Battling the Books: NFL Prediction for Week 14

New England Patriots at Indianapolis Colts

Yeah, not exactly a matchup I’m looking forward to watching either, but I have some stats that look good for taking Indianapolis and I’m going to use them.

The Patriots are 5-7 SU.
The Colts are 3-9.
Pretty ugly for both teams, a little more so if you’re backing the Colts like I am.

But things look a little rosier from the ATS POV.
The Patriots are just 4-7-1 while the Colts are very profitable 8-4.

Hm/Rd stats show New England at 3-4 ATS on the Rd and Indianapolis 4-2 at Hm. Edge to me and Indy.

But what puts me over the top for laying my money down on the Colts are the stats from my own handicapping methods.
WF#1 (Wrong Fav system) says New England should be the Favorite.
WF1 record is 21-33 overall, a 61% Fade.
Broken down into Hm/Rd, the Rd teams (like New England this week) are just 12-20, a 62% Fade.

Now here’s where it gets even better.

WF2 also says New England should be the Favorite in this game.
WF2 is 16-31 overall, a 65% Fade, 1-1 on Rd teams.

Solid numbers recommending to Fade the Pats from both systems.
And it gets even better still.
When I have a match, when both methods kick out the same team as the WF, the record is 5-12, a 70% Fade.

Everything I have says take the Colts. When things work as they should with my method of handicapping, I gather stats throughout the early part of the season to hopefully give me a few strong spots to use to bank some units over the latter half of the season, so I can finish with a profit.
And that’s exactly where I’m at going into Week 12.

It’s never fun betting on a lousy team and hoping they play well, but at least they’re playing another lousy team instead of a spot where I’m playing against a good team and hoping I’m getting enough points to cover the spread. And I won my last bet in a battle between two ugly teams last week, when Charlotte beat Florida Atlantic, so I’ll try it again on Sunday hoping for similar results.

Looking at recent play, the Patriots have dropped two of their last three, Miami and the Rams at Hm and the Bears on the Rd.
The Colts have also dropped two of their last three but the two losses came against top-notch opponents in Detroit and Buffalo. The win came against another lousy team, the 3-8 Jets, a team similarly as bad as New England.

Key Personnel Issue:
Richardson at QB for Indy.

The Colts benched Richardson for poor performance and handed the ball to Joe Flacco, who proceeded to lose both his starts allowing Richardson to come back off the bench for their last two games.

His line in the Jets game was sufficient enough to get the job done, 20/30, 272 yards, one TD, 0 INT’s, but against Detroit he was just 11/28, 172 yards, 0 TD’s, 0 INT’s.
He’ll have a much easier go of it this week against a New England defense that’s given up 20 touchdowns by the air and another 10 on the ground.

When to Buy Recommendation
The Colts opened at -2′ and you can still get that number but with higher juice attached. I took them at -3 +102.

Recap: 1-0
Record: 10-10.5

Review: Fading the Giants was one of three Stupid Asterisk Plays I had to choose from last week (two college, one NFL.)
Didn’t matter which one I took though, all three Fades won.
The Bucs took a 7-0 lead in Q1, covering the six points I laid and never looking back, finishing 30-7.

I’m starting to feel disrespectful calling it the “Stupid” Asterisk Play. At 2-9 in the NFL and 9-17 in college (a combined 26-11, 70% Fade with close to forty plays charted) it deserves a little more respect, no?

And I have three spots again this week, same split, two in college, one in the NFL (no unfortunately, not the play on the Colts.) I haven’t bought any of them yet. As always, I’ll share them in the Predictem forums.