The NFL regular season records for Small Road 'Dogs since the eight division format was adopted in 2002 are below, left.
Back in early October I mentioned a "Vanilla Thursday" system idea which at least had a logical premise that "with less time to prepare, coaches play with a 'vanilla offense' which results in low scoring games" and the results were positive.
18 games, a record of 11-6-1 and a profit of 4.47 points.
In that same post, Martin asked:
cassini, what about a system that back away teams in divisional NFL games ? I think can be profitableThe 2016 results are in, but not so good for this one. The 2016 record in the 96 Divisional games for away (road) teams was 46-49-1.
If you stuck with small road 'dogs in these games, the record improves to 21-19-1 and a small 0.99 point profit.
Since the NFL reorganised for the 2002 season, Martin's suggestion has merit. 916 games would have generated 35.2 points (3.84% ROI) while backing road teams in every game would have seen a loss of 17.95 points.
Betting around the 'key' numbers of 3 and 7 points is interesting. As lines move, I've included the 2.5, 3.5, 6.5 and 7.5 lines and the profit since 2002 in all games is 49.17 points from 1,079 games (ROI 4.56%), which improves to 30.59 points from 365 Divisional games (ROI 8.38%).
Looking ahead to next weekend's Divisional Playoff games, history favours the road teams who have a record against the spread of 33-23 since 2002.
The 15.5 points the Houston Texans are getting at New England Patriots is a record high for this round, beating the 13.5 the Denver Broncos received in 2012 when they played the Patriots who won by 35.
That the Patriots are 9-0 for the Overs since 2006 in home Wild Card or Divisional Playoff games is merely a curiosity of course.
Also noteworthy is that after road teams won all four Wild Card Playoff games last year, home teams have won the subsequent 10 playoff games, covering the spread in the last six.
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