We did some follow-up research on the "Contrarian Bridgejumping" handicapping method during the pre-season, so if you missed that, read this first: Contrarian Bridgejumping Revisited Please note that our follow-up research on the CSM plays revealed that while they were reasonably good overall during the 1983-2000 span we looked at, they had not done as well in the past four years, and as such we do NOT recommend playing them without other evidence in 2001. Still, the stats are interesting in themselves and we will continue to provide the raw data. Calculating the "Cumulative Spread Margin" stats involves totaling up how a team has performed in terms of net points against the lines on their games. For instance a team that won by eight while favored by three would accrue +5 points of CSM for the effort. On the other hand a team that lost by eight while favored by three would get a -11 CSM for that game. We will also be following each team's CSM versus the over/under lines (perhaps this should be Cumulative Totals Margin -- "CTM") which are calculated in a similar fashion: if a team plays a game in which the scoring by both teams was 48 points and the over/under line was 43 this would count as a +5 CTM game for both teams. We will post our research on Totals plays using the CTM numbers over the past ten years in next week's column. Historic results for the CSM 6+ difference plays in week four games is 69-61 (53.1%).

Current CSM Stats Team CSM Spread CTM Totals Arizona -15.0 -8.0 Atlanta 7.5 -3.0 Baltimore -2.2 -0.3 Buffalo -13.2 14.7 Carolina -0.5 -1.7 Chicago 4.8 3.5 Cincinnati 5.5 0.7 Cleveland 10.0 7.0 Dallas -3.7 7.2 Denver 2.0 3.5 Detroit -14.3 -1.8 Green Bay 21.0 2.0 Indianapolis -4.5 4.7 Jacksonville 0.8 9.7 Kansas City 5.8 12.2 Miami -3.5 11.8 Minnesota -8.0 -1.8 New England 9.8 5.5 New Orleans 7.0 -5.3 N.Y. Giants 4.2 -4.2 N.Y. Jets -6.8 -13.8 Oakland 4.0 -4.5 Philadelphia 10.0 -6.8 Pittsburgh -0.5 -13.3 St. Louis 7.8 -4.2 San Diego 13.2 6.5 San Francisco 2.2 1.2 Seattle -12.2 -1.5 Tampa Bay -5.8 -10.0 Tennessee -9.3 -18.3 Washington -27.3 -9.3

Let's take a look then at the 2001 season WEEK FOUR matchups:

ANALYSIS: Again, we don't recommend following the CSM plays this year, particularly in the early weeks. They are however a good measure of how well "contrarian players" are faring. In addition they are of course a representation of teams' past performance versus their perceived talent (under vs over achieving).

The key plays we like in the above are Dallas +18.5 against Oakland, and Tennessee +3.5 against Baltimore. The Cowboys are a bad team, but have been staying reasonably close to the spread in their games. The Titans have to put forth a big effort this week and the Ravens are still under the Super Bowl jinx.

We ran one last report looking simply at how teams with extreme CSM numbers do in week four: home teams with 10+ CSM's have been 12-12, home teams with -10 or worse CSM's have been 9-16....away teams with 10+ CSM's have been 10-11, and away teams with -10 or worse CSM's have been 10-11. So the only class of interest is playing against the bad CSM home teams. This week that would point you to Jacksonville, the Jets and St. Louis.

Season-To-Date Results: Key Plays: 5-9

Last week: 1-0 as St. Louis pulverized the Dolphins. Archive Week 3 CSM Week 2 CSM Week 1 CSM