Statsational NFL Week 1 Picks

It seems like just yesterday Tom Brady and Wes Welker could not connect to put the Super Bowl away.  Eli Manning, once again, drove the Giants down the field to win his second Lombardi Trophy.  A tough loss for us to end the season but the season on the whole was quite successful.  In documented games, we were able to go 122-77-7.  A great record no doubt but one that is now meaningless.  It is 2012 and that means we must do it again.

For the newcomers this season this is how it works.  I will send the games that the system views as having a 53% chance of winning or better.  Those percentages are based on historical trends. The ones that are proven winners over a long period of time get more weight.  So what the system is really telling me is historically a team in this spot should win ATS x% of the time.  My goal is always to pick around the 60% level on the season.  Considering I will have a lot of games to play for the season, 60% is a very difficult number to obtain.  Even at 55% we would be very profitable but 60% is the systems goal. 

After doing an analysis for last season it looks like we should be buying half points on the following lines. +2.5, +-3, -3.5, +6.5, +-7, -7.5, +9.5, +-10, -10.5.  I believe 6 of the pushes would have been wins had we done this.  That is 6 additional units which means we would have had to lose 60 other games in which we bought to break even.  Considering we lost 77 games in total you can see that buying the half points on these key numbers would have been successful  I will be buying these half points for the first time this season.  When I post the plays I will put the buys along with the play.  I try and post a line that is obtainable by most people.  Sometimes I get better than that line and sometimes I get worse.  I am sure that is how it works for most of you as well.  On occasion there are injuries or some other extenuating circumstances that cause a line to move dramatically after I post the plays.  Feel free to check with me before playing it.  I will usually post on my twitter @statsational if there are any changes.

Last season was the season I wanted to go live with the system and make some minor tweaks if need be.  Several changes were made as the season went.  That was accomplished.  This season the tweaking is done and its all business full throttle.  I am happy many of you were able to be along for the ride last season and are back to do some damage this season.


Bankroll

You should all have a bankroll for the season.  Whether it is $500 or $500,000 you should have an amount set aside to play for the season.  This eliminates any chance of getting yourself in a financial calamity and allows you to play the games with a bit less stress.  You should never be risking more than you can afford on any game.  The amount you bet on each game should be a percentage of your overall bankroll.  I would suggest 1%-5% per play.  Even though my games have a percentage attached I play them flat.  The initial thought behind the percentages was to work the Kelly Criterion with the games, giving a percentage to each game to plug in to the Kelly Calculator.  The danger is you can win a high percentage of games and still lose do to the top games not winning.  The Kelly did however prove to be very good last season despite not hitting on some large percentage plays.  If you want to use the kelly I would suggest doing it with a small bankroll or a small piece of your current bankroll and then using the larger piece to play the games straight.  When the Kelly works it can multiply your bankroll rather quickly.  You may also want to refer back to my email last season on parlays and these games.  If we are hitting at 60% the parlays can be very profitable with less at risk each week.

Week 1
Last season we got off to a great start.  6-1 in documented plays.  Week 1 is typically a tough week to handicap.  We base 95% of our thoughts on what happened last season.  Of the 16 games this week 15 are matchups where one team had a better record than the other.  In those 15 only 3 do we see the favorite as the team with the lower 2011 record.  One of those is Denver who now has Peyton Manning.  So we obviously base the lines on the first couple of weeks on our perceptions from the prior season.  But when we look at how things play out in the NFL we know that some teams we think are strong contenders right now will be awful and teams we think will be awful will contend.  Last season Jacksonville was favored over Tennessee in week 1, Cleveland was almost a TD favorite over Cincinnati,  and TB was favored over Detroit.  You can go back year after year and see similar trends.  If you are in a survivor pool you know how hard it is to stay alive in the first week.  What the system tries to do is exploit this.  I look back to last years stats and prior matchups and try and find the trends that have proven successful in the first weekend.  For example if you just played against playoff teams from the prior season in week 1 you would pick 56% over the last 20 years.  That's about 200 games.  Not bad at all.  It shows how the lines are always skewed toward the teams that were good the prior season.


Week 1 Picks

1. Dallas +4...................64%
2. Washington +9..........58%
3. Denver -1...................58%
4. Arizona +3.5..............57% (Buy .5)
5. Cincinnati +6..............57%
6. Kansas City +3.5........55% (Buy .5)
7. Indianapolis +10........55% (Buy.5)
8. NY Jets -2.5..............55% (Buy .5)
9. St. Louis +8.5..............55%
10. Tampa Bay +3.........55% (Buy .5)
11. Minnesota -3............54% (Buy .5)
12. Philadelphia -8.........53%
13. Tennessee +6..........53%
14. San Diego -1...........53%

If you can not find 3.5 on the Minn game then take it at -4 but do not buy the half point down.  If you can only find +2.5 on KC then buy up to 3.

As always I am available via email or twitter to answer questions.  I enjoy getting feedback from you guys.  Lets start the season off right.Forums
I posted plays last season, initially on Covers, and later in SBR http://forum.sbrforum.com/sports-promotions-links/1305837-statsationals-nfl-trend-based-system-picks-p7.html.  I will not log into Covers because of the virus they put on my PC, trying to destroy my system.  At SBR I was placed in the Sportsbook and Promotions forums.  I finished the season there.  I was limited in what I could do as far as accessing pages on the site.  The reason being someone mentioned my emails and I responded (its all in the thread) and that was against the rules.  I then logged in with an old name I had to be able to have full access to the site and because of that they banned me from posting all together.  So there will be no posting on Covers or SBR this season.  Someone did offer to post the plays in the SBR forum for me.  So you may be able to find that but know I can not reply to anyone there.  I may look to post elsewhere but honestly it is a lot of work.

If you do not want to receive emails from me anymore please email me under the subject cancel and I will remove you from the list.BOL