[SparJMU]

We are getting to that point in the NFL season in which certain teams are playing for their playoff lives, while their opponents are already mathematically elimated. When handicapping a game, how would you go about quantifying the extra motivation that certain teams hold? I would rather post this question to the handicapping minds of this forum as opposed to the NFL forum as I am curious to know how much emphasis the experts place on motivation.

Here are a few examples (not all inclusive as I can't even concentrate long enough to look at the pitiful teams in the NFC West) of teams that really jump out at me to be in a "Must Win" situation. I have not read any articles to confirm my thoughts here, but based on standings I believe the following to be true.:

Green Bay - If they lose to the Giants this week their season is over.

Indianapolis - Must keep pace with Jax to win the South, at OAK who is mathematically eliminated.

Jacksonville - Must win to pass Indy and win the South, playing WAS at home who is mathematically eliminated.

KC - Must keep winning to hold the lead in the AFC West, playing TEN at home who is mathematically eliminated.

SD - Must win out for the chance to pass KC. At CIN who is mathematically eliminated.

New Orleans - Can clinch the wild card with a win over ATL. ATL can clinch the #1 seed with a single win in week 16 or week 17, and they play CAR at home in week 17.

My first inclination as as amateur would be to find opportunities to tease the teams that may cross the 3 and 7. For example my strongest opinion right now is New Orleans +2.5 and Jacksonville -7 would be a very strong 6 point teaser. SD is obviously very tempting at -7.5, but they are on the road.

My second inclination would be to play any or all of them straight up as their motivation is much higher than their opponent, but I am sure the linesmakers are already including a few extra points in their lines to target this exact line of thinking.

I would sincerely appreciate some insight from the experts in this forum.

[LLXC]

I believe most people over value "must win" games.

[saratoga1927]

You can get all the playoff possibilities here ...... espn.go.com/nfl/standings/_/type/playoffs/sort/conferenceRank/order/false

[SparJMU]

I believe most people over value "must win" games.

I agree 100%. If I posted this in an NFL thread I would receive responses like "The Jaguars Must Win and the Redskins are pathetic. Bet your house on the Jags to dominate." I imagine spreads like these are often inflated because of Joe Public opinions like these.

I guess the reason I posted this at all is that I would like to hear if experts use this information at all, and how they may use it. Would a "Wong Teaser" become stronger for a team needing the win? Should we attempt to find correlated plays based on possible outcomes? Is there any impact at all?

[Dark Horse]

In the games you mentioned you're obviously looking for positive motivation. You may find it more helpful, down the road, to recognize situations where negative motivation factors in. Where the public sees a two TD favorite, and that favorite is not interested in digging too deep to record the certain W. Nobody can stay at a motivational high for an entire season. There will be dips. Because they are harder to understand, they offer a better opportunity (for those who take the trouble to look deeper).

You mention Green Bay. If any team is going to be boiling over with focus this week of preparation it's the Giants, after what happened on Sunday. But there is no line for the game, and uncertainty about Rodgers, so it is too early to consider motivation. It may already be build into the line.

Strong motivational situations should give you a difference between the team's present state of mind and general public perception. If the public already expects it, the line will reflect it. So you want an unseen element as motivation; not something that everybody can see. For example, the Arizona Cardinals from two years ago. 'Everybody' thought they were the worst team ever to reach the playoffs, and each win in the playoffs surely would be their last, but if you had followed them closely you knew they always got up for the big games. There was a substantial difference in perception, reflected in the lines, that carried over all the way to the Super Bowl. The team had a great capacity to focus when it mattered, and used the negative publicity as motivation. They were not consistent in the regular season (also motivational), but the public - wrong-footed by a long culture of losing in Arizona - misread those losses against so-so teams as weakness.

[tomcowley]

Indianapolis - Must keep pace with Jax to win the South, at OAK who is mathematically eliminated.

KC - Must keep winning to hold the lead in the AFC West, playing TEN at home who is mathematically eliminated.

Knowing the scenarios might help. Also, it's not like there haven't been years and years of similar games in past years to look at.

My first inclination as as amateur would be to find opportunities to tease the teams that may cross the 3 and 7. For example my strongest opinion right now is New Orleans +2.5 and Jacksonville -7 would be a very strong 6 point teaser.

Why the **** would you want to tease NO now if you think the line might cross the 3?

[wrongturn]

Don't forget negative motivations. When players don't listen to their coach, it is good time to fade. And this often counters the "must win" motivation.

[SparJMU]

Knowing the scenarios might help. Also, it's not like there haven't been years and years of similar games in past years to look at.




Why the **** would you want to tease NO now if you think the line might cross the 3?

Tom, I briefly checked the standings and quoted those examples, and I even qualified my question by admitting I had not researched thoroughly but was must more interested in getting the discussion moving and hearing others's opinions. I am not sure why you felt the need to be critical of two errors when the point of the thread was clear.

