NFL Week 3: Thursday Night Football Prediction & Pick

Tennessee Titans @ Jacksonville Jaguars, TIAA Bank Field, 8:20 PM, NFLN (Jaguars +1.5, O/U: 38.5)

The Titans have been a bit unpredictable to start the season with clubbing the Browns and bursting their hype bubble in their own home to coming back home and falling to the Andrew Luck-less Colts. Mariota has been careful with the ball throwing zero picks but just barely cracked the 400 yard mark.  The workhorse has been Derrick Henry averaging just under 5 yards per carry and found the end zone 3 times (2 rushing TD’s, 1 receiving TD’s).  The defense has played well, holding opponents to being 8/24 on 3rd downs, have only allowed 365 passing yards through the first 2 games, caused 5 turnovers (4 INT’s, 1 fumble recovery)which leads the league in turnover differential (+5) and have only allowed 32 points which is good for 6th least allowed in the league.  Issues I see are that they’re only 3/20 on 3rd down, the o-line has also been sacked 8 times, and have allowed the 7th most yards per game on the ground.

There’s really not much I can say about the Jaguars other than that in most stat categories, they’re middle of the road or leaning towards the bottom 3rd in the league.  Gardner Minshew looked ok in his first NFL regular season action and has completed a fantastic 77.6% of his passes with 3 TD’s and a INT.  He’s also able to make up for the lack of rushing attack from once highly touted Fournette, with 7 carries for 62 yards and actually has a team long 21 yard carry.  DJ Chark (11-201-2TD’s) and Chris Conley (10-170-1TD) have been the teams leading receivers.  Big issues I see with the Jags are having a mediocre offense now being lead by a rookie, tied for the 3rd worst turnover differential (-3).

Take the Titans to cover in the win and in the under, Titans 21-13.

Week 6: Monday Night Football & Analysis

Well, we’ve come down to the end of week 6 and yet another bounce back week for me.  Tonight’s game will either cap me at 57% winners or 64% winners, either way, you should’ve made some money.

I don’t know what is going on in this league lately, maybe it’s the injuries, maybe it’s that some of these teams really did their home work in the coaching hires they’ve made and the rookies they’ve drafted but the league is super competitive this year.  18 teams hover at or around (higher/lower) the .500 mark by a game.  Now, you have 6 teams 2 games or more below .500 and 6 teams that are 2 games or more above .500 but it’s rather tight with more than half of the league.  Not to mention, a team like the 49ers have lost every game this year to go 0-6.  That might sound really bad, but take a look at how much they’ve lost by in their last 5 games and you may think differently about them, at Seahawks by 3, at home to the Rams by 2, at Cardinals by 3, at Colts by 3, at Redskins by 2.  That’s a helluva effort by Shanahan and his crew.

With that, lets go to some stats that I came across after breaking down my first 6 weeks of picks and let me tell you, there are some really odd trends.  Through the first 90 games:

ATS O/U ATS O/U
Thursday Night Sunday 1p
5-1 3-3 21-28-1 25-25
83% 50% 43% 50%
Sunday 4p Sunday Night
14-8 14-8 2-4 2-4
61% 61% 33% 33%
Monday Night Primetime
4-1-1 3-2-1 11-6-1 8-9-1
80% 60% 65% 47%
Bookend Nights Overall
9-2-1 6-5-1 46-42-2 47-42-1
82% 55% 52% 53%

There are my overall stats, pretty simplistic breakdown with the added bonus of seeing each set of games throughout the week.  The “Bookend Nights” are the combined record of the Thursday and Monday night games.  Pretty astonishing isn’t it?  I just love to see the trends when you breakdown my basic overall record to see where the strengths and weaknesses are in my picks.  That being said, I had some time to look at this breakdown even further:

Underdog Picks Road Dog Picks Home Dog Picks
22-9-1 71% 15-5-1 75% 7-4 64%
Favorite Picks Road Favorite Picks Home Favorite Picks
24-33-1 42% 8-13-1 38% 16-20 44%
Picks 7+ Points Picks 6.5 – 3 Points Picks 2.5 or Less Pts.
10-12 46% 24-23-2 51% 12-7 63%

As you can see here, I broke down my overall even farther, to the underdog and favorites in each pick as well as with 3 different spread categories.  I apparently LOVE the underdog picks and do very well in deciding on which underdog games will pay dividends.  The one jaw dropper I saw was my record with the road dogs.  75% winners on road dogs!  That’s insane!  Those are games not many bettors take and I’ve already bet on 21 of them, and pretty successfully.  Sadly, not so much on the favorites.  The one thing I’m jealous on is my one good buddies record on the games he picks to bet on with the favorites.  I think it’s obvious that I need to take some notes with him.

I also gave a point spread breakdown because there are games where you sit there, look at the line and go “man, if it was 6.5 instead of 7, I’d take it” among other lines scenarios.  Well, you can now look at my trends using that same thought process.  How successful I’ve been in selecting which spreads I’m better at deciding who’s going to cover.  I was actually shocked since the 2.5 point or less games are so hard to determine given that Vegas thinks the 2 teams at play are fairly equal, or at least that the road dog or road favorite is a bit more dominate even in the other teams house.  Nevertheless, I do pretty well with games that have under a 3 point spread.  But no you might want to know about the road dogs and favorites right?  Look no further:

RDog Picks 7+ Points RDog Picks 6.5-3 Points RDog Picks 2.5 or Less Pts
3-1 75% 8-3-1 73% 4-1 80%
RFav. Picks 7+ Points RFav Picks 6.5-3 Points RFav. Picks 2.5 or Less Pts
0-3 0% 4-6-1 40% 4-4 50%
Dog Picks 7+ Points Dog Picks 6.5-3 Points Dog Picks 2.5 or Less Pts
1-0 100% 3-4 43% 3-0 100%
Fav. Picks 7+ Points Fav Picks 6.5-3 Points Fav. Picks 2.5 or Less Pts
6-8 43% 9-10 47% 1-2 33%

As you saw, I’m a huge fan of the road dog and they help me win a good percentage of my games but I wanted to see what kinds of spreads I bet on them (RDog) with and the outcomes, as well as road favorites (Rfav.), the home dog picks (Dog), and home favorite picks (Fav.).  The numbers speak for themselves, road dog record, no matter what spread you’re getting, if I’m betting a road dog, you should be as well.  Same goes for the home dogs 7+ points and 2.5 points or less.  So far I’m undefeated there.

So there you have it, the complete breakdown of my picks.  You can see my strengths and weaknesses from the first 6 weeks of the season.  I hope to give you updates on these stats at the end of every month going forward.  Now, on to tonight’s Monday Night Football pick:

Indianapolis Colts at Tennessee Titans, 8:30p (Titans -7.5, O/U: 48)

So let me get this straight, the Colts who are 2-3, who have a capable quarterback, receivers and running back are 7.5 point road dogs to the Titans who are without their stud rookie receiver and will start their leader, quarterback Marcus Mariota after sitting out a week with a hamstring issue?   Hamstrings are no joke and take some time to heal.  Mariota, even with a good offensive line, is known to scramble and make plays with his legs.  The Colts will look to keep him in the pocket and hit him low or at least wrap him up to the point where he tries to break free and possibly re-aggravate his hamstring injury.  He won’t have much help around him with injuries and DeMarco Murray having a bleak couple of weeks in rushing yards.  Jacoby Brissett has some of the tools that Andrew Luck has in regards to movement.  They both can move well inside and outside of the pocket, it’s the decision making that’s key.  Brissett has 60% completions this year and only 3 INT’s but just a measly 2 TD’s.  He hasn’t looked fantastic in the red zone with his arm but has made things happen with his 3 TD runs.  In the end, both defenses are in the bottom 3rd in the league, the Colts are worse but bad is bad.  I don’t expect this to be a shootout but I do expect the Colts to keep it close.  Take the Titans to win but the Colts to cover as road dogs in the under, 21-17.

Lastly, I want to wish my warmest regards to Aaron Rodgers.  I was devastated to hear about the broken collarbone.  I’m a huge Packer fan and he is our team.  I hope for a speedy recovery, we need ya 12!

 

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