to? Now I admit 2 points is pretty arbitrary. 2 pts in one game is not the same as 2 pts in another, particularly if you are crossing over a key number, say, moving a line from +2? to +4?. And in many cases the closing number is a big factor; if it was a half point higher or lower it would often change the result. But I think 2 pts is pretty generous.
Regardless, going into this, I did not expect it would change the outcome of more than maybe 4 or 5 games. I was wrong.
Games whose ATS outcomes would have changed if the dog was getting 2 more points:
Week 1
NY Jets - Push into a Win (+1)
Cleveland - Loss into a Push (+1.1)
Oakland - Loss into a Push (+1.1)
Week 2
San Francisco - Push into a Win (+1)
Chicago - Loss into a Push (+1.1)
Week 3
NY Jets - Loss into a Win (+2.1)
Week 4
No changes
Week 5
Detroit - Push into a Win (+1)
Week 6
Chicago - Loss into a Win (+2.1)
Philadelphia - Loss into a Win (+2.1)
Week 7
Houston - Loss into a Push (+1.1)
Week 8
Cleveland - Loss into a Win (+2.1)
Net change, if you bet 1.1 units to win 1 unit on every dog, every week, and received 2 extra points on each dog: +15.8 Units
That of course assumes that you bet every dog, every week. Not too many people do that
, but it seems meaningful nonetheless.It also changes the season stats from this:
ATS
Favorites: 61
Dogs: 48
Pushes: 3
Pick Em Games: 4
56% of games covered by the favorite
Road Dogs ATS: 40-38-3 (51.3%)
Road Favs ATS: 22-8-0 (73.3%)
Road Teams ATS: 62-46-3 (57.4%)
...to this...
ATS
Favorites: 53
Dogs: 55
Pushes: 4
Pick Em Games: 4
49.1% of games covered by the favorite
Road Dogs ATS: 47-32-2 (59.5%)
Road Favs ATS: 20-8-2 (71.4%)
Road Teams ATS: 67-40-4 (62.6%)
This little change is enough to give the dogs the overall edge against the spread. So much for the argument by people who claim "the spread doesn't matter". That is the most bogus belief out there. The spread matters A LOT.
The odd thing is that this doesn't explain the tremendous rate at which Road Favs have covered this year. Of those 11 games listed above in which the ATS result would have changed, the underdog was the home team in only two of them (Week 1 - Cleveland; Week 7 - Houston). So even if this theory is true, it's not the reason for the huge % of Road Fav covers this season. But it does illustrate the importance of a couple of points added to the spread.
=====================================
So are the favorites this year laying fewer points than in years past? I just had to add that up too....
Yes, they are...but not by a large margin.
Through 8 weeks last year, there had been 75 home favorites, laying an average of 5.54 PPG. This year, 81 home favorites have laid an average of 5.01 PPG. The difference seems larger than that. Last year there were quite a few more games where teams were laying a TD or more.
As for the road favs...through 8 weeks last year, 39 road favorites had laid an average of 4.06 PPG. This year, there have only been 29 road favorites, laying 3.8 PPG. Really not much difference at all.
Keep in mind as well, Houston was an expansion team last year, leading to some rather large spreads. In one week last year Philly was an 18? point favorite against the Texans. We haven't seen a spread for any game even remotely approach those heights this year. So some of the gap between the # of pts being laid last year and this year can simply be attributed to the fact the Texans are more competitive with a year under their belts.
The one thing that does stand out, out of all this, is that there have been a lot fewer road favs, period. Would some of the teams that were favored on the road last year be road dogs this year? Possibly. Maybe some of the weaker road favorites from last year have been weeded out...and what remains are road teams that truly are superior to their opponents.
In any event, I think the lesson from all of this is that you must always pay attention, and adapt to what is going on this year. Just betting all the dogs, or doing what always used to work will not get the job done. If you get lazy and stop working at this you are going to lose. They are always going to try to change the game on us, so we must continually observe and adjust to what is happening.
Well, that's more than enough typing for tonight. Congrats to anyone who made it all the way through this book.
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