Get ready.
Last week, I wrote about how important it is to tread water when things get rough. We did so, again. But, “rough” waters aren’t made from results. They’re made from the shifts in trends. Subtle at first. Then violent.
There’s a shift happening. We’re about to see it. In fact, it usually happens around this time of year. Because, after four or five weeks, we finally can erase last year’s perceptions and actual build a new foundation. The sample size is finally getting large enough so that we can trust what we see.
And then it will get knocked down.
This is the time of year when we hear people complain that, “You can’t figure out the NFL.” This is the time of year when people will pick the Bears to crush the Raiders or the Chiefs to obliterate the Colts and then stand confused when the final score shows otherwise.
And this is the time of year when people give up on teams or suddenly buy into new ones.
Which means that this is the time of year we prepare to get ahead of the next wave.
Below are predictions for each game against the spread. Spreads have been taken from various websites and are subject to change. The spread in parenthesis denotes the selected team. An asterisk denotes a confidence pick.
*Confidence Picks – 2019 Season: 20-12-1 (Last Week: 3-2)
(2018 Season: 63-48-4) (2017 Season: 53-48-4) (2016 Season: 53-67-3) (2015 Season: 69-45-2) (2014 Season: 61-46-2) (5-Year Total: 299-254-15)
All Picks Against Spread – 2019 Season: 42-35-1 (Last Week: 7-8)
(2018 Season: 137-118-12) (2017 Season: 137-119-11) (2016 Season: 123-136-8) (2015 Season: 143-117-7) (2014 Season: 149-114-4) (5-Year Total: 689-604-42)
New York Giants at New England Patriots
I know there are some readers – both of mine and other websites – that like to track certain metrics for those of us who pick games against the spread. Anyone who has followed me and applied numbers to the trends has probably seen one glaring problem: I had been dreadful in Thursday night games.
The good news is that the overall records for the past handful of years have been great – hence the success rate of these picks. But, Thursdays eluded me.
The even better news is that this poor track record is past tense. This year, I have gone 4-1 against the spread in Thursday Night Football games. What’s even more surprising – to myself, anyway – is that each of those five games were confidence picks.
I lead with this not because of the current record or trend, but because it’s important to see that each of the last five weeks provided value on Thursday Night Football.
And this week has no such benefit.
The options are simple. We either expect a close game or we don’t.