1. Carolina +3.5
2. New York Jets -6
3. Arizona +1.5
4. Green Bay -3.5
5. Indianapolis -8
I'm not a big fans of the lines this week. My methods are very good
for identifying situations where the wrong team is the underdog, but
last week we had a lot of clear mismatches where the only question was
which underdogs would have the emotional drive (and luck) to cover.
Not my strong suit. This week is much of the same, combined with some
teams where my numbers say yes but the rule of "don't take warm/dome
teams on the road in cold weather" says no. Sigh.
But there is one clear "bad favorite" this week so let's pick that one first.
CAROLINA +3.5 at Atlanta
In our DVOA ratings at Football Outsiders, Carolina
is ranked #11 and Atlanta is #16. Using WEIGHTED DVOA, which gives
recent performance more strength than early season performance,
Carolina is ranked #9 and Atlanta is ranked #20. If you prefer
emotions to stats, remember that Carolina needs this game, while
Atlanta is basically locked into second seed no matter what. And if
you want to talk about injuries, the Falcons will be without Justin
Griffith and T.J. Duckett. Maybe the Falcons have their own Nick
Goings hidden somewhere on the bench, but I have a feeling that
Michael Vick will be smelling a lot of Julius Peppers Saturday night.
NEW YORK JETS -6 vs. Seattle
Let's see here... Jets ranked #6 in DVOA, Seattle ranked #17 in DVOA
and #21 in WEIGHTED DVOA. Seattle has crumbled since three wins to
start the season, and according to my numbers they have played the
weakest schedule in the league this year, which means this line
seriously overrates them.
ARIZONA +1.5 vs. St. Louis
OK, so, St. Louis is 5-0 in its own division. On the other hand,
their only road wins were those two division games. Arizona and St.
Louis are #30 and #31 in my rankings, but if you take out the three
games where Josh McCown was not the starting quarterback, Arizona
would climb up to #27. Doesn't sound that exciting I know, but I
haven't said the two most exciting words yet: Chris Chandler.
Boo-yeah!
GREEN BAY -3.5 vs. Jacksonville
Sabermetrics vs. meteorology here. Jacksonville (14) actually ranks
higher in my ratings than Green Bay (18). Using the WEIGHTED formula,
they are virtually identical. But I do think that the Packers-Eagles
game skews the numbers a bit too much against Green Bay, and more
importantly: High 33, Low 7, 30% chance of precipitation, and this is
a late game instead of an early one.
INDIANAPOLIS -8 vs. Baltimore
You've heard about the "Manning better in the dome" thing but the Indy
defense has also been better at home, and the Ravens have been worse
on the road. Ah, what the hell. Everyone get aboard the bandwagon.
Aaron is the editor-in-chief for Football Outsiders, as well as a weekly contributor to ESPN.com Page 2's Snap Judgement and the New York Sun. He will also be the lead writer for Pro Football Prospectus 2005. You can read more about his methods at FootballOutsiders.com.
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