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.