For those unfamiliar with our turnover research, you may want to review the following classic article for background on this theory:

• Turnover Difference Theory

Now trying to apply this method to the week one games is of course a little different since we will be forced to use the last season "net turnover" numbers for the teams rather than live in-season data. The first question is whether there has historically been any positive results against the spread playing as usual the WORSE net turnover team provided there is at least a half a turnover per game difference between the two teams (as an example if Miami was +1.5 net turnovers per game the prior year and Buffalo was -0.8 then Buffalo would be the play on account of being -2.3 turnovers per game worse).

Here then are the results we found:

So there does seem to be some mild predictive value here, and the overall mark of 95-85 for 52.7% is beating the conventional 11/10 vigorish. Home Dogs and Away Favorites combine for a nice 43-24 record (64%), while games with a T/O Diff of 1.5 or more are a heavyweight 21-8 (72%).

The next thing to do is to break out the turnovers by using only fumbles and then only interceptions. Rather than produce the whole table, we will summarize the results as follows:

So from this we would take it that fumbles have been the key, although the fumble picks in the last three seasons' week one games were only 7-10 against the line.

At this point you have probably had enough theory and are ready to review the 2006 season matchups with the net turnovers per game data:

ANALYSIS: The table shows the various turnover comparisons for the teams in a matchup using last year's regular season data. The T/O pick is posted for either the Net T/O, Net Fumble, or Net Interception category if the delta between the teams crosses the 1/2 turnover per game line.