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09/29/2009 - Kansas City, KS (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: NASCAR Nationwide. Date: Saturday, October 3. Race: Kansas Lottery 300. Site: Kansas Speedway. Track: 1.5-mile oval. Start Time: 3:49 p.m. (et). Laps: 200. Miles: 300. Last year's winner: Denny Hamlin. Television: ESPN 2. Radio: Motor Racing Network (MRN)/SIRIUS XM Satellite.
Clint Bowyer comes home to Kansas after winning last Saturday's Dover 200. Bowyer, the 2008 Nationwide Series champion, picked up his second victory in just nine starts this season. He also won in July at Daytona.
Growing up in nearby Emporia, KS, Bowyer looks forward to his annual trip home.
"That's your hometown, and everybody wants a little piece of you whether it be family, friends or sponsors that have helped me through the years," Bowyer said. "It's a fun and exciting weekend. It's a long weekend, too. When the weekend is over, I'm worn out, but I've always had a good time."
Bowyer, running a limited Nationwide schedule for Richard Childress Racing in 2009, has yet to win at Kansas, but has finished second, fourth and fifth in his last three races there.
Two drivers have won a NASCAR national touring race at their home tracks so far this year, with Brad Keselowski taking the checkered flag for the Nationwide event at Michigan and Denny Hamlin driving into Victory Lane for the Sprint Cup race at Richmond.
Bowyer has never recorded consecutive wins in Nationwide competition.
Kyle Busch enters Kansas with a 211-point lead over Carl Edwards. Busch had the dominant car for the first half of the 200-lap race at Dover, but Bowyer came on strong shortly after the midway point and took over from there. Bowyer held off Mike Bliss and Brad Keselowski in a seven-lap shootout to the finish.
Busch finished fourth, while Edwards came in fifth. Busch became the second driver in NASCAR's second-tier series to lead more than 2,000 laps for the year. Sam Ard led a total of 2,099 laps during his 28-race championship season in 1984.
Last year, Denny Hamlin became the eighth different winner in as many Nationwide races at Kansas. Hamlin is not competing in Saturday's 300-mile event.
Fifty-two teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Kansas Lottery 300, including three former Kansas winners -- Joe Nemechek (2004), Kevin Harvick (2006) and Busch (2007).
<< NFL suspends Rams LB Vobora four games
St. Louis, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - St. Louis Rams linebacker David Vobora has
been suspended four games by the NFL for violating the league's policy on
performance enhancing substances.
Vobora had started each of the Rams' first three
<< Titans P Hentrich placed on IR
Nashville, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tennessee Titans punter Craig Hentrich was
placed on injured reserve Tuesday with a left calf injury.
Hentrich, the franchise leader in punts who has been with the team since they
moved to Nashville in 19
<< This Week in Auto Racing October 2 - 4
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Round three in the "Chase for the Sprint
Cup" championship moves through the heartland of America to Kansas Speedway.
The Nationwide Series also will be at Kansas, while Formula One travels to the
"Land o
<< Dallas RB Jones has sprained PCL
Arlington, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Dallas Cowboys running back Felix Jones
suffered a sprained posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during
Monday's 21-7 win against the Panthers.
Jones broke off a 40-yard run early in t
Rams WR Robinson fractures fibula; QB Bulger day-to-day >>
St. Louis, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - St. Louis Rams wide receiver Laurent Robinson
will likely miss the rest of the season with a fractured fibula and sprained
ankle, while quarterback Marc Bulger is day-to-day with a right shoulder
injury.
Chiefs sign TE Pope >>
Kansas City, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Kansas City Chiefs signed former
Cardinals tight end Leonard Pope on Tuesday.
Pope spent his first three seasons in the NFL with Arizona after being
selected in the third round of the
Coyotes sign Lang >>
Glendale, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Phoenix Coyotes signed center Robert
Lang to a one-year contract, the team announced Tuesday.
The 38-year-old Lang spent last season with Montreal and registered 18 goals
and 21 assists in 50 games
USC RB Johnson remains hospitalized following freak accident >>
Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - University of Southern California running
back Stafon Johnson remained hospitalized Tuesday after seven hours of
emergency surgery following a freak weightlifting accident in which his throat
was cru
“You play to win the game!”
Those are the words of notoriously intense head coach Herman Edwards. Unfortunately, from a bettors’ perspective, most coaches don’t feel that way about the NFL preseason. August is a time to evaluate young players, finalize the depth chart and pray your star players stay healthy.
The trick to making money during the exhibition schedule is identifying coaches – like Edwards – who can’t stand losing even when there's nothing on the line.
