Week 5 Recap:
Only two official plays last week, which split. Buffalo (+7) capitalized on Detroit’s kicking woes for a 17-14 comeback win; Dallas (-6) won in overtime, but failed to cover. Our Break Even or Better plays also went 1-1. Kansas City (+6) got the cover, losing 22-17. The line closed at KC +4.5, which goes to show how much a point can matter. Atlanta (+4) fell on the road again, losing 30-20 to the Giants.
Week 6 Closing Line Value
- Dallas: picked +6, closed +5, CLV -1.0
- Buffalo: picked +7, closed +4.5, CLV +2.5
- *Kansas City: picked +6, closed +4.5, CLV +1.5
- *Atlanta: picked +4, closed +4, CLV 0.0
Week 6 Picks:
This week’s picks are based on Vegas Insider consensus lines as of 3:00pm Vegas time on Wednesday. As usual, we do not account for matchup factors or injuries (except QB). M-P lines are based on M-P ratings and a standard home field advantage, as well as adjustments for extra rest (byes and Thursday games).
Break-Even or Better selections should 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.
As of now, three games are off the board due to injury uncertainty at most books, so there’s no real market. For that reason, I am omitting these games (WAS/ARI, DET/MIN, and JAC/TEN) and will post plays on the games (if there are any) later in the week. Also, a line of +3/+3.5 means that I’ll grade half the play at +3 and half the play at +3.5. The way we’ve been keeping records is not conducive to dealing with lines that are heavily juiced to one side.
Big Plays (7-3 YTD)
- Miami +3/+3.5 vs. Green Bay [MP Line: MIA -2.1]
Other Plays (3-3 YTD)
- none this week
Break-Even or Better (4-8 YTD)
- Buffalo +3 vs. New England [MP Line: BUF +1.1]
- New York Giants +2.5/+3 at Philadelphia [MP Line: NYG +0.3]
Our lines (mean forecast, not median!) on the remaining games
- Indianapolis -3.3 at Houston
- Denver -9.9 at New York Jets
- Tennessee -10.3 vs. Jacksonville (assumes J.Locker starting)
- Atlanta -3.9 vs. Chicago
- Detroit -3.2 at Minnesota (assumes T.Bridgewater starting)
- Cincinnati -6.3 vs. Carolina
- Baltimore -4.9 at Tampa Bay
- San Diego -7.1 at Oakland
- Seattle -7.9 vs. Dallas
- Arizona -7.5 vs. Washington (assumes C.Palmer starting)
- San Francisco -4.9 at St. Louis
