2006 NFL Favorites Covering

May 23, 2008

Once again 2006 is seeing NFL favorites covering the spread. Alex Smart of the Vegas Experts takes a further look. Last year, the NFL saw a significant change favoring for the bettor. The public was happy, the books not so. Last season, NFL favorites covered at a 57.2% clip, well above recent years.

What can we expect this year? More of the same? Or the bias towards underdogs in the NFL returning? Going back through my records before 2005, I note that NFL dogs had beaten the pointspread about 52%-53% of the time.

Could the fate of the favorites and their up-surging fortunes have been predicted going into last season? From a near 10 year high when the underdogs covered 55.8% of the time in 2002, a small drop-off followed the next two seasons. In 2003 underdogs covered 53.2%, a drop off of 2.6%. Then in 2004, the underdog dropped off by a further 3.2%, so covering the season at an even 50%.

Was parity eventually taking effect? The answer to that is surely yes. But not just last season. It started several seasons ago as the chalk started to win at a higher rate than previously. Now there has become a divide in the NFL where the successful teams attract the better players and the less successful have what’s left. This has started to see a widening gap each and every season for the last three years. See it all stems from players wanting to win. Salary is so high, what’s a few million dollars less at the end of a career if you have a ring to prove your success and re-live later in life telling the grandchildren.

So how did the favorites start out this 2006 season? We’ve only seen action for one week and there’s still another 16 weeks till the regular season ends, but overall favorites went 7-9 ATS. Home chalk was a disappointing 1-7 ATS while the road favs enjoyed a prosperous 6-2 ATS weekend.

How have those figures from the opening week compared with overall figures for week one since 1999? During this eight-year span (2006 included), favorites are now 53-67-8 ATS with mid-range favorites priced between -3.5 and -6.5 points going 18-27 ATS. Splitting this into home and road stats I can tell you that home favorites are now 34-50-4 ATS, so leaving road favs at 19-17-4 ATS. Looking at those chalk numbers that are in the mid-range line bracket of -3.5 and -6.5, home favs are 12-20 ATS and road favs are 6-7 ATS.

The figures are pretty in-conclusive to assume what will follow over the coming weeks. One thing that is for sure, this will not be the only time this subject will be covered this NFL season.

Written by admin · Filed Under NFL 

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