| FOOTBALL BETTING X-FACTORS | THE TURNOVER MATRIX | HOW THE NFL LINES ARE CREATED |
| UNDERSTANDING NFL TOTALS | UNDERDOG CORNER | WHATS THE GAME SET-UP? |
**This is a sample of our book FOOTBALL X-FACTORS Available for download here or for purchase at AMAZON.COM**
(TIME, WEATHER, SURFACE, DIVISION)
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One of our recent adjustments to our NFL game prediction formula, features looking at what we call X-Factors, also described as intangibles.
These are a combination of factors that are not obvious and require some understanding of the underlying set up of the game.
For years, we used these factors as 1–2-point adjustments as a separate category in our score projections. Starting 5 years ago, we realized a more accurate adjustment would be to the home field advantage number itself.
In our line calculation formula, (see our book on How the NFL Lines are Calculated) we already mentioned how we start with a base number of 4 for home field advantage and will adjust it either UP or DOWN based on these X-FACTORS we are going to discuss here.
These X-FACTORS include: Time Zone Issues, Weather Factors and Surface/Division
| X-FACTOR 1: TIME ZONES |
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Something as seemingly insignificant as time zones wouldn’t appear to be all that important but upon further review, it actually can be very significant in a matchup analysis.
This advantage falls into the physical/intangible category of advantages.
Pro Football teams travel thousands of miles each season, and this disadvantage is more cumulative and evident late in the season for a team as the full season wear and tear along with the travel stress impacts the final few games.
Early in a season there is a significant impact as well with teams when they have to cross three time zones.
The most impacted teams are west coast teams when they travel to play on the East Coast and then East Coast teams when they travel to play on the West Coast.
Not sure why, but the effects appear to be greater for the West Coast teams going East. This might be due to the fact that more remote cities such as Seattle and San Francisco have larger total travel mileage than the East Coast teams so as noted above, the cumulative factors impact them the most.
CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF TRAVEL:
How many of you out there have traveled extensively for work?
Do you notice that the first trip, or first several are great or easy to adjust to, but it only gets worse and worse as you travel more?
For this reason, we look at teams doing back-to-back road games, especially if they have to travel long distances.
We have seen handicappers focus on this angle, and we have seen good results. This is not magic; it is simply common sense that a team will not be 100% playing two games in a row on the road. In fact, this was one of our favorite strategies for both college and NFL. We realize this book is about football, but we have seen the multiple road game pattern be effective in the NBA and Major League Baseball also.
So, to summarize how to best play a Time Zone advantage, we are looking for the full three hour time zone change. We want to go against a West Coast team playing out on the East Coast or an East Coast team playing on the West Coast.
Small 1-2 hour time zone changes do not seem to make much of a difference in our analysis. If combined with other X-Factors there could be a slight edge, but we have seen a strong pattern going against the road team having a 3-hour time zone shift for their game.
This time zone advantage is worth 1 point by itself and if it is in combination with any of the other X-Factors we could see the combined factors be worth an additional 3 points on the line.
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X-FACTOR 2: WEATHER
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WEATHER FACTOR 1: RAIN |
We watched in the 2023 playoffs as Weather impacted the games far more than many people realized. The heavy rains during the NFC Divisional game between San Francisco and Green Bay greatly affected quarterback Brock Purdy’s level of play.
In the AFC Championship game between Baltimore and Kansas City, a game that should have been an offensive explosion instead became a 17-10 snoozer. We feel that the steady rain greatly attributed to this. We still wonder about Baltimore's game plan, going from being the best rushing team in the NFL to throwing the ball....on...a...rainy...day. It just made zero sense.
We are not speaking about Totals much in this book, but we do use Rain as an input to look at possibly taking an UNDER position on a game.
Rain is tougher to anticipate than temperature issues as many times the weather forecast can change almost multiple times per day. One habit we have found to be successful, is to place a totals UNDER position if we expect rain and then we can adjust if the rain stays away. Once the public knows about the bad weather, it is too late and the line will move significantly.
We actually had 5 games this season where we won by taking the early pre-rain lines, and we would have lost had we waited to take the game time line which had adjusted due to the weather.
How to Play this: We check the weather forecasts during the week prior to the game and only if we see a 2–3-day consistent rain forecast do we make an early move.
