I've written before about the market overvaluing rested higher-seeded teams in playoffs, for example the MLB, the National League (the English Football fifth tier, not MLB's National League) and of course the NFL, which completed its Divisional Playoff Round where this 'feature' is present.
The rested teams this season were the Detroit Lions in the NFC and Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC. Both played on Saturday with the Lions favoured by 8.5 points and the Chiefs by 9.5 points playing against the Washington Commanders and the Houston Texans respectively, and neither covered the spread, with the Lions actually losing the game.
Since the NFL moved to this playoff format in the 2021 season, the favourite is just 2-6 ATS, and eliminated three times from the eight games so far.
This is a small sample of course, but rested teams have been a feature of the NFL playoffs since 2001 and the numbers since then are 38-46-2 ATS with 26 of the 86 teams eliminated.
Hopefully some of you remembered this idea and took advantage. With just two selections a year this is not included in the Sacred Manuscript, but then I do include the National League system which only generates six a season which seems a little inconsistent.
The College Football season ended last night with favoured Ohio State covering the spread against Notre Dame, but for me, the post season interest was more in how the new 12 team format would play out.
Similar to the NFL, four teams were given byes to the Quarter-Finals and all four lost their matches straight up which looks promising.
One big difference is that all these games are all played at a neutral venue, and the nature of College Football is that not all four teams on a bye were favourites, (actually none were), but it's something to keep an eye on as the format becomes more established and we get more data.
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