1) Over / Under LINE RANGES
 
From Victor King / King Creole Sports

Welcome back boys! When last we spoke, KING CREOLE was off a 4**** Best Bet WINNER on the NEW ORLEANS SAINTS plus the points in the 2010 Super Bowl. Now it’s time to get back to work! You’ll notice that just like in last season’s issue #1 of the Playbook football newsletter, the anchor for our 2010 Pre-Season preview is the OU line range chart listed on thie bottom of this page. What I’ve done is to break down all NFL pre-season Over / Under results based on each different closing OU line in the last ten seasons (the actual line at kick off). Some of the results are not too revealing. But there’s a handful of OU line ranges that have resulted in pretty predictable final scores. NFL Over / Under lines in exhibition games have been as low as 30 points… and as high as 46 points in the last nine seasons. And our chart breaks down into the following four categories: Total (or overall) OU results…. Home FAVORITE OU results… Home UNDERDOG OU results… and the ‘Most Recent Trend’ (or MRT) in each particular OU line. Please remember that these results are not ATS results. They are Over / Under results with OVERS always listed first and UNDERS always listed second. Our very first NFL pre-season Over/Under rule is:

 

Pre-season home UNDERDOGS will usually result in an “UNDER”-whelming outcome!

Since the 2001 season, NFL ‘X’ games in which the home team is an UNDERDOG (or ‘pick em) have gone a very impressive 32-67-3 O/U overall. Regardless of the OU line, these pre-season home dogs have gone Under 68% of the time! The most profitable Under results have been in the very first week of Exhibition play…. Or the very last week. Here’s your breakdown of that overall figure based on each week of the Pre-Season: GAME ONE Home Dogs (or pick em) have gone 6-17 O/U (74% Under). GAME TWO Home Dogs (or pick em) have gone 7-14-2 O/U (67%). GAME THREE Home Dogs (or pick em) have gone 14-19 O/U (58%). GAME FOUR Home Dogs (or pick em) have gone 4-12-1 O/U (75%). And GAME FIVE Home Dogs (or pick em) have gone 1-5 O/U (83%). So the most consistent Under results have occurred in Games One, Four, and Five (11-34-1 O/U / 76%).

Another aspect of NFL Exhibition home underdogs is trying to understand the following question: What is the reason or motivation for the odds makers to make a team a road favorite or home underdog in the first place? One Explanation would have to be that a team is priced as a home underdog in Exhibition play if they are playing off a loss in the previous week… or multiple losses in a row. So with that in mind, here’s another query I ran in the Playbook Pre-Season database in regards to home underdogs:
10-25-2 O/U for all Game 2 > home dogs playing off a SU loss (71%)…. 2-9 O/U for all Game 3 > home dogs playing off 2 or more losses in a row (82%)…. And 0-3 O/U for all Game 4 > home dogs playing off 3 or more losses in a row (100%). From this query, our conclusion is that UNDER results are more predictable and consistent with each consecutive Pre-Season loss.
 
The bottom ‘line’ (pun intended) is to NEVER play a pre-season game to go “OVER” when the home team is an underdog or the line is ‘pick em.
 

Play a pre-season game “OVER the TOTAL” when the OU line is 34.5 to 36 points!

The way that we have broken down our pre-season chart is by each different individual Over / Under line. The nice thing is that we can lump a few different lines together to come up with a solid ‘line range’ result. And that’s the case here. In our ‘what have you done for me LATELY’ query, we note that the most recent patterns for these OU lines have gone 34-14-1 in the last three seasons. That’s all NFL Exhibition home favorites of -1.5 > points with an OU line in the range of 34.5 to 36 points. Here’s the breakdown by individual OU Line: 7-1 O/U for 34.5… 9-6-1 O/U for 35.0… 9-2 O/U for 35.5… and 9-5 O/U for 36.  Add ‘em all together and you get 71% for the Over in the last three seasons.

 

A higher-than-normal OU LINE is usually justified by an “OVER” result!

 In this query, we’ll take a look at some of the higher OU lines in an NFL pre-season game. The MRT tells us not to ‘fall for the hype’….. but there IS an exception if the OU line is REALLY high. We’ll focus our attention on the OU line range of 41.5 or more points. In a regular season game, an OU line of 41.5 points is just about average these days. However, in NFL Exhibition play, the average OU line is somewhere in the 34 to 35 point range. So a line of 41.5 or more is just about a full touchdown higher than the ‘norm’. A line that high is what the lines makers would consider to be a Pre-Season ‘shootout’… equivalent to a regular season game with an OU line of 49 or more points. So let’s run the query for NFL ‘X” games with an OU line of 41.5 or higher points. In the last five seasons, these games have hit at a surprising OVER percentage of 72% (13-5 O/U overall). The average OU lines in these games has been 42.5 points. And the actual scoring average in these 18 games has been 48.4 points. That’s an OVER ‘cushion’ of +5.9 PPG. And on a final note, if the home team is favored by less than (<) 6 points in these ‘expected shootouts’, the results improve to an impressive 13-2 O/U. Last season, these games averaged a whopping 54.8 PPG!

 
 
2) PRE-SEASON Week-by-Week OU TEAM TENDENCIES
 
Week One
Atlanta 5-0 O/U… Chicago 5-0 O/U… Carolina 5-1 O/U.
 
