NFL WEEK 17 Picks ATS 2009

Week 17 Picks
New England +8 at HOUSTON
NY Giants +9 at MINNESOTA

Week 17 Picks - Current Rankings (Rank)
New England - 28 (1)
Houston - 23 (10)
NY Giants - 19.5 (19)
Minnesota - 20 (17)

Week 17 Picks - Strength of Schedule (Rank)
New England - 21 (7)
Houston - 19.5 (23)
NY Giants - 21 (6)
Minnesota - 18.5 (30)

Pick Commentary
Week 17 picks are always a bit more risky causing me to withhold Mac Daddy suggestions, but even with the unpredictability of Week 17 I still like these two. New England is now the number 1 ranked team by the system and doesn't have a history of taking weeks off. Minnesota had reason to and badly wanted to win last week in Chicago too.... are we adjusting spreads by 9 points for home field these days? Mac Daddy also wanted to throw out the following picks for some possible side action.

A Few Fun Favorites
DALLAS -3 vs Philadelphia, CLEVELAND -1.5 vs Jacksonville, Chicago -3 at DETROIT

Top 4 Teams by Current Rank
1) New England
2) Dallas
3) San Diego
4) Indianapolis

Check back in next week to get the complete list of ratings for all playoff teams, plus the best of those who failed to make it.

NFL Week 16 Picks ATS

Baltimore +2.5 at PITTSBURGH

Pittsburgh's rating went up a lot after last weeks win, but they still are overrated. I actually hope they win this week because it I think they playoffs would be more fun with them in it, however, their has been little evidence to suggest that they can beat Baltimore who is playing very well right now. You can say Baltimore is doing it against inferior opponents like Chicago, but then again the Bears already beat Pittsburgh this year.

ATS NFL Picks Week 15 2009

Week 15 Picks
Green Bay +2 at PITTSBURGH
WASHINGTON +3 vs. NY Giants

2-0 last week. Somebody has to actually be betting on Pittsburgh for these lines to continue to be so far off. New Flash: Pittsburgh is not who you thought they were. For some reason some people like to use year old data when they there is better more recent data available. i.e. Pittsburgh Won the Super Bowl vs. Pittsburgh is 6-7 with one of the easiest schedules in the league to date.

Strength of Schedule (1 is strongest, 32 is weakest)
Green Bay 31, Pittsburgh 30
Washington 27, NY Giants 11

Team Rating (Rank)
Green Bay 23.5 (9), Pittsburgh 18 (23)
Washington 21 (15), NY Giants 20 (19)

NFL ATS Picks Week 14 2009

Picks:
CLEVELAND +10 v. Pittsburgh
Carolina +13.5 at NEW ENGLAND

Strength of Schedule Ranking:
Cleveland 5
Pittsburgh 30
Carolina 4
New England 10

Overal Team Ranking:
Cleveland 28
Pittsburgh 21
Carolina 20
New England 4

NFL Picks ATS Week 13 2009

The streak ended but still 1-1 isn't bad. One pick this week:

Week 13 Pick:
ATLANTA +5.5 vs. Philadelphia

Team Ratings:
Atlanta and Phili are right next to each other in the middle of the pack at 20.44 and 21.33, respectively. Note: Ratings and hence picks are based on historical performance so they do not take into consideration the fact that Matt Ryan is out. Generally I believe the impact of injuries is overrated.

Strength of Schedule Rank:
Atlanta 8, Philadelphia 25

Ranking Highlights:
New Orleans, Indy an Minnesota have separated themselves at the top with ratings of 30, 27, and 27 and St. Louis and Detroit round out the bottom with ratings of 11 and 10.

NFL Week 12 Picks ATS

3 in a row, hopefully tomorrow we will be giving thanks for increasing that to 5 thanks to these Thanksgiving specials:

WEEK 12 Picks:

Oakland +13.5 at DALLAS

DENVER +6.5 vs. NY Giants

NFL Picks ATS Week 11 2009

With last weeks cover by Cinci Mac Daddy has confirmed that he likes his new system. With this weeks picks he confirms that he hates Pittsburgh. This will be the third week in a row that he has picked against them... is somebody jealous. Not really, he is just a spreadsheet, I think it has more to do with their 6-3 record with one of the easiest schedules in the league thus far. My guess is that they will continue to be overrated by the betting public all season or at least until they start winning games convincingly enough to justify an elite rating. This weeks picks:

Week 11 Picks:
KANSAS CITY +10 vs. Pittsburgh
Atlanta +6.5 at NY GIANTS

Mac Daddy Strength of Schedules:
KC 23, Pittsburgh 28, Atlanta 3, NY Giants 19

Mac Daddy Team Ratings:
KC 15.12, Pittsburgh 22.12, Atlanta 21.59, NY Giants, 19.46

Highest Team Ratings:
NE 27.2, Cincinnati 26

Lowest Team Ratings:
Cleveland 12, Oakland 11.8

NFL Week 10 Picks ATS

One and one with the new system last week. One of the changes to the system included a more robust strength of schedule ranking. At this point in the season according to the Mac Daddy Strength of Schedule ranking (MD SOS) the strongest five schedules in order are: Miami, Cleveland, Atlanta, Jets & Tennessee. The weakest schedules in order are: Washington, Phili, Green Bay, Jacksonville, Dallas. With this weeks pick I have indicated the respective MD SOS and the Overall Team Rating of each team.

