Originally Posted by
MobFade
The yards per point stats for both teams were pretty glaring in favor of ATL. Never factored that stat in ... usually just red zone, but I think the one you brought up is much more telling, though I do think a stat like that will eventually regress a bit more to the mean. My capping process usually goes: what I think the line should be, what I think it will be based on last couple games and public perception, then look at actual line and see if there are any glaring discrepancies. From there, I'll cap the games based on stats/injuries/weather/HFA and see if there are any more discrepancies and if it is congruent with my own perceptions.
In this case, my thinking was similar to what Slim was saying above; that Detroit is a 'live dog'. They are a team like TB, STL, CLE, SD, CAR, ARI, SEA, CIN, MIA, MIN, etc have been through various points in the year that shouldn't ever figure to lose by more than a TD and SHOULD always be a good bet as a home dog getting more than a FG.
I appreciate the insight, and there are very few other people on this board that would cause me to re-thinkt my initial assessment.