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. Preliminary investigation of making totals plays using the same philosophy with the CTM numbers as the CSM has not however shown promise. Historic results for the CSM 6+ difference plays in week five games is 75-54 (58.1%), but over the last 4 years 17-18 (48.6%).

Current CSM Stats Team CSM Spread CTM Totals Arizona -4.8 -5.3 Atlanta -2.3 -0.9 Baltimore 2.3 -0.1 Buffalo -10.3 0.5 Carolina -1.3 -3.0 Chicago 13.7 0.5 Cincinnati 3.1 -2.6 Cleveland 9.3 5.0 Dallas 0.1 7.3 Denver 2.5 8.0 Detroit -16.8 3.3 Green Bay 15.4 -1.8 Indianapolis -4.5 4.7 Jacksonville -2.5 8.3 Kansas City 3.4 3.8 Miami 0.0 7.6 Minnesota -8.4 -1.6 New England 4.8 5.4 New Orleans 7.8 -3.2 N.Y. Giants 3.1 -2.1 N.Y. Jets -4.8 0.1 Oakland 0.1 -5.3 Philadelphia 3.6 -5.1 Pittsburgh 1.0 -4.7 St. Louis 11.4 -6.5 San Diego 8.1 5.1 San Francisco 2.5 2.6 Seattle -6.0 -2.1 Tampa Bay -3.3 -2.3 Tennessee -11.3 -12.3 Washington -20.5 -8.0

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

ANALYSIS: Again, we don't recommend following the CSM plays this year. 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 one area of CSM'ism that we like to follow is when the CSM pick is a favorite. A team that has not been covering the spread, or even losing badly to the spread against a team which may have been doing a great job against the line is often a setup for the favorite to exert its superiority at the same time the line has been shaded to the dog. In week five games CSM pick favorites are 24-10 and 8-5 over the last four years. The key plays this week are Baltimore -1, Tennessee -3, and Cincinnati -2.5.

Our first pass research on using the CSM method for totals (the CTM column above) has not turned up anything which holds predictive value. In other words just because teams have been playing over or under their totals lines is not indicative of how they will play against the O/U line this week. We have not given up with this project though and are considering other avenues by which these numbers might have totals value. For those who are interested, here is what the totals CTM data projects this week: