Betting

If you are reading this you are probably in an office pool and you are wondering how to get an edge on the competition within your NFL Pick Em predictions. Well I’m here to show you a super simple system that anyone can do and use this to evaluate the risks and rewards of each team in your office pool .I’m going to break this down as simply as possible to start and then show you practical ways to use this for week 1 office pools.

So lets first address risk what is the risk when you pick one team over the other? the risk is that you pick the wrong team so the risk is basically that teams chance of winning the game. In a perfect world if a team was guaranteed a win they should be picked every time in a office pool and the opposite is also true a team that’s guaranteed to lose shouldn’t be picked at all.

I know what I said isn’t realistic at all but its just to show a point. the reward of a pick is how many people are not picking that team when they win so for example if a team was guaranteed to win but no-one except you picked them everyone else would be get a loss and you would be the only win. that is the fastest way to climb the leaderboards in your office pools.

Margins and rates of victory

Now a 100% chance of victory is never going to happen there is always chance before a game that the underdog can win. So if we have determined that a team that was guaranteed to win should always be picked 100% of the time that also means that at every range in between they should also be picked similarly. a team that has a 50% chance to win should be picked 50% of the time etc. this is where we can find mismatches where favorites are being picked to lose too often of if close games have one side being picked too favorably.

TLDR; Risk = the chance that a team will lose. Reward = The wins you accumulate while your opponents get losses.

So Using Win % the odds that a team will win – the nationwide average that a team is being picked on office pools = advantage when picking one team over the other.
now that we have the basics down let me show you the numbers for week 1.I take the odds from numberfire.com and take each team and separate them into 3 categories. Favorites, Underdogs and Close Games

I consider the close games as teams within a 40-60% win odds.

Favorites:

Vikings,Cowboys,Saints,Patriots,Chargers,Ravens,49ers,Steelers,Colts,Eagles,Bills.

Underdogs:

Jets,Washington Football Team,Jaguars,Giants,Cardinals,Browns,Bengals,Dolphins,Buccs,Rams,Packers

Close Games:

Seahawks @ Falcons Raiders @ Panthers Lions @ Bears Titans @ Broncos

Now I’m going to go in depth how the numbers that help me make my picks for each game. Lets start with the close games.

Seahawks @ Falcons 

Using Numberfires Win odds % we see that the Seahawks are the favorites to win with a 60% chance to win however the price for that is that 80.93% of people are choosing the Seahawks to win meaning that the falcons are a good play for week 1 with a 40% chance to win but they are only being picked by 19.07% of players. In close games which are within 40-60% win odds I almost always like to go where i have more potential to place near the top.so I’m picking the Falcons here.

Titans @ Broncos 

Again going thru the same process lets see who has the better reward if we are correct with our picks in a close game. The Broncos are being picked in only 23.75% of matchups even though they have a 43% chance of winning according to numberfire. the Titans have a 57% of winning but are being picked in 76.25% of games. because the Broncos have a much better reward if they win vs the titans and because it is a close game I’m picking the broncos for week 1.

Bears @ Lions  

Again lets look at the numbers to see who has the better reward if they get a win. The bears have a better reward is they win because they are being picked in 33.91% of matchups but the bears have a 47% chance of winning. so im picking the bears. the lions are being picked to win in 66.09% of matchups but have a 53% chance of winning.

Raiders @ Panthers 

Our last Close game is the raiders and panthers the Raiders are the favorites with a 60% chance if winning but the reward is much greater if the panthers win due to being picked to win in 33.62% of games but having a 40% chance of winning.

So after you are done selecting your close games lets see which favorites are actually being picked to lose more often then they should.

there is only 1 case in week one where a favorite actually have the value on their side. And that team is the Minnesota Vikings.  The Vikings have a 65% chance to win but are only being picked in 53.96% of matchups. this makes picking the packers the worst upset pick of the week your reward doesn’t outweigh the risks when choosing the packers so in every office pool I am picking the Vikings unless I know that I’m playing with a bunch of Vikings fans.

Remaining Games

So far we have chose 5 of the 15 Sunday and Monday Games. Now for the rest just to keep it simple I normally pick the favorites. because picking favorites is still the safest move even though there aren’t many rewards for picking right. but for bigger prize pools or Bigger office pools in general you will need to take more risk to get to the top of the weekly leaderboard. so here is the rankings of the best Value Upset picks other than the games I have mentioned. 1= Best Value for Upsets and Favorites
Favorites:                                                        Upsets:

1.Cowboys 66% Win odds 67.91% Picked    1.Jets 31% Win Odds 3.83% Picked

2.Saints 66% Win odds 76.03% Picked         2.Washington 33% Win Odds 5.9% Picked

3.Patriots 72% Win odds 85.58% Picked       3.Jaguars 34% Win odds 9.85% Picked

4.Chargers 61% Win odds 76.3% Picked      4.Giants 30% Win odds 9.23% Picked

5.Ravens 80% Win odds 95.4% Picked        5.Cardinals 28% Win odds 7.66% Picked

6.49ers 72% Win odds 92.34% Picked         6.Browns 20% win odds 4.6% Picked

7.Steelers 70% Win Odds 90.77 Picked       7.Bengals 39% Win odds 23.7% Picked

8.Colts 66% Win Odds 90.15% Picked         8.Dolphins 28% Win odds 14.42% Picked

9.Eagles 67% Win Odds 94.1% Picked        9.Buccaneers 34% Win odds 23.97% Picked

10.Bills 69% Win odds 96.17% Picked         10.Rams 34% Win Odds 32.09% Picked

https://www.tacklerr.com/schemers-and-streamers-for-week-1/