Week 13
Strength of Schedule
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
We hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving enjoyed the holiday with family and friends. What could be better than a day of Food, Football, and Family?
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
One of the metrics we look at very closely is Strength of Schedule (SOS), we had few thoughts for this discussion, but then came the 3 Thanksgiving games, which emulated the power of this metric perfectly, while three games aren’t proof of anything, these turned out to be a good illustration.
We aren’t going to get in the details of our SOS calculation, sorry secret sauce. That and our picks are for subscribers.
Looking back at the Thanksgiving games:
Bears at Lions
Giants at Cowboys
Dolphins at Packers
Ok, of course, hindsight is 20/20, but here is how these games looked if only SOS ranking was considered.
For the rest of our SOS analysis and this week’s Best Bets, please consider a subscription.
Bears at Lions or 24 at 18
Giants at Cowboys or 12 at 6
Dolphins at Packers or 30 at 11
Remember how these games turned out? Well if you are still sleepy from the Turkey- Red Wine effect a reminder, this metric predicted the winners perfectly on the Moneyline, as far the spread, that is a little more of a judgement call. Taking the Cowboys (-4.5) and Packers (-3.5) to cover certainly seemed obvious and worked, but you probably would have had second thoughts on the Lions covering 10.5 at minimum. That second thought and the Bears covering would have been the right one.
Is the answer? Not exactly, the illustration above worked well, but we look at a multitude of metrics on deciding our 3 Best Bets, SOS is just 1.
The Road Ahead
Of course the SOS stats above were in terms of games played to date, but what above the road ahead from now until the playoffs?
If we look at the 10 toughest remaining SOSs and 10 easiest, you can start thinking about future bets and the playoffs. In rank order (this doesn’t include Thursday/Friday games from this week, teams in bold font are legit potential playoff teams):
Toughest
NE, CHI, CLE, PIT, MIN, SEA, SF, DET, NYG, GB
Easiest
PHI, ARI, NO, ATL, MIA, BUF, TEN, TB, JAX, IND
A few things stick out. MIN, DET, and GB all live in the same division, and much of that ranking is due to remaining match-ups against each other. So, be careful. Similar assumptions can be made on the easier side for Atlanta and Tampa. However, the Eagles and Bills are looking good. Tread carefully with the Steelers. For the rest of the regular season, subscribers will have greater access to this metric and how it will impact our Best Bets.
Week 13 Best Bets
TEXANS -3.5 - Being in this division really helps Houston, and this is one of the weeks where that is no exception. Trevor Lawrence appears to be playing, but won’t be 100% certainly helps the Texans as well.
BUCCANEERS -4.5 - Yes, alternate spread given the Panthers better play of late, but Tampa is ranked 1 in our Strength of Schedule index this week, we can’t pass on that.
BRONCOS -5.5 - Denver seems to be the surprise team of the season, strong defense and fast maturing rookie QB and a prime-time slate to share their success with all. Do we need to say anything about the Browns? Not really.