Before we get into the week’s picks, let’s quickly review our performance last season. Last season was an historically good year for Massey-Peabody NFL picks. Our records, by pick type:
- Big Plays: 17-10-1
- Other Plays: 34-20
- Break-Even or Better (leans): 19-17-3
Our official plays (leans not included) finished 51-30-1 (62.96%!). Including the leans, that still is 70-47-4 (59.82%). Needless to say, anyone tailing our NFL picks should have made a very nice profit. A word of caution before we proceed. Last year was an anomaly; we benefited from a LOT of positive variance. Long-term we are expecting our picks to win at a rate of about 55%, not 63%. And while we’ve posted four consecutive profitable seasons, there is no guarantee that this year will also be profitable. We expect our Break-Even or Better selections to cover the spread between 52.5% and 54% on the time, our Other Plays 54%-55%, and our Big Plays should win more than 55% of the time. Our estimate for each game is based on our line for the game, regressed appropriately towards the market number, as well as the value of different points. How much we weight the market’s number is based on the historical predictive power of the closing line relative to our line. This makes our estimates conservative, since we generally expect lines to move in our direction.
This week’s picks are based on consensus lines as of 4:00pm EST on Tuesday afternoon. As usual, we do not factor in matchup factors or injuries (except QB). We also do not take into account offseason roster moves. Massey-Peabody lines are based on M-P ratings and home field advantage.
Big Plays (0-0 YTD)
- Dallas +4.5 vs. San Francisco [MP Line: DAL -3.3]
- Carolina +1.5 at Tampa Bay [MP Line: CAR -4.0]
- Buffalo +7 at Chicago [MP Line: BUF +3.5]
Other Plays (0-0 YTD)
- Jacksonville +10 at Philadelphia [MP Line: JAC +7.9]
Break-Even or Better (0-0 YTD)
- New Orleans -3 at Atlanta [MP Line: NO -4.5]
- New York Giants +5.5 at Detroit [MP Line: NYG +3.6]
Note: we are omitting the Jets/Raiders games since MP ratings were published based on Schaub as the Oakland starter.
