The Ultimate Under

After more than 30 years of handicapping experience, I discovered an NFL totals tendency that I can say without a doubt is the strongest winning development I have ever come across in my handicapping efforts. How can I make such a bold statement you ask? Without sounding like a typical phony tout service, consider an NFL betting trend that covers about 67% of the time dating back to the 2002 season and averages about 11 plays per season. Sound good so far?

But before any trend can be qualified that puts hard earned money in harm’s way, it must prove to be relevant. Relevance in handicapping means the betting tendency is based on the current performance levels of the teams and the handicapping analysis features a matchup of the opposing performance levels for each NFL game. Think about it. How can you handicap a contest without factoring in how well each team is playing at the time of the contest?

Failure in this regard can lead to inconsistent winning tendencies based on coincidence. Unfortunately, the vast majority of NFL betting trends that are bantered about are of the coincidental variety. Handicapping decisions borne from short term coincidence are forever doomed to fail in the long term and it is only a matter of time before the long term catches up with the short term.

My illustrious trend is called the Ultimate Under and is based on what I term “scoring efficiency.” It is a measure of how hard an NFL team has to work to put points on the scoreboard and prevent the opposition from scoring. One popular method that aims to quantify scoring efficiency is yards per point and it is calculated just as it says: divide total yards gained by points scored for an offensive rating and divide total yards allowed by points allowed for a defensive rating.

The lower the offensive yards per point rating, the more efficient is the scoring offense as fewer yards from scrimmage are needed to score points. Conversely, the higher the defensive yards per point rating, the more efficient is the defense at preventing points as the opposition needs to gain more real estate to score points.

What is nice about yards per point is that it factors in red zone scoring efficiency and average starting field position – two key components to consider when betting totals. The Ultimate Under is based on yards per point matchups with home field advantage, red zone efficiency and strength of schedule considerations. In addition, pointspread and total ranges are included in the analysis. Therefore, the Ultimate Under conveys relevance to sound handicapping principals and practices.

Refer to the left column heading titled Home of the Ultimate Under for the seasonal results.