The New York Jets betting won 15 of 21 preseason games and went 14-7 against the spread (ATS) during Edwards’s five-year tenure with the club. In his first season as the Kansas City Chiefs field boss, the team improved from 0-4 to 2-2.
Identifying win-a-holics like Edwards is a good start if you plan betting the preseason – even though most say you shouldn’t ... but what the hell do they know anyway?
Here’s a brief rundown of two teams that have a habit of winning during the second-stringers’ season, and another club that has a good chance of exceeding this year.
Playing in the media hub of North America can be stressful but the press can’t write anything negative about the way Tom Coughlin’s boys play in the preseason. The Giants won and covered all four games last summer, improving their record to 7-1 both straight up (SU) and against the spread over the last two years.
Coughlin has shown he’s not afraid to give his starters more time in the second preseason game than most of his colleagues, no doubt one of the reasons his team has been so dominant.
Bettors can count on America’s team early on. The Cowboys are 14-6 both SU and ATS since 2002 in warm-up contests. Former coach Bill Parcells, the coach of the team the last four years, has an intimidating, in-your-face presence – surely a reason Dallas has had so much early success.
The Big Tuna won’t be strolling the sidelines with looks of disgust, but new coach Wade Phillips will be anxious to make a good first impression for owner Jerry Jones.
Dallas plays the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos before things get serious. They then face the Houston Texans in their third contest (the game starters see most game time) and finish off with the Minnesota Vikings.
Expect a Dallas team able to walk away with another 3-1 preseason record.
This team scored a league-worst 12 offensive touchdowns last season, so the rookies and veterans each have something to prove. There’s a bounty of first-unit jobs up for grabs and plenty of bodies competing for those slots.
First-time head coach Lane Kiffin will be eager to impress an owner who employs the philosophy, “Just win, baby!”
The 32-year-old Kiffin has to command respect from a locker room full of players older than him. All of these factors should lead to purpose in preseason.
Don’t forget: before playing like a team that belonged in NFL Europe, Oakland went 4-1 (both SU and ATS) in exhibition games.
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There is little doubt that the NFL is where the sportsbooks see the most action and also make the most loot. The NFL possesses betting friendly attributes that are unlike any of the other major sports. First off, there are relatively few teams to keep track of in comparison to college football betting or college basketball. And second, these teams play only once a week which makes staying on top of the results much easier than it is in the daily leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB.
These dynamics, along with the sheer excitement of watching and wagering on football, brings more square action to the table than any of the other sports. Almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in America is an NFL expert in their own mind and that is precisely what the oddsmakers prey upon.
Understanding who bets the games is just as important as understanding which teams are playing the games. The market at times will dictate price, which in the betting world means the oddsmakers cater to the public rather than reality.
Knowing the market inside and out is the basis of our NFL handicapping model. That is, our approach to NFL handicapping is of the contrarian or value seeking variety. We will at times place a higher premium on public sentiment than on the fundamentals. This strategy dictates playing dogs and/or lesser competent teams, or teams the public wants nothing to do with. Or better yet, fading the teams the oddsmakers want you to bet on.
Along these same lines, we carry a similar notion that the first week of the NFL season presents one of the ripest opportunities for the astute gambler. This conflicts with conventional wisdom and/or handicapping lore, as most would say it is better to watch a few games and assess each team before jumping in with both feet. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are some interesting trends to exploit in Week 1 and we’d be remiss to ignore them. Let us quickly explain.
Gone are the days of dynasties, where the same core players stay intact and dominate the league year after year. Free agency and player movements can completely transform teams from one season to the next. In today’s parity-driven NFL, poor teams typically don’t stay poor for all that long and excellent teams must constantly reinvent themselves to stay on top.
The temptation might be to assume prior year results are the best indicator of who is going to cover in Week 1. To Joe Public, playoff teams from the prior season, home teams, favorites, and so one, look even more enticing than usual since there is no current season performance to judge them against. But the question begs: are the oddsmakers setting a trap?
To find the answer, we culled five years worth of Week 1 NFL data. As always, all of our analysis is done from an ATS perspective. The purpose here is to share the most important angles we unearthed and try to explain the logic behind them. So strap on your helmet, throw on your shoulder pads, and follow our lead as we expose some rare holes in the oddsmakers’ line of defense.
Home vs. Away Teams
Over the past five seasons, NFL home teams in Week 1 are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). This of course implies that roadies are a 58 percent winning proposition during this time. The public at large has a tendency to overvalue home teams and this is especially true in Week 1 when there is no current season data to make predictions from. Consequently, the oddsmakers almost surely shade the home teams, by and large making road teams the choice for the value player.
