Week one games are always risky because we can’t always trust what we see in the preseason. If we could trust the preseason games, the Buffalo Bills and Marv Levy would have never made it to four straight Super Bowls.
Tony Dungy and the Indianapolis Colts would have never started the season the way they did last year. And we know teams don’t always perform the way they did the previous season or we wouldn’t even have to play the games out. Rather than trust what we think are good and bad teams we need something we can hang our hat on and play with confidence in the first week of the season.
In addition, if you are a situational player like myself who relies on situations that are primarily based on previous games, it gets even more difficult. So, we need to find some “safe” bets, if you will, to approach the first week of the season. Since 1985, home teams during week one are 164-132-12 55.4%. But as you’ll see in the table below, it can be a rocky ride if you rely on just playing all home teams during week one.
n fact, since 1994, these games are just 90-85-8. However, last year they did go 10-6-0 so maybe it is turning around again. If we look at only home teams in week one who are favored by three or less (or underdogs), the record improves to 98-65-9 60.1%.
None of these are strong enough to rely on by themselves, but they give us a start. If we know home teams out perform road teams in game one, we need to find something to hang our hat on. I looked at how the road teams performed during the preseason to see if there was anything there. Sure enough, I found something. Road teams who were outscored by one or more points during the preseason were just 44-84-4 34.4%.
Even though I talked about home teams laying three or less points, we’ll ignore that for now. Home teams, during week one of the regular season, when playing road teams who were outscored by one or more points (on average) during the preseason, are 84-44-4 65.6%. The yearly breakdown follows.
There have only been two sub .500 seasons, which were both two games under .500.
I always find it helpful to look at last year’s games to get an idea of what kind of plays the situation will deliver. Here are last year’s plays.
Remember we are playing against teams listed under “team” so this situation went 5-2 last year during week one.
There are six teams to play against during week one of the 2006 season. Those teams are:
BUFFALO (PLAY ON NEW ENGLAND)
BALTIMORE (PLAY ON TAMPA BAY)
ATLANTA (PLAY ON CAROLINA)
NEW ORLEANS (PLAY ON CLEVELAND)
INDIANAPOLIS (PLAY ON NY GIANTS)
SAN DIEGO (PLAY ON OAKLAND)
There are subsets to this situation, which are 62-29-3, 41-8-1 and 13-1. Subscribers to my Best Bets get the qualifying plays for these subsets as well.
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SixthSense Picks - Breaking Down NFL Week One
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