Cincinnati +7 at Pittsburgh
MD SOS (rank): Cincinnati 7, Pittsburgh 22
Overall Team Rating: Cincinnati 25.78, Pittsburgh 24.45

MD SOS and Overall Team Rank comparable to Jeff Sagarin NFL ratings:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/nfl09.htm?loc=interstitialskip


The Mac Daddy ratings are comparable to Sagarin's pure points, only they are a hybrid of pure points and a weighted average rating giving more weight toward recently played games.

Week 9 ATS NFL Picks

A coin can come up heads 10 times in a row even though it is improbable, likewise a perfectly good system can have 5 losses in a row. Even though I fully I understand that I thought it would be more fun to just blow up the old spreadsheet and start anew which is what I have done. Let me introduce to you Mac Daddy (I like the name as is so I would prefer not to mess with it by adding a 2.0 or some crap like that, besides if I did that it would be more like Mac Daddy 20.0 by this time anyway). Anyway, without further ado for this week the new Mac Daddy with the same old name recommends the following:

DENVER +3 vs. Pittsburgh
Miami +10.5 at NEW ENGLAND

NFL ATS Picks Week 8 2009

That got ugly fast!! Minnesota got screwed by a bad call mixed with some bad luck at the end of the game, Tampa Bay was a mistake because the spreadsheet operator forgot to enter that it was at a neutral site, and the other two picks were just bad, especially Chicago, but I don't think anyone saw that coming. Are they really that bad?? We'll have to wait and see. I guess Mac Daddy's confidence was a little shaken by last weeks massacre because this week he only has one pick:

BUFFALO +3.5 vs. Houston

NFL Picks ATS Week 7 2009

Official picks are still 4-3 on the year, but there have been a few weeks with no picks such as last where we have to rely on my non-computer generated suggestions such as Detroit who couldn't even cover the 10 point teaser. Therefore Mac Daddy has adjusted his spreadsheet to create more picks. The new spreadsheet results in a historical winning percentage of 56% (since 2000) compared to 62% but picks about three times more games (on average 40 games per year). One obvious observation on this weeks picks is that Mac Daddy thinks the AFC is overrated. I guess he didn't watch the games last week, i.e. Oakland Phili, Washington Kansas City, or even Minnesota Baltimore. Oh well, who am I to question him, I'm the one who picked Detroit.

TAMPA BAY +15 vs. New England
Minnesota +4 at PITTSBURGH
Atlanta +4 at DALLAS
Chicago +1.5 at CINCINNATI

NFL Week 6 2009

Sorry for the late post this week (as if anyone actually reads this). Down to 4-3 on the year, with no official picks this week. No picks after losing two in a row is really the key advantage of following a system, whatever it may be. This system happens to be a spreadsheet which identifies when there is a lot of value in a line. By following the system you resist the urge to chase your money. Even though there were two loses in a row the system is still over .500 so there is no point in chasing money that was technically never even loss. We will wait until it goes 0-2 next week to do that. That being said if you were just in the mood for a good chase I might choose of these horses to jump on: Detroit +13.5, Cleveland +14, or JACKSONVILLE -10 (Saint Louis might just be the worst team of all time).

NFL Picks ATS Week 5 2009

Tampa Bay +15 at PHILADELPHIA

NFL Picks ATS Week 4 2009

5-2 so far in 2009. No five star picks this week so I will throw out this parley of two good but sub 5-star picks instead:

Oakland +9 at HOUSTON
&
DENVER +3 vs. Dallas

NFL Week 3 NFL Picks ATS

4-1 in 2009. One pick in Week 3:

TAMPA BAY +7 vs. NY Giants

ADD:

PHILADELPHIA -7.5 vs. Kansas City

NFL Picks ATS Week 2 2009

3-1 in week 1. One pick in Week 2:

NY JETS +3.5 vs. New England

NFL Picks Week 1 2009

There was absolutely no thought that went into these picks. That is because they all come straight from the output of a spreadsheet which has been perfected over the past 10 years. By perfected I mean it has produced a record of approximately 60% over that period. Some of that may be the product of data mining so I feel more confident making the claim that each pick listed here has a 55% chance of winning. The estimated number of annual picks is about 20 so take advantage of these 4. The likely range of possible annual results is between one game under .500 and 10 games over. I used to look at the pick and then look stuff up to justify it for readers however, this year I plan to take a different approach. If anyone happens to stumble upon this blog and has even the most remote interest in analyzing NFL games against the spread, please use the comments section to tell me why I am right about one or more of these four dogs.

TAMPA BAY +6 vs. Dallas
Buffalo +10.5 at NEW ENGLAND
OAKLAND +9 vs. San Diego
Denver +4 at CINCINNATI