Power Ratings and NFL Philosophy.

NFL football betting looks easy, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, many novice handicappers including professionals claim that beating the NFL spread is the hardest thing to do in any sport! Make sure you gather all the information you can get and educate yourself because the oddsmakers are no joke and are out to clean your wallet.

While number crunching via power ratings are a must, detailed analysis is always an essential tool for pro football handicapping. There is a certain degree of "art" which compliments the "science". The successful handicapper understands that subjective analysis of a number of other factors which follows should also be considered before making a play.

Conditions: When handicapping the NFL, many novice cappers tend to overlook some of the nuts and bolts of handicapping a game. While there's a ton of things to check out before selecting a game, we suggest that you don't overlook the kicking game, injuries to offensive lineman, turnovers and weather.

Good vs. Bad Teams: One way to uncover value is to find matchups in which a really good team is playing a really bad team. The oddsmakers know that this type of match up gives the perception that the weaker team is going to get crushed and sadly enough the general betting public is going to jump all over the favorite in the matchup regardless of whether they put out a line of -7 or -10.

Parity: Have you noticed that dynasty's no longer exist and that the National Football League has become very competitive and that each week there are a number of upsets, both straight up and against the spread?

Value Betting: The sportsbooks are forced to put out a line on every game on the weekend's NFL card. You however are not required to wager on every game, and if you do there is a strong possibility that you are going to get smacked around by the books. This is the first step to grabbing value. You just have to make sure that you only pull the trigger if you think you've got a legitimate shot of hitting a bulls-eye.

Explanation of Power Ratings: True Power Ratings are purely objective and a deadly weapon in any handicapper's arsenal. They are the key to every aspect of statistical analysis. No emotion or bias is involved. PR calculations must be very responsive or they become old news before you get a chance to use them. Our PR method allows us to judge, with pin point accuracy the relative strengths of teams in any given sports event. PR's are an exceptional handicapping tool and should be utilized with many other handicapping tools such as trend, statistical and fundamental analysis. Our first step is to obtain a total Offensive/Defensive index along with each teams strength of opposition (SOS). We then logarithmically increment or front-load our PR's to reflect each teams recent performance. We use linear regression analysis to calculate and integrate all this information into an overall power rating. Our aim is to obtain winners via Power Ratings and using other tools contained in our Prophet Zone software package to confirm, rather than just rely on teams via an RPI or BCS rating system. If you like our ideas but don't have the time or energy to execute your own, you can always purchase our Prophet Zone software packages to get that winning edge over the uninformed individual.

To make predictions for scheduled upcoming games, simply compare the Home Team's Power Rating to that of the Away Team's Power Rating and add 3 points for the home team advantage. Thus, for example, a HOME team with a rating of 110.7 would be favored by 17.2 points, 110.7 + 3 = 113.7 over a VISITING team having a rating of 96.5. Or a VISITING team with a rating of 91.0 would be favored by 5 points over a HOME team having a rating of 83.0, 83.0 + 3 = 86.0. Our preference is the Overall Power Rating + 3 for HFA. Use the Home/Away Power Ratings to confirm the Overall PR. Make sure there is at least a 2 point overlay.

1. Always make your wages 10 to 15 minutes prior to tip off.
2. Never play a game with a double digit line.
3. Pass games where the team with lower PR is laying pts. There must be at least a 1 point differential for a team with a higher PR to lay points.
4.  We feel injuries are irrelevant. The oddsmakers take into account injuries and the publics perception of this and adjust the lines accordingly.