Game Day Adjustments: This is one of the most important game day adjustments that can be made. We check the weather on game day, and if it is really bad then we adjust our plays.
| WEATHER FACTOR 2: HEAT AND HUMIDITY |
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The following key is another secondary key but one in which we have utilized to significant success. The basic rule is fairly simple; look for Indoor or warm weather teams playing in cold locales in cold locations and vice versa.
The cold is obvious, but be carefult to not underestimate the impact of hot, humid locations in September and even early October.
We currently reside in South Florida, so we can tell you firsthand the September and October heat and humidity is not something in which anyone would want to play a 3–4-hour football game.
We also recently learned that the Miami Dolphins have the visitors bench situated to where it is in the sun for 1PM day games, whereas the Dolphins bench is in the shade. This sun/shade difference can mean a difference of 15-20 degrees.
In the 2022 game Buffalo at Miami, the weather was clearly a factor as the Bills could not hold on to the ball having sweated so much and on Josh Allen’s final pass it appeared that his knee buckled from fatigue and exhaustion as he grounded the ball 2 yards short of the intended receiver.
In 2023, the Broncos traveled to Miami and the Dolphins crushed the Rocky mountain team by a score of 70-20. This game was on September 24, with temperatures in the high 80s and humidity around 85%. Do you think this might have given the Dolphins a slight edge over their Colorado-based opponents?
In the 2023 season, we attended a September game in Jacksonville between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
We expected to see fireworks and two explosive offenses but instead we witnessed a lackluster game as the temperature and especially the humidity made for very difficult playing conditions
The defending champions won 17-9 in the game we identified as the dullest that we had ever attended.
Weather was a major contributing factor.
Weather Advantages against: Most all teams, but especially teams from Northeast and West Coast
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WEATHER FACTOR 3: COLD, ICE, SNOW |
The opposite also holds true for these same warm weather or indoor teams playing in any kind of adverse conditions.
It is worth repeating how significant of an advantage cold, snowy conditions can have especially against a passing, high-speed offense.
The 2023 playoffs provided a perfect example as the Miami Dolphins had to travel to Kansas City to play in frozen Kansas City.
The Dolphins never looked quite right, and the Chiefs cruised to victory
Base Rule: look to go against indoor or southern teams especially higher-scoring passing offenses
Possible Exception: Weather conditions do not affect rushing heavy teams quite as much as the slower pace will theoretically lead to fewer turnovers than would be expected with a passing team.
The cold weather teams can have an advantage as early as October, but really pay attention to possible inclement weather starting in mid-November through January and the playoffs.
The list of northern teams with a cold-weather advantage is extensive and is more or less any team north of Tennessee that plays outdoors.
Advantages against: INDOOR Teams especially, and teams from West Coast and Florida are at a significant disadvantage in cold weather.
Strong disadvantage for PASSING teams going from controlled, warm environment to cold, windy weather conditions.
How to apply: This is a secondary factor that should not be used as a singular factor when making a selection.
We use this as a component to determine the home point edge that we mentioned in the original base formula.
If a team has a significant travel and weather edge as noted here, then it is worth a point or two in the home field advantage component.
We referred to the Kansas City-Miami 2023 playoff game earlier. In our calculation for that game, we initially only had KC -2 (the line opened at KC -1.5), but then we factored in the weather conditions and we closed with a projected line of KC -6.
Best set up examples would be a southern or indoor stadium team travelling to a Northeast cold city.
| WEATHER FACTOR 4: WIND |
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A less obvious weather factor that needs to be discussed would be high winds.
One game we missed earlier in the 2023 season, was the Lions at the Ravens. The teams were even to us, but we missed the weather forecast which called for winds at 15-20 MPH, with gusts of up to 30 MPH.
That is exactly what happened, and the pass-heavy indoors Lions team struggled to get going offensively as the rush first Ravens team were not impacted by the heavy winds and cruised to an easy victory.
High winds can happen in any outdoor stadium, regardless of time of year. In South Florida, for example, it is very unpredictable. To mitigate the risk of wind, be alert to the weather forecasts and identify if the side you like is more of a passing or a rushing team. As we noted earlier, the wind risk is mostly against a passing team.
15 MPH is the key threshold for high winds. There have been studies done on this that the UNDER number hits at a significantly high number when conditions feature winds at 15 MPH or higher.
**For the rest of this volume, you can purchase at Amazon or download from our PUBLICATIONS page on our site**
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