I did not mean to state that I had an opinion that the NO line was going to move across 3. I was stating that it is currently at 2.5, and if that line holds all week I thought teasing to 8.5 would be a smart play as it crosses both 3 and 7. I apologize if my language was unclear.

While two thirds of your post was nothing but pointless criticism of someone who is trying to humbly ask for advice, you do make a good point that I should spend some time doing my own research by looking at past games. I don't have data at my fingertips that would tell me standings through 15 weeks and playoff implications of week 16 matchups, but I am sure if I spent more time researching I would come up with something. This is my fault and I will certainly perform some research on my own.

[tomcowley]

I did not mean to state that I had an opinion that the NO line was going to move across 3. I was stating that it is currently at 2.5, and if that line holds all week I thought teasing to 8.5 would be a smart play as it crosses both 3 and 7. I apologize if my language was unclear.

Ok, that's reasonable.

While two thirds of your post was nothing but pointless criticism of someone who is trying to humbly ask for advice, you do make a good point that I should spend some time doing my own research by looking at past games. I don't have data at my fingertips that would tell me standings through 15 weeks and playoff implications of week 16 matchups, but I am sure if I spent more time researching I would come up with something. This is my fault and I will certainly perform some research on my own.

Yeah, you're probably going to have to run through it by hand. Also, if I were doing this, I would make a distinction between teams who just got eliminated and teams who've been eliminated for a long time or got eliminated from a virtually-no-hope scenario. Ideally you would know the change in each team's playoff odds because of week 15. There isn't a good example this year for a team getting killed this week, but if Jax loses and Ind wins, or sd loses and kc wins, I could see an argument for them laying an egg in week 17. Just because a team is eliminated doesn't mean they're not trying- detroit, dallas, and buffalo have been eliminated for weeks and they're clearly still happy to be on the field right now.

[SparJMU]

Thanks Tom. That sounds like really good advice. I specifically remember a situation in 2007 that fits exactly what you said. It was the year Jon Kitna and the Lions made some sort of guarantee early in the year that they would make the playoffs, I forget the exact promise. Anyway they were hovering around .500 with playoff hopes alive and somewhere around week 13 they had the Cowboys at home. They got up early and held a 13 point lead late in the 4th, and then suffered a completely demoralizing loss in the final moments. I think it was Jason Witten who broke a few tackles and snuck into the endzone. 28-27 Cowboys, basically shattering the Lions season.

The next week they were 10 point dogs at San Diego. I made my largest bet of the year on San Diego and they won 51 - 14.

It's sad I had to go back to 2007 to remember a game like that, but for some reason it sticks out in my mind. It sounds like a smart use of time to track teams in that kind of situation. I wish the Giants fit better into that category because that loss last week is about as demoralizing as it gets. Unfortunately their playoff hopes are still very much alive.

[Flying Dutchman]

We attempted to use Game Theory with a Bayesian Network to match up motivational situations like this from the past in the NFL and had limited, but not provable success. Our guess was: playoff gain motivation is just not that strong a factor in the NFL. GT/BN worked much better with decisions on how hard teams would play after clinching and had nothing to gain by a win, but could lose by getting injuries before post-season (as in last year's situations with Indy and NO - i.e. to rest or not rest players).

[big0mar]

Whatever trait that leads to this motivation should already be accounted for. If it does not appear in any analysis, how could it likely exist?

[PRC]

Wildly overrated imo.

[Sawyer]

Motivation is important but usually its overrated by bettin' public.

[SparJMU]

Thanks a lot everyone for the informative responses.

[dvsbmx]

We attempted to use Game Theory with a Bayesian Network to match up motivational situations like this from the past in the NFL and had limited, but not provable success. Our guess was: playoff gain motivation is just not that strong a factor in the NFL. GT/BN worked much better with decisions on how hard teams would play after clinching and had nothing to gain by a win, but could lose by getting injuries before post-season (as in last year's situations with Indy and NO - i.e. to rest or not rest players).

Just out of curiositty, who is "we" and "our"? Not specifically of course; just looking for some insight into how the sharps work.

[Indecent]

We attempted to use Game Theory with a Bayesian Network to match up motivational situations like this from the past in the NFL and had limited, but not provable success. Our guess was: playoff gain motivation is just not that strong a factor in the NFL. GT/BN worked much better with decisions on how hard teams would play after clinching and had nothing to gain by a win, but could lose by getting injuries before post-season (as in last year's situations with Indy and NO - i.e. to rest or not rest players).

Great application of GT/BN, thanks for sharing. On my (albeit rather long) list of tasks to take a look into in the future.

[BeatingBaseball]

I think that Dark Horse in Post #5 here is on to the essence of what you need to look for in capping the motivational element.

As always, your edge comes from identifying the disparity between the public's perception of the value of any given component and the actual value of that component. When it comes to "must win" games, the public generally perceives that situation as a statically positive element worth a certain value of X. The market tends to apply a similar static value, but to the negative, for a "meaningless" game. In actuality, however, the impact of these situations is quite dynamic - it depends completely on the character and quality of the teams involved.

