“Is
There a Bonanza with NFL Totals?
In
October of 2010, I immediately isolated an NFL OVER trend. Perhaps it was
because of an incident that happened with my hometown Pittsburgh Steelers. It was at that point in the season that the
Steelers were fined repeatedly for what the NFL termed “unsportsmanlike hits”. The NFL handed out large fines, and made
threats of handing out even largely fines if the purported violence
continued. With defenders notably
changing their playing style, scoring in the NFL rose to almost 50 PPG for over
a month. It was not until the cold
weather began to influence scoring and a mindset returned to normal that
scoring began to settle down.
Once the labor dispute was settled prior to the 2011
season, the NFL repeated their threats.
Penalties, fines and suspensions would be immediate and severe for any
blows to the head, any use of the helmet as a weapon, or any unnecessary
attacks on unprotected players. Some may say that the Week #1 offenses of NFL
teams were ahead of the defenses or there were more teams (witness Miami on
Monday night) who changed offensive schemes from a less conservative
approach. Or perhaps, there is an
influence of the new kick off rules. To
this viewer, however, it was apparent that defenders were playing with less
abandon for fear of threats they would be penalized. Regardless of what the influencing factors
were, the results are obvious.
Inevitable
adjustments have been made for Week #2.
Yet much like last year, the adjustments they make may be too slow. Week #2 OVER/UNDER numbers for the 15 games
of Sunday, September 18th averaged just 42.7 PPG. There are again numerous indications on the
part of the linemaker as to which games have a higher propensity for going OVER
the posted total.
My OVER/UNDER service is now 11-3 dating back to the
PreSeason action in NFL this season. Let’s hope this continues….
Joe Gavazzi