Many times during the course of the season you'll notice teams that may have started the season slow, or hit
a cold streak, but then suddenly start playing well and get
on a roll.
Looking at the 2006/07 season, we find a few teams like this, in order to spot these teams
early we use our own common sense, we look at out of the ordinary
scorelines...for example, we'll use the Tennessee Titans and a game vs the Baltimore
Ravens, this game caught our eye, Tennessee started the season 0-5, losing their first 5 games, and
were basically a write off for the year, by the time of their
game vs Baltimore they were 2-6, beating 2 sub .500 teams only, by contrast the
Baltimore Ravens started the season 4-0, and were 6-2 coming into this game. Baltimore was a 7 point favourite
in this game and won 27-26, but Tennessee was winning this game
for 58 out of 60 minutes, Baltimore had to score 10 points in the last
2 minutes to win this game.
The next game for Tennessee was in Philadelphia, Philadelphia
started the season 4-1, then hit on a bad roll and lost 3 of
their next 4, their form was pointing downwards but still they were a 13 point favourite at home against a team with
a decptively worse record, Tennessee not only covered the spread,
they won this game straight up in a blow out 31-13.
Now we see the truth, Tennessee is just playing
good football, never mind their overall record, look at how they are
playing at the moment, football is a game of momentum, and often times you'll see teams go on a real winning
streak from out of nowhere.
The following
week Tennessee beat the New York Giants, another team that started the season strong at 6-2, then hit a
bad roll.
The next week Tennessee beat the Indianapolis
Colts in another huge upset, the 10-1 Colts were 7 point favourites to
win the game.
As it turns out, Tennessee was a perfect example of this angle in use
and how profitable it can be, you just have to be on the ball
and pay attention, the game vs Baltimore was the key, they really came to life in that game and played very
good, unfortunately they blew it late, but the thing you are looking
for here is a team that is playing obvious better football than
they normally play, that is a sign of an improving team, a current physically fit team, and a team that
can beat anyone, usually at overinflated odds.
You should always, as a handicapper, go through each game and predict the
winner, as well as the score, then compare your results to the
actual score and keep mental notes, notice the certain teams that have a much better offense or defense
than you originally thought, look at the games you picked wrong, is the other
team that much better, or is your team not as good as you thought,
look for those overachieving sleeper teams, they are great betting value.
