NFL Regular Season Results + Wild Card Picks

If your friendly, non-profit pool extends through the playoffs, take all the home overdogs this week.

I admit to flying blind with playoff picks. The historical data show that favourites won 51% of all playoff games against the point spread from 1992 through last season, well above the 48% winning rate for overdogs in all regular season games since 1992. But, 187 playoff games since 1992 is too small a sample to draw conclusions. Plus, the overdog playoff tendency over the entire period since 1992 is based on 60% dominance from 1992 through the 1999 Super Bowl. Underdogs plus the points have prevailed in 55% of playoff games since then. If anyone out there has NFL playoff stats against the point spread prior to 1992, I would be very interested if you could pass that information along.

Pick	+/-	Against
ARIZONA	-1	Green Bay
CINCINNATI	-2.5	NY Jets
NEW ENGLAND	-3.5	Baltimore
DALLAS	-4	Philly

 

2009 Regular Season

7-9 last week pushed me down to 129-123-4 or 51.2% for the entire regular season.

At 8-8 with my ``value overdog`` selections, I did not provide any value-added ending up even-steven with the simplest strategy of picking all underdogs all the time. By picking all the road teams this year, you would have finished 132-120-4 or 52.3%.

But, I will say that I am adding value for those readers who did not know that tilting toward the underdogs is the best approach you can take when playing in a friendly, non-profit NFL pool. Underdogs have taken 52% of NFL regular season contests going back through the 1992 regular season and have prevailed over favourites in 14 of the past 18 seasons. Taking mostly underdogs must be the backbone of any systematic approach to participating in a NFL pool picking winners against the point spread.

28-23-1 or 55% for Lady G's best bets this year. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen for this week's special wild card selections.

NBA Playoff Picks May 14-15

Lady G fancies:

LA -9 over Utah
BOSTON -9 over Cleveland
SA -7 over NO

My results so far against the spread:

All my picks 35 wins 26 losses 1 tie
My overdog picks 34-21-1
My underdog picks 1-5
Spread a factor: 1-5-1

A plain-vanilla, "homer rules" strategy leads the way at 40-21-1 followed closely by all-overdogs at 39-22-1.

I'm prouder than a DD list actress who wins the Oscar to be ranked first in Crowd Score and against the spread (ATS) over the last 7 days at http://www.crowdpicks.com/

Stand by this weekend for my venture into baseball picking when inter-league games start. I would like to run a simple season-long experiment to see whether the odds correctly measure the American League dominance that we can expect will continue this season.

NBA Playoff Picks May 12-14

Lady G fancies:

CLEVELAND -2 over Boston
DETROIT -7 over Orlando
NO -3 over SA
LA -9 over Utah

My results so far against the spread:

All my picks 33 wins 25 losses 1 tie
My overdog picks 32-20-1
My underdog picks 1-5
Spread a factor: 1-4-1

A plain-vanilla, "homer rules" strategy leads the way at 38-20-1 followed closely by all-overdogs at 37-21-1.

I'm prouder than a starlet who wins the Oscar to be ranked first against the spread (ATS) over the last 7 days at http://www.crowdpicks.com/

Stay tuned for a full report when I have time on my weekend of canoodling at beautiful Niagara on the Lake.

NBA Playoffs May 5-7 Picks

Lady G fancies:

DETROIT -6 over Orlando
NEW ORLEANS -2.5 over San Antonio
Cleveland +10 over BOSTON
LA LAKERS -7 over Utah

My results so far against the spread:

All my picks 22 wins 24 losses 1 tie
My overdog picks 22-19-1
My underdog picks 0-5
Spread a factor: 0-4-1

A plain-vanilla, "homer rules" strategy decisively leads the way at 28-18-1.

It's interesting that my approach of picking "heavy" underdogs is performing so poorly so far, when historical data show that this has been a winning strategy. Sample size of 5 too small to draw any conclusions, but the record so far is consistent with NCAA March madness results this year. In the NFL, there is an unproven (to my knowledge) hypothesis that playoff patterns deviate from regular season patterns. I would be very interested if anyone out there has any historical data on NCAA and/or NBA playoff results against the point spread.