NFL Week 11 Fade: Why the Jaguars Are a Bet Against This Week

Sports Handicapping 101 – Tips to Help You Win!

I enjoy handicapping. It’s a fun hobby and also increases your bank account if you become good at it.
And like anything else in life, you CAN become good at it IF you work hard enough. But if you work hard at it and still can’t become profitable just follow the free picks here at PredictEm, we’ll get you there.

I’m altruistic by nature and I like to teach, which is why a lot of my articles are of a How-to-Handicap nature, especially the early ones back in June and July when I first joined here.
If you’re winning, you don’t need to take a look. But if you’re struggling to maintain a profit take some time and read them. There are tips in there that can help you.
Tips like how to identify subcategories to increase your chances of winning.

And that’s my topic for today – hunting for and discovering new subcategories.

Here’s a simple example of one – Home/Away.
Let’s say you’re tracking the performance of NFL favorites of 7 points or higher. If you take the record for that play and track a subcategory based on whether that favorite was at home or on the road, you have a subcategory.
It’s that simple.

But dig deeper.

Let’s say for example that you find NFL Rd Favs of 7 points or higher are 7-2 this season (this is an example only, not real numbers, this isn’t a play that I track and chart.)

You see 7-2 and you think, “Hey, that’s a 77% winning edge. And KC is on the road this week laying seven points at Carolina. I’m going to bet it!”
You put your money down and the Chiefs win by three. You lose.
Would you have made the bet if you knew that within that 7-2 record, teams that were playing a second straight road game are 0-2, and KC was playing their second straight road game that week?
No, you probably wouldn’t bet it.

THAT is another example of a subcategory, “Rd Favs of 7 or more playing their second straight away game.”

Those examples are just to get you thinking outside of your box, which is what I was doing when I spotted something Thursday morning while looking for games to bet on this Sunday.

I was studying my charts for the NFL season, and the different categories I track, when I had an idea. I have the stupidly named asterisk play, in which I have a subcategory based on my two methods for identifying wrong favorites DISAGREEING on which team should be the Fav, and also a second qualifying factor.
But what about when they both agree? Not a match play (when the game qualifies as a play for both systems); I’m talking about when a game qualifies for WF2 but not as a play for WF1, BUT my numbers for WF1 say it’s the correct favorite.

Sounds complicated, but it’s not.
For example, for a play to qualify for either WF system there has to be a certain point differential between my number and the one the books are offering. Today I looked at games that qualify for WF2 but do not have a point differential high enough to qualify to be a play for WF1, but . . . WF1 does have the same team as the Wrong Fav.

Okay, maybe it gets a little complicated, but here’s why it matters – looking at my charts, I found 14 games that qualified as WF2, while WF1 had the same team as the Wrong Fav but lacked the point spread differential to qualify as a WF1 play.
And the record on those plays is 3-11. That’s a 78% Fade!!!

And here’s the good news – two games teams qualify for this 3-11 spot on Sunday, Dallas and Jacksonville.

And here’s the bad news – I did some number crunching on subcategories for this 3-11 record (Remember subcategories? It was the topic of this article way back when.)
Digging deeper into the 3-11, I found that all 14 games had spreads of -4 or fewer. And the play ON teams this week, Minnesota and Philadelphia, are both at -7.

The Phil/Dallas numbers are probably off because Prescott’s out, not sure if I can trust them. But Minnesota’s a possible play at Jacksonville.
Let’s look at some other numbers.

Min 6-2 SU, 6-2 ATS (2-1 Rd)
Jags 2-7 SU, 5-4 ATS (2-2 Hm)
Favorable numbers for the Vikings there.

Looking at recent play, Minnesota reeled off five straight wins to start the season. They lost their next two to the Rams and Lions before getting back on track with a win last week against the Colts.
Jacksonville has lost three of the last four and two straight, their only win coming against the 2-7 Patriots.

This -7 is the highest number on a Viking game all year. The previous high was -6 last week against Indianapolis when they won by 9.

The numbers look okay to me, but here’s what seals the deal.
There’s another handicapping factor that I like to use whenever possible. It’s not a stat; there are no numbers involved. It’s based on a lack of focus due to outside factors affecting a team’s play. Like when rumors swirl about a head coach getting fired.

Whispers about head coach Doug Pederson being shown the door started earlier this season. Mid-October, when the Jags were 1-5, Sports Illustrated had an article suggesting five potential new head coaching candidates for the Jags. Going 1-2 since then certainly hasn’t helped matters.

Pederson’s in his third season.
After going 9-8 and 2022 and 2023, Jacksonville is just 2-7 this year.
That’s tied for the worst record in the NFL.
The Jets jettisoned HC Robert Saleh last month, and last week, New Orleans fired their head coach Dennis Allen, who had the same 2-7 record as the Jags.
Is Pederson next?

Teams that are losing and find themselves out of playoff contention sometimes start to quit.
Teams that want a new head coach sometimes start to not play as hard for the current-but-about-to-be-terminated HC.
Starting tackle Cam Robinson had already abandoned the Jag’s sinking ship.
And who did he go to?
This week’s opponent, Minnesota.

There are distractions surrounding this Jacksonville team. And to win at the NFL level, you have to be totally focused on the task at hand, in this case, the Minnesota Vikings.

Sometimes, as handicappers, we overcomplicate things (for a prime example, see my attempt at explaining my WF1/WF2 and subcategory handicapping methods above!)
Sometimes, you should just keep things simple. The stats and the atmosphere surrounding the Jaguars tells me to simply take the Vikings this week and trust in my numbers and analysis.

When to Buy Recommendation
The line opened Minnesota – 7, and that’s where most houses still have it. But at our sponsor Bovada you can get it this morning at -6′ with just five cents extra juice, providing you with insurance if the Vikings win by a TD.

This week’s play:
Min -6′, -115

NFL Season Win Update:
My best Regular Season Wins play is Cincinnati Under 10′, posted here on July 12th. This play came to me after I heard some sports jock jerk on the radio giving out the old “Guaranteed Lock” on The Bengals to go Over.
They lost to the Ravens last night, putting their record at 4-6.
They have seven games left, meaning they need to go 7-0 for me to lose my bet.
In other words . . .
“Chicken number one, chicken number two, chicken number three, etc, etc.”