NFL Preseason Research Wagering on preseason games may be seen as risky by many, but what if teams with lousy previous year performance are more interested in posting some wins in pre-season than teams coming off strong seasons?

Part I -- Preseason "GAP" comparisons

The first thing that came to mind when we thought about this thorny issue -- since our approaches for the regular season, heavily dependent on statistical analysis, don't seem likely to do the job for the scrimmages -- is grouping team's by their prior season records. The theory here is that teams with lousy previous year performance might be more interested in posting some W's in pre-season, whereas the teams coming off strong seasons could really care less about the outcome of the exhibitions.

Pulling our quantifying motivation table structure out of the subscriber area, we elected to categorize teams as follows:

• Good -- teams with a 10 or more wins in the prior regular season
• Average -- teams with 7 to 9 wins
• Poor -- teams with less than 7 wins

The pairing that jumps off the page is of course the "Average home team vs Poor away team" match-up, where remarkably the poor team has covered 78% of the time (28-8)! That's certainly an unlikely record based strictly on randomness, but how to explain such an extreme mark? The average teams may overlook a lowlier opponent, while the poor side might feel a win to be a mark of improvement to the next level in the NFL scheme...eg "if we are going to move up this season, we'll need to knock off teams like X."

Now, we noticed this trend prior to the NFL 2002 season exhibitions (you might say this is "preseason research revisited") when it was 24-6 from 1997 to 2001, and it produced a solid 4-2 mark on "live games" last year. So, we'll keep a close eye on when this situation arises in 2003 scrimmages.

Average home teams have had the better of it against average opponents, but this pattern was 2-2 in 2002 and at 60% over 43 games doesn't give a huge measure of confidence. A case could be made that lines are under-stated in pre-season and a match-up between two average sides might be an instance where the home team does make more of an effort.

The next thing you might say is, well what about breaking it out by the specific weeks (conventionally labeled week "zero" to week four)? The drawback to this is our already small sample size gets even smaller, but we went ahead and ran it anyway and rather than give you the full tables, we'll summarize the interesting findings:

Week 1 - Poor prior season teams were 1-11 against the spread at home against poor or average away teams from '97-01 and 1-3 in 2002!

Week 2 - Poor prior season teams were an amazing 22-6 (78%) versus the line against good or average teams from '97-01 and 4-2 in 2002. Interestingly the poor sides are especially strong as road warriors, 14-1 versus good/average home teams.

Week 3 - In what some people consider the most serious week of play, poor teams have struggled at home against average/good teams, mustering a 4-14 record as the superior teams "come to play."

Week 4 - nothing stands out as too strong.

Another area to explore is favorites/dogs. The following table reflects games where the home team was favored by three or more points (eg at least a field goal) --

We already know about the Average-Poor clashes, but of interest is that Average teams at home favored by a field goal are a more than respectable 18-8 against the line versus average away teams (including 2-0 last year). note is that Poor teams at home favored by 3+ points are a mediocre 21-34 or 38% (and 5-8 in 2002) suggesting that the public may be overplaying the "they will want the win more" sentiment. For those wondering whether "home dogs" have the same value in pre-season that they do in the regular season, the quick answer is no: home teams getting 3+ points are 17-15.

Finally, we know that a lot of people are looking to play the over/under totals as well, so running the same "GAP" breakouts but against the total instead of the spread, we arrive at the following:

No category in the above seems strong enough to really warrant further investigation.

We believe some of the GAP data conclusions are worth looking for in the 2003 action --

• Play POOR away teams against AVERAGE home teams
• Play AGAINST Poor home teams in week one versus AVERAGE/POOR away teams
• Play POOR teams in week two against GOOD/AVERAGE opponents, particularly on the road
• In week three, Lean to AVERAGE/GOOD home teams on the road against prior year POOR teams
• Lean to AVERAGE home teams when they are favored by 3+ points against AVERAGE away teams
• Lean AGAINST Poor home teams when they are favored by 3+ points

See Also:
NFL Preseason W-L record comparisons (Subscriber Feature)
NFL Preseason prior year off/def ranks (Subscriber Feature)
NFL Preseason Coach Stats (Subscriber Feature)