NFL Power Rankings & Week 15 Recap
Quick Week 15 RECAP & Thoughts
Busy week. A lot of COVID to unpack. I have to be brief. Here are my topline thoughts.
The Tampa Bay Bucs are now not the team to beat. The Packers have moved into that space with them.
It’s that time of year. Be careful of motivation. Be wary of teams that might not want to play for certain coaches.
This time of year means handicapping things off the field in addition to the stats and on the field goings on.
Always remember to not just bet on the last thing that you saw. Most of the time, you should be betting the opposite of that.
Being a Giants fan sucks right now. Gettleman should be fired yesterday. What a train wreck.
At least Urban Meyer is gone. Imagine Jacksonville keeping that charade going. Brutal.
Don’t lay too many points with questionable teams. That includes teams like the Bills that probably should have not covered.
POWER RANKINGS
If you are unfamiliar with the way power rankings work, here is a crash course. Power rankings are a way to show how strong or weak a team is from an “average” team. This is a system to derive my own point spreads. By having this system, I can say, “this line is off” due to my power rankings.
An easy way to explain this is using an example from the list below. The Bucs are currently my highest rated team and they are 6 points better than an average team. The average team is 0 points. So, from my power rankings if the Bucs played the Vikings, I believe they should be 6 point favorites on neutral field. There are variables that are not inherent in this list, such as home-field advantages, injuries and other unknown intangibles. The list assumes point differential on a neutral field. If Tampa Bay is playing the Vikings in Minneapolis, according to my Power Rankings, Tampa Bay should be about a 3 point favorite (accounting for a Minnesota 3-point home field advantage). Another example from the list below is the Ravens should be a 6 point favorite over the Carolina Panthers on a neutral field. If the game was in Carolina, the Ravens should be a 4 point favorite. If the game was in Baltimore, the Ravens should be an 8.5 point favorite, according to my power rankings.
It is important to keep in mind that all home field advantages are not the same. In theory, I think Green Bay’s homefield advantage is probably 3.5 points, while the Los Angeles Chargers are more like 1 or 1.5 points. Another caveat is to be mindful or intangible factors, such as motivation, coaching issues (firings / hirings), travel, etc.
The most important concept in handicapping sports is you should ONLY bet if you DISAGREE with the line. There is no value if you agree that the line given by the sportsbook is correct. Why would you bet and lay juice (-110) on something that you think is correct? Literally, the odds are not in your favor. If you want to bet any way, that is degeneracy. While I don’t encourage degeneracy, I do believe that as a handicapper, the goal is to benefit off of others’ degeneracy.
