NFL Preseason Picks part II from TwoMinuteWarning.com NFL 2007

Preseason Picks, part II

Wagering on preseason games may be seen as risky by many, and indeed we generally counsel waiting for the real games to start. Maybe there's some value though in looking at how many wins a team has already earned in the preseason in the theory that winless teams try a little harder?

Also see NFL Preseason Picks, part I where we looked at whether prior year regular season records had any bearing on preseason results.

Preseason Picks research -- WIN comparisons

A common theory among handicappers when it comes to the NFL preseason is that while teams in general don't care much about the outcome of a game, teams without a win try harder than teams that have already secured one or more preseason victories. The question is, does the theory hold up when historical results are assessed? We'll try to answer that here...

We ran through the results of all preseason games from 1997 to 2006 (eg a ten year span) where there was a home team (in several games each season you have a "neutral site" and we will regard these contests as different circumstances). All we used initially in our query is how many preseason wins a team has coming into the game. Obviously then the first preseason game a team plays it has zero wins, if it's victorious then next week it comes in with one win, etc.

Since the sample size is already small, we elected to cap a team's wins at "2+" for the purposes of this analysis:

Home Team Preseason Wins	Away Team Preseason Wins	Won (vs Spread)	Lost (vs Spread)	Home Win%
0	0	82	94	46 %
0	1	45	39	53 %
0	2	13	9	59 %
1	0	29	29	50 %
1	1	48	45	51 %
1	2	15	39	27 %
2	0	10	7	58 %
2	1	27	19	58 %
2	2	25	30	45 %

The preliminary conclusion to the question that started all this -- who is the better bet when a team with zero preseason wins plays a team which has already notched a W -- shows mixed results...the winless side is 58-48 at home (55%), but just 36-39 against the spread on the road against teams with a win, so overall it's a modest 94-87 (52%).

So perhaps the "winless" team angle has some merits when it's the home side trying to get a little momentum going in front of the local fans. However, what does jump out from the above is one very interesting point:

Back an away team with two or more wins against a home team with exactly one win (39-15 for 73%)

This makes some sense if you take the position that the team with two wins already has shown a stronger than usual desire to win in the early going and the home team with the win may be comfortable taking a casual attitude to the game (since they do at least have a win) -- and may well be favored.

Now in previous years a case could be made for another 'angle' which was namely:

In a game of winless sides, lean to the underdog (104-72 for 59%), but this approach had rough years from 2003 to 2005 by the closing line. We should point out the difference between opening lines and closing lines is huge in preseason games, and so betting early in the week may be a key with this angle at least!

As far as general dog/favorite breakdowns go, here's some splits:

Home Underdogs
38-19 (67%) with 0 wins coming in
17-22 (44%) with 1 win coming in
12-3 (80%) with 2+ wins coming in

So it's a tremendous 50-22 (69%) with 0 or 2+ wins, but precisely one win home dog teams are losers against the spread...that old 'satisfied' feeling kicking in perhaps.

Home Favorites
102-123 (45%) with 0 wins coming in
75-91 (45%) with 1 win coming in
50-53 (49%) with 2+ wins coming in

Away Underdogs
116-92 (56%) with 0 wins coming in
87-100 (47%) with 1 win coming in
64-35 (65%) with 2+ wins coming in

...those 2+ win away dogs are rocking!

Away Favorites
14-29 (33%) with 0 wins coming in
16-20 (44%) with 1 win coming in
14-18 (44%) with 2+ wins coming in

...look to bet against a winless away favorite.

So, some more data for the 'old arsenal heading into the preseason, but the wise guy in the audience is already carping that looking strictly at wins without regard to the stage of the preseason is foolish...hold on pal -- we're getting to that!

Rather than fill up this article with countless tables though, we'll give some of the more interesting numbers in summary:

Week 2 -- away underdogs with zero wins are 36-22 (62%)

Week 3 -- away favorites with 1 or 2 wins already are 10-2 against home teams with 1 win

Week 4 -- two or more win away underdogs are 21-3 against one win home sides, while two plus win home teams are 7-1 as home dogs.

So in conclusion for this rendition of TwoMinuteWarning.com's preseason research we recommend the following:

Play away teams with two or more wins against home teams with one win

In a match-up of winless teams, lean to the underdog, particularly a home underdog

In the final week of preseason, teams with two plus wins are strong.

When the NFL 2007 preseason games begin we will roll out our free picks on the exhibition season action!

In case you missed part one of our preseason research, you may want to read about NFL Preseason Gap Comparisons

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