New Orleans 0-4 O/U… Pittsburgh 0-4 O/U… Green Bay 1-8 O/U…  Arizona 1-6 O/U… Cleveland 1-6 O/U… Buffalo 1-5 O/U… Baltimore 2-9 O/U.
 
Week Two
Green Bay 4-0 O/U… Indianapolis 4-0 O/U… Seattle 4-0 O/U… Houston 6-1 O/U… Carolina 5-1 O/U… San Francisco 4-1 O/U… Tampa Bay 4-1 O/U… Tennessee 4-1 O/U.
 
Kansas City 1-7 O/U… Atlanta 1-4 O/U… Pittsburgh 1-4 O/U.
 
Week Three
Chicago 7-1 O/U… Cincinnati 5-1 O/U… Philadelphia 5-1 O/U… Atlanta 7-2 O/U.
 
Oakland 1-8 O/U… Pittsburgh 1-6 O/U…… Miami 1-5 O/U… NY Jets 1-5 O/U.
 
Week Four
Green Bay 4-0 O/U… NY Jets 5-1 O/U… Seattle 5-1 O/U… Jacksonville 4-1 O/U… Tennessee 4-1 O/U… Washington 4-1 O/U.
 
Buffalo 1-10 O/U… Atlanta 1-6 O/U… Chicago 1-5 O/U… Cincinnati 1-5 O/U… Cleveland 1-5 O/U… Detroit 1-5 O/U… New Orleans 1-5 O/U… Baltimore 1-4 O/U.
 
 
3) PRE-SEASON Series History OU PATTERNS
 

Arizona vs Chicago: 3-0 O/U (42.3 combined PPG)

Atlanta vs Jacksonville: 4-1 O/U (38.2)

Baltimore vs Washington: 1-4 O/U (24.4)

Buffalo vs Cincinnati: 3-1 O/U (46.7)

Buffalo vs Detroit: 1-5 O/U (28.3)

Carolina vs Pittsburgh: 1-4-1 O/U (30.4)

Chicago vs Cleveland: 1-6 O/U (30.1)

Cincinnati vs Indianapolis: 1-5 O/U (31.5)

Detroit vs Pittsburgh: 3-0 O/U (47.6)

Jacksonville vs Tampa Bay: 5-1 O/U (40.2)

Miami vs Tampa Bay: 1-5 O/U (29.8)

Minnesota vs Seattle: 4-0 O/U (43.0)

NY Giants vs New England: 3-1 O/U (49.8)

NY Giants vs NY Jets: 1-8 O/U (30.2)

NY Jets vs Philadelphia: 5-1 O/U (46.5)

Oakland vs Seattle: 3-1 O/U (40.3)

 

 

4) King’s PRE-SEASON Over / Under BEST BET
 
3*** OVER the TOTAL / Philadelphia Eagles @ CINCINNATI BENGALS / Friday, August 20th
 
This will be Cincinnati’s 3rd game of the 2010 pre-season. But for the Eagles, it’s actually Game #2 (Cincy gets an extra game as they start the year with a Hall-of-Fame date with the Dallas Cowboys). So with an added game under their belts, this one is the ‘tune up’ for the Bengals. And it’s the first situational System that I queried in our Playbook NFL database. 7-1 O/U since 2001: All NFL ‘X’ Game 3 HOME teams (Cincy) versus an opponent playing Game 2 (Philly). The Bengals are also off a home game vs the Broncos. 4-0 O/U since 2000: NFL ‘X’ Game 3 teams playing in the 2nd of BB home games…. If they also played in the Hall-of-Fame game (Cincy). Speaking of previous opponents, we also note that NFL ‘X’ home teams have gone 5-0 O/U in the last 3 years AFTER playing the Denver Broncos (Cincy).  A look at this particular Day of the Week also points us in the right direction. 7-1 O/U last 3 years: All NFL ‘X’ Game  3 teams playing on a FRIDAY. On the Philadelphia side, this will be the first of back-to-back road games for the Eagles. 13-1 O/U since 2001: All NFL ‘X’ Game 2 teams playing in the FIRST of BB road games (Philly). The 2nd pre-season game has always been an important one for Andy Reid of the Eagles. For you ATS fans, we note that Philly has gone 9-1-1 ATS in Game 2 over the last 11 seasons. They have scored 20 or more points SIX times in the last 7 years. And we note that PHILLY has gone a perfect 6-0 O/U in Games 2 and 3 of the pre-season in the last 3 years. The clincher to this Best Bet is the fact that the Bengals have gone a perfect 5-0 O/U as pre-season favorites against a NFC opponent in the last 4 years.
 
 
Every week thru the Super Bowl, King Creole will keep you posted with year-to-date OU results for all teams in the NFL. If you’re into ‘TOTALS’ wagering, there’s only ONE publication in the entire country that is devoted entirely up to NFL Over / Unders. And that’s the Playbook TOTALS TIPSHEET! Delivered to your email address EVERY Tuesday afternoon throughout the course of the season. 17 issues are yours for the full-season price of just $99.00. Call the Playbook offices (800-321-7777)  to grab your seat on King Creole’s 2010 ‘Totals Train’!