Divisional Edge

Tony continues to enhance his job prospects by trying flattery, commenting:

I bought the perfect bet on kindle (It was one of Mr James' recommendations) so with a few references from yourself also, I should probably get past the 16% completion mark I'm currently on. With regards to my comments to this blog I do so knowing I will get an honest, well thought out response, that can't be matched in any skype group or chat forum. To be honest, some of the detail in the blog and your passion of the subject is actually mind blowing and you cant argue with that. Or can you !?!

The Perfect Bet is a good read, so yes, if you have purchased it, I'd make the effort to finish the remaining 84%. If you haven't, I join James in recommending it.  

As for the complimentary part of the comment, I have no argument with anything Tony says. The detail in this blog constantly amazes me too, and it's good to know that my enthusiasm for the subject still shows through after almost ten years.

Now it's rare enough to get one compliment, but this morning I wake up to this comment from KiwiRoadrunner:

Hello Cassini, I really appreciate the time and effort you continue to spend on your great blog. Sometime back you mentioned there was value in backing NFL unders totals based on small handicap lines. Is it possible for a technical update of recent seasons results? Cheers Clinton Jarman

A "technical" update... Very witty, given the recent debate, and thanks for the appreciation. 

After 2,416 posts, I can't say I can immediately recall mentioning Unders and small lines, but sometimes I'm too generous for my own good. 

The NFL Under / Over situation is complicated by the changes in point scoring, extra points, and overtime rules, but in general certain NFL lines and matches do favour the Under.

Looking at the regular season in the NFL since 2011, i.e 2012 onwards, the Under in matches where the line is less than 2.5 has an ROI of 6.5% from 276 bets.

As I'm feeling in a good mood today, I'll share another edge for NFL Totals. 

If you simply back the Under in every Divisional game regardless of the line, over the same time period, you'd have an ROI of 8% from 527 bets.

Last season was a rare miss for this strategy, but normal service appears to have been restored so far this season. 

To be clear, a Divisional game is one between two teams from the same NFL division - there are four (North, South, East and West) in each of the two Conferences (AFC / NFC). The logic behind this is that playing each other twice a season, rivalries build and the teams get to know the other teams' strengths and weaknesses and are more easily able to defend against them. The public appears to have other ideas.

Update : Curious as to why some seasons only had 95 Divisional matches, I found that I had omitted games played at neutral venues. This omission has now been corrected below.