Conclusion: Look long and hard at road teams first when handicapping the opening week.
Price ranges
Favorites are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent) in the opening week over the past five NFL seasons (Coincidentally, home teams hold the same ATS record as noted above). This means that underdogs bark at a 58 percent clip. Mid-range favorites performed the worst among our specified price ranges. In particular, favorites priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 are only 8-15 ATS (35 percent) during this time.
The same basic pattern holds true when looking at home favorites (road favorites gravitate towards a 50 percent mean). Home favorites indeed are just 21-32-3 ATS (40 percent) in the first week of NFL action since 1999. Again, mid-range favorites are similarly the poorest performers when we look at home teams. Consider that home teams priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 have stumbled to a 6-13 ATS (32 percent) mark in Week 1 games the past five seasons.
Conclusion: Like home teams, favorites and particularly mid-range favorites are generally overvalued in Week 1.
Playoff teams
It might surprise you to learn that playoff teams from the prior year versus non-playoff teams from the prior year are a mere 16-23-3 (41 percent) ATS in NFL Week 1 games over the past five seasons. Home teams which made the playoffs versus teams which did not make the playoffs from the prior season drop to a meager 7-14-1 ATS (33 percent) during this time.
Why are playoff teams, and in particular those at home, such bad bets the past five openers? Just as the case with home teams and with favorites, oddsmakers intentionally overprice playoff teams in the opening week to compensate for the public’s propensity to over bet them.
This theory holds true just looking at straight-up records from the past season as well. That is, home teams with winning records from the prior season vs. road teams with losing records from the prior season are just 8-13 ATS in Week 1 NFL games since 1999.
Conclusion: Playoff teams from the prior year and in particular, home playoff teams, are overvalued in Week 1 NFL games.
Scoring defense and scoring offense
Do good defenses and for that matter good offenses from the prior season fare better against the number the following year in Week 1 games? Well, sort of. Generally speaking, teams with a solid offense or defense from the prior season tend to do well in the opening week so long as they are on the road. As a host, however, the best offenses and best defenses from the prior year tend to be overvalued in Week 1.
Consider that the top five scoring defenses (i.e. points allowed) from the prior season are a nice 8-4 ATS (66 percent) on the road in NFL openers the past five seasons. Meanwhile, the top five scoring defenses from the prior season are just 3-8-2 ATS (27 percent) as a host in Week 1 during the same time period.
There is no discernable advantage or disadvantage for teams with a top five scoring offense (i.e. points scored) in Week 1 games. However, when we look at scoring offenses from the bottom up (isolating the five worst offenses from the prior season), the results are rather interesting. In particular, teams ranked in the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are 9-4-1 ATS (69 percent) when on the road in Week 1.
The logic is simply that the public perception is a poor scoring offensive unit from the year prior will have little chance of winning on the road in Week 1. In turn, the oddsmakers compensate for this perception and these poor offensive teams from the year prior carry extra line value on the Week 1 trail.
Conclusion: Teams with top-ranked defenses from the previous season are good bets when playing on the road, but poor bets when playing at home. Also, teams ranked among the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are generally a good value in their Week 1 openers, provided they are playing on the road.
Scoring margin
An exceedingly straightforward way of measuring scoring offense and scoring defense together as a whole is to look at a team's “margin." Margin is simply scoring offense minus scoring defense, which is a fairly clear-cut measure of how a team does on both sides of the ball. Typically, the higher the margin, the better the team.
In this regard, it might seem counterintuitive that teams carrying the higher margin from the prior season in week one matchups are merely 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). Furthermore, road teams with the higher margin are 14-20-6 ATS (41 percent), while home teams with the higher margin are 17-22-1 ATS (44 percent). Once again, these results line up with the theory that better teams from the prior year are overvalued come opening day of the following season.
Conclusion: “Better” teams, which often boast a higher margin than their opponent, are overvalued the following season in NFL openers.
In sum
Oddsmakers cater NFL betting lines to match public perception and also to bait the public into poor bets. The temptation to use the prior year’s success as a buy sign for how a team will perform against the spread in Week 1 of the following season is an enormous trap.
The fact is, isolating road teams, road dogs, non-playoff teams vs. playoff teams, teams with a losing record or low margin vs. playoff teams or ones with a high margin from the previous year is where the line value resides. Quite simply, taking the road less traveled is your surest path to NFL betting profits.
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