Revisiting the O/D Ranks Linemaking Art
Our friend SportsMaster Stan created a novel way of making a line for NFL games using only a team's offensive and defensive ranks in rushing and passing. Back in 1996 when the original article was published, the success rate over the previous five years had reportedly been phenomenal. We do have a copy of the article, which we suggest you read since it has all the rules for application: O/D Ranks Linemaking.
We had a request to update the record for this approach, and while we would view it as somewhat outdated and simplistic compared to other tools we utilize, it's hard to knock it when you see the numbers it's posted over a span of ten years:
1991 to 2000 O/D Ranks Line Overlays
| Overlay |
0 - 2.5 |
3 - 4.5 |
5 - 6.5 |
7 - 9.5 |
10+ Pts |
ALL |
| HomeFavs |
101 - 89 |
58 - 53 |
30 - 21 |
29 - 16 |
7 - 9 |
225 - 188 |
| HomeDogs |
63 - 52 |
37 - 33 |
46 - 41 |
57 - 39 |
35 - 25 |
238 - 190 |
| AwayFavs |
36 - 40 |
10 - 13 |
8 - 9 |
6 - 8 |
0 - 0 |
60 - 70 |
| AwayDogs |
116 - 100 |
94 - 98 |
53 - 59 |
67 - 50 |
48 - 32 |
378 - 339 |
| Favorites |
137 - 129 |
68 - 66 |
38 - 30 |
35 - 24 |
7 - 9 |
285 - 258 |
| Underdogs |
179 - 152 |
131 - 131 |
99 - 100 |
124 - 89 |
83 - 57 |
616 - 529 |
| Home Teams |
164 - 141 |
95 - 86 |
76 - 62 |
86 - 55 |
42 - 34 |
463 - 378 |
| Away Teams |
152 - 140 |
104 - 111 |
61 - 68 |
73 - 58 |
48 - 32 |
438 - 409 |
| ALL PICKS |
316 - 281 |
199 - 197 |
137 - 130 |
159 - 113 |
90 - 66 |
901 - 787 |
| WIN % |
53 % |
50 % |
51 % |
58 % |
58 % |
53 % |
| Spread Range |
10+ points |
5 to 9.5 |
0 to 4.5 |
| Favorites |
35 - 31 |
98 - 101 |
152 - 126 |
| Underdogs |
112 - 98 |
223 - 210 |
281 - 221 |
We set the overlay ranges to correspond with the prior premise in mind, namely that you wanted to look for a 7+ difference between the O/D Ranks line and the actual line. The last two ranges then represent the "plays" and they both come in with 58% history over the 1991 to 2000 time frame (week five on).
As the 7+ range is what we really care about here's the odds breakout for the 7+ range:
| Spread Range |
10+ points |
5 to 9.5 |
0 to 4.5 |
| Favorites |
2 - 3 |
15 - 12 |
25 - 18 |
| Underdogs |
68 - 42 |
65 - 57 |
74 - 47 |
Obviously then it's all about underdogs, with the 10+ dogs a nifty 68-42 (62%) and the 0 to 4.5 underdogs a similar 74-47 (61%).
To what degree this system was backfitted to the data at hand is unknown, but we ran a couple of tests and found for instance that the slight tweaking of the points scale to focus more on away passing and home rushing was indeed justified -- the numbers improved slightly over just having the rushing/passing weights identical.
The 2001 season will be the next test for this, but we would expect it to have held up well last season when underdogs had a field day and contrarians were delighted.
For 2002 we will have a column in the subscriber area to go over what the O/D Ranks line shapes up like each week from week five on. Of course one of the best plusses about this whole scheme is that it's easy enough to create the lines yourself and only requires the most modest and generally easily available info -- offensive and defensive ranks!
Copyright © 2002 by TwoMinuteWarning.com, All Right Reserved
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