January 4, 2012 - by David Hess
A few weeks ago we reviewed our preseason college football projections, and found that they would have been quite profitable to bet.
While our NFL preseason picks weren’t quite so profitable, they were still pretty darn good.
We made two core types of preseason predictions: team win total over/unders, and division futures bets. If you had simply followed all our picks, both types of bets would have turned a tidy profit.
Shall we start with the good news, or the better news? We’ll go with ‘good’ first.
We laid out all of our 2011 NFL team win total over-under predictions in a single blog post, which highlighted the projected chance for each team to go over their total, under their total, or push. The post also noted where our projections showed there was value in the offshore sportsbook odds.
Here’s a review of those projections, along with whether each pick was correct, and what the profit would have been for betting exactly one unit on each:
Team Pinnacle O/U TR Projection TR Value Pick Actual Wins Result Net
Arizona Cardinals 6.5 7 -- 8 -- --
Atlanta Falcons 10.5 10.4 Over +145 10 x (1.00)
Baltimore Ravens 11 10.9 Over +188 12 WIN 1.88
Buffalo Bills 5 7.3 Over -164 6 WIN 0.61
Carolina Panthers 4.5 6.6 Over -121 6 WIN 0.83
Chicago Bears 8.5 7.7 -- 8 -- --
Cincinnati Bengals 5.5 8.4 Over -114 9 WIN 0.88
Cleveland Browns 6.5 5.3 Under +117 4 WIN 1.17
Dallas Cowboys 9 8 -- 8 -- --
Denver Broncos 6 6.7 Over +125 8 WIN 1.25
Detroit Lions 7.5 6.8 Under +127 10 x (1.00)
Green Bay Packers 11.5 10.8 -- 15 -- --
Houston Texans 8 6.9 Under +193 10 x (1.00)
Indianapolis Colts 9.5 8.7 Under +105 2 WIN 1.05
Jacksonville Jaguars 6 7.1 -- 5 -- --
Kansas City Chiefs 8 6.7 -- 7 -- --
Miami Dolphins 8 9.6 Over +145 6 x (1.00)
Minnesota Vikings 7 8.2 Over -103 3 x (1.00)
New England Patriots 11.5 10.3 Under -105 13 x (1.00)
New Orleans Saints 10 9.4 Under +105 13 x (1.00)
New York Giants 9.5 9.6 Over +128 9 x (1.00)
New York Jets 10 8.5 Under -130 8 WIN 0.77
Oakland Raiders 7 6.2 -- 8 -- --
Philadelphia Eagles 10.5 8.7 Under +143 8 WIN 1.43
Pittsburgh Steelers 11 9.9 -- 12 -- --
San Diego Chargers 10 9.3 Under +120 8 WIN 1.20
San Francisco 49ers 8 7.6 Over +166 13 WIN 1.66
Seattle Seahawks 6.5 6.2 Over +157 7 WIN 1.57
St Louis Rams 7.5 5.2 Under -123 2 WIN 0.81
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 8 6.2 Under -147 4 WIN 0.68
Tennessee Titans 6.5 8.9 Over -130 9 WIN 0.77
Washington Redskins 6.5 6.7 Over +177 5 x (1.00)
Total 15-9 +7.56 (+31%)
Betting one unit on every highlighted pick would have given you a healthy +31% return on your investment (ROI).
That’s not too shabby … unless you compare it to our division futures picks.
Our division future picks were split across several posts that each highlighted one or two divisions. (Links to all of those can be found in our 2011 AFC West & NFC West preview.)
These picks were not necessarily the teams that we thought were most likely to win their division. Instead, they were the teams who were most underrated by the the odds. For the most part those were longshots or underdogs that we projected with a better chance of winning than they were being given credit for.
Here they all are, sorted from shortest odds to longest odds:
Team To Win Odds Implied% TR Pred% Result Net
New York Giants NFC East 29/10 25.6% 38.5% WIN +2.9
San Francisco 49ers NFC West 29/10 25.6% 34.5% WIN +2.9
Tennessee Titans AFC South 6/1 14.3% 34.7% x -1
Seattle Seahakws NFC West 98/10 9.3% 21.7% x -1
Denver Broncos AFC West 11/1 8.3% 19.2% WIN +11
Minnesota Vikings NFC North 11/1 8.3% 20.7% x -1
Cincinnati Bengals AFC North 22/1 4.3% 17.6% x -1
Buffalo Bills AFC West 27/1 3.6% 12.8% x -1
Carolina Panthers NFC South 29/1 3.3% 12.2% x -1
Total 1.0 correct 2.1 correct 3 correct +10.8 (+120%)
These picks performed even better than the team win total picks, and would have more than doubled your money, with a +10.8 unit profit on only 9 units bet.
This was the first year we’ve published preseason projections using this method, and while we were confident in our data and models, we weren’t 100% sure everything would pan out as well as we hoped.
But given the results shown in the above tables, we’re going to have to label this project a success, and we look forward to applying these methods again next year.
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