Teams have personalities just like people. And the same circumstance that may be a significantly positive influence for a team with strong leadership and big balls may not be a plus at all, and maybe even a negative, for a team that is weak in those areas. These are difficult things to put into a mathematical model, making it an area of handicapping that is more art than science. It's really where feel and gut handicapping comes in.

The best thing about these types of situations is that they of course come at the end of the season. By then you've had time to evaluate and make your decisions as to the character of a team's leadership and intangibles. That's what you follow the season for - so you then cap that matchup based on how you feel they will respond to it.

In baseball, of course, the analysis comes down disproportionately to the presence or absence of those winning qualities in the guy on the mound - and you couldn't find a better example of that dynamic than the 2010 SF Giants.

[Dark Horse]

NBA is ideal for motivational approach; more so than other leagues, in my opinion. For a few years, when the Suns were still a 'young dogs' team, full of enthusiasm and ambition to get to the top (i.e. the early Nash years), they would take the previous game as motivation for the next. If they did not win the previous 2H, they would come out strong and usually cover the 1H with ease. (you do need to check such approaches for the 'negative'; in this case, when the Suns did win the 2H, their next 1H wasn't nearly as strong).

[Dex17]

Very interesting topic. I was actually just having this discussion in another thread:http://www.sportsbookreview.com/forum/players-ta...t-jets-p2.html

I think the motivation factor, while a relevant factor, is overvalued in handicapping and in the justification of an outcome. One thing that I've noticed is that the handicappers on this site that disagree with me typically fail to leverage any fact-based or 'tangible' anecdotes. You just see posts like:
- "Team A will not cover because they will be looking past Team B, to its next opponent." Okay, great. What else???
- "Team A will cover because they want to make a statement this week." This one really bothers me.

Again, I think motivation is definitely a factor, but until someone can draw some type of causal evidence for an outcome, I'll continue to think it's bullsh*t and a lazy argument.

[Dex17]

We are getting to that point in the NFL season in which certain teams are playing for their playoff lives, while their opponents are already mathematically elimated. When handicapping a game, how would you go about quantifying the extra motivation that certain teams hold? I would rather post this question to the handicapping minds of this forum as opposed to the NFL forum as I am curious to know how much emphasis the experts place on motivation.

Here are a few examples (not all inclusive as I can't even concentrate long enough to look at the pitiful teams in the NFC West) of teams that really jump out at me to be in a "Must Win" situation. I have not read any articles to confirm my thoughts here, but based on standings I believe the following to be true.:

Green Bay - If they lose to the Giants this week their season is over.

Indianapolis - Must keep pace with Jax to win the South, at OAK who is mathematically eliminated.

Jacksonville - Must win to pass Indy and win the South, playing WAS at home who is mathematically eliminated.

KC - Must keep winning to hold the lead in the AFC West, playing TEN at home who is mathematically eliminated.

SD - Must win out for the chance to pass KC. At CIN who is mathematically eliminated.

New Orleans - Can clinch the wild card with a win over ATL. ATL can clinch the #1 seed with a single win in week 16 or week 17, and they play CAR at home in week 17.

My first inclination as as amateur would be to find opportunities to tease the teams that may cross the 3 and 7. For example my strongest opinion right now is New Orleans +2.5 and Jacksonville -7 would be a very strong 6 point teaser. SD is obviously very tempting at -7.5, but they are on the road.

My second inclination would be to play any or all of them straight up as their motivation is much higher than their opponent, but I am sure the linesmakers are already including a few extra points in their lines to target this exact line of thinking.

I would sincerely appreciate some insight from the experts in this forum.

Let me play devil's advocate...

Washington will be more motivated to beat Jacksonville because they love to play spoiler and Rex Grossman wants to prove he should be the go-forward starter.

The reason why this irks me so much is because, if the Redskins win, there's little to no chance that I can prove my theory was accurate. Maybe it's just because the motivation factor was not at play at all, and the Redskins won because they could execute solid football or maybe MJD and Garrard were caught spooning in the locker room before the game and the offensive line didn't want to block for them. All of it is baseless (unless you have pics).

[Flying Dutchman]

Just out of curiositty, who is "we" and "our"? Not specifically of course; just looking for some insight into how the sharps work.

Me and my homies. When we not be out gang-banging, we be doing Bayesian Networks on the iPads we took from the dweebs at Borders...

...Yo.

[Flying Dutchman]

Great application of GT/BN, thanks for sharing. On my (albeit rather long) list of tasks to take a look into in the future.

Got a great "free" book from some pencil-neck at school, after cleaning out his locker so we could stuff him into it, this book on BNs dropped on the floor...

...Yo.

[PRC]

You don't think this is already priced into the line? Isn't that the whole point of oddsmaking?