NFL Line Projections – Week 5 (Look Ahead)

These are statistical projections and shouldn’t be the only thing that factors in to betting on a team, the stats only tell part of the story. Keep an eye on injuries, COVID Issues, and players returning from injury.

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Things to note:

  • These are look ahead numbers using stats through week 3. With only 3 games played some stats may be skewed for teams who fell flat for 1 of those game (i.e. Packers in week 1).
  • Actual week 5 line projections will be posted Tues after Week 4.

Model Projections

Consensus

My Favorite Model – Random Forest

How to read the projections: The model type is at the very top. Matchups are denoted by the alternating white/green pairings, away teams are on top, home teams on bottom. The model analyzes the matchup and projects the home and away teams score (Proj Score). The difference between the home teams score and the away teams score give us what the model says the line should be (Proj Line). The “Line” column is what the Vegas line is at the time I run the model. The “Line Diff” is the difference in the projected line and the Vegas line. A positive line diff means the projected line is in the away teams favor compared to the Vegas line, negative means the projected line is in the home teams favor. The “Cover Prob” uses a normal distribution and the teams variance to project each teams probability to cover the listed Vegas line. Same thing for totals, “Proj Total” is the sum of the projected scores, “Line Total” is the listed Vegas total for the game, the difference between the two, and the probability to go over or stay under denoted by “O” and “U”.

Betting Edge

If you don’t understand what you are looking at, I recommend reading my post about betting tips. The percentages show the betting Edge, which is the cover prob (from above) minus the implied probability (-110 odds implied prob is 52.4%). If a team has a 92.4% chance to win and a 52.4% implied probability (or -110 odds), the Edge is 40%. The Edge alone doesn’t mean you should blindly bet it. To quantify, >35% is Incredible value, 20-35% is great, 10-20% is good, <10 is ok value, blanks are negative value. ML is moneyline.

Top Models

1. Linear Regression

How to read the projections: The model type is at the very top. Matchups are denoted by the alternating white/green pairings, away teams are on top, home teams on bottom. The model analyzes the matchup and projects the home and away teams score (Proj Score). The difference between the home teams score and the away teams score give us what the model says the line should be (Proj Line). The “Line” column is what the Vegas line is at the time I run the model. The “Line Diff” is the difference in the projected line and the Vegas line. A positive line diff means the projected line is in the away teams favor compared to the Vegas line, negative means the projected line is in the home teams favor. The “Cover Prob” uses a normal distribution and the teams variance to project each teams probability to cover the listed Vegas line. Same thing for totals, “Proj Total” is the sum of the projected scores, “Line Total” is the listed Vegas total for the game, the difference between the two, and the probability to go over or stay under denoted by “O” and “U”.

Betting Edge

If you don’t understand what you are looking at, I recommend reading my post about betting tips. The percentages show the betting Edge, which is the cover prob (from above) minus the implied probability (-110 odds implied prob is 52.4%). If a team has a 92.4% chance to win and a 52.4% implied probability (or -110 odds), the Edge is 40%. The Edge alone doesn’t mean you should blindly bet it. To quantify, >35% is Incredible value, 20-35% is great, 10-20% is good, <10 is ok value, blanks are negative value. ML is moneyline.

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