Impact Of Recent Results On NFL Betting

When betting on the NFL, you often hear about how a team is performing in some context as a justification for why someone is picking them or staying away from them in an upcoming game. In a lot of ways, this analysis can be valuable, as looking at recent results can help bettors know what to expect heading into certain contests. But a lot of this analysis is also useless, and can actively harm a bettor looking to make informed decisions. This guide to the impact of recent results on NFL betting will take a look at what impacts recent results can have on betting, what information you will want to look at, and areas where recent results can be misleading.

Impact of Recent Form

Form is important in NFL betting, as it gives you an idea as to how a team is playing recently. As an indicator of a team’s current performance level, a team’s form can be more important than a team’s overall body of work and overall record. After all, if a team has an overall record of 4-11, but those four wins have all come in their last four games, that’s much more valuable than stating that they have a record of 4-11. There might be something in those last four games that has changed or been adjusted to spur on that winning streak, which could be valuable information in the context of wagering on that team going forward.

Take the 2017 San Francisco 49ers for example. History will remember that team as one of the worst in the NFL in the 2017 season, because they had a poor record and failed to get off the ground in the NFC West. But if you were betting on the NFL last season and paid close attention, you saw the team rip off several wins in a row at the end of the year and had the chance to profit off of the Niners’ late-season surge.

The 2017 Niners, of course, made the change of bringing in Jimmy Garoppolo by trading for him from the New England Patriots. Garoppolo was unproven at that point, but was considered to be one of the most promising young quarterback prospects in the entire NFL. He came in, won several games for the Niners, and got the team and its fans excited about what the future holds despite a bleak start to the season that saw quarterbacks like Blaine Gabbert and CJ Beathard trot out there and struggle. And without paying attention to a team’s recent form over its overall record, you may have missed your chance to strike while the iron was hot with that Niners team.

And it doesn’t have to be just player transactions that can spur on the types of changes that impact form. Things like a tweak to a defensive or offensive scheme, restructuring in the coaching staff, and countless other factors can have an impact on how a team is playing in the short-term despite what their long-term outlook is. And among those things that can shape a team’s recent form are some misleading elements that should be paid attention to, as knowing when a team’s positive form should be taken with a grain of salt is just as important as knowing when a team’s good form is for real as was the case with the Niners above.

Misleading Form Elements

Among the most glaring instances of when a team’s recent performances should be taken with a grain of salt is when they face a weak schedule. Strength of schedule is a metric that takes the win percentage of every team that a team faces over the course of a season, or a shorter period of time if you feel like doing the math. It’s a good indicator of which teams are playing tough schedules over a period of time, and which teams are playing against weaker opponents.

Naturally, when a team is playing weaker competition, they are more likely to win games and be favored to win against the spread. But there is a lot of nuance when it comes to strength of schedule that can make it misleading. For example, the sample size matters when dealing with strength of schedule. A team’s strength of schedule can look abysmal over a two or three-game period, depending on who they play over that span. And playing that weaker schedule for a short period of time can temporarily boost the way a team looks, but it is important to remember that the schedule could get harder or easier for that team from there. Evaluating everything in context over the course of an NFL season is key, and the strength of a team’s schedule is no different.

On the flip side, a team might have a weak strength of schedule if it has won a large percentage of its games, because they are the ones bringing down the win percentage of their opponents. The Los Angeles Rams won their first eight games of the 2018 NFL season, and had a strength of schedule of .400, for the weakest mark in the NFC to that point in the season. But the Rams’ 8-0 record was responsible for losses for their opponents in just over an eighth of the games on their schedule, naturally resulting in the overall strength of their schedule decreasing. Losing teams see the same thing happen, as their strength of schedule increases with a disproportionate amount of losses.

Another misleading element to a team’s recent performances are turnovers. Turnovers are the great equalizer in the NFL, as forcing just a couple of turnovers can change field position, yield scoring opportunities, and even change the actual score of a game. But turnovers are tough to evaluate, as the number of turnovers a team forces or gives up over the course of a game can vary wildly based on a ton of different factors.

For example, if a team has to play a game in the rain, they may be more likely to fumble the football and turn it over. That can result in disaster and make a team look less competent than it actually is. The box scores and stat sheets will all treat that fumble the same as a fumble committed in nice weather, which can skew the perception of a team. That is where watching games and doing research can come into play, as bettors who know the conditions and the circumstances behind the turnovers that take place in each game can reasonably conclude that some turnovers are much different than others.

The same can be said about interceptions. All interceptions look alike on the stat sheet, but very few interceptions are actually created equally. Some picks are definitely the result of bad reads made by the offense, while others are the result of bad luck. Passes can be batted into the air, hit off of offensive linemen, or be deflected off of the hands of a wide receiver before being picked off, and knowing which category a given play falls into can be very helpful when evaluating a team’s recent performances.

Other fluke plays should be treated the same way as turnovers. Yes, these plays happened and factored into the final score of a game, but they may not be sustainable enough to rely on when determining which teams you should bet on in a given matchup. Passes that are deflected and caught, fumbles that are recovered in the end zone, and things like blocked kicks or special teams return touchdowns can be a big deal within the context of a single game, but are often the result of breakdowns and miscommunications that are not to be counted on on a game-to-game basis.

As you can see, there is a lot to consider when evaluating how a team’s recent form will impact its future games in terms of what you should weed out. But there is also plenty of good information out there that could help you make the best possible NFL bets.

Important Form Indicators

Yards per play is one of the most important indicators of a team’s form. Most people look at a team’s yards per game stats and think that they tell the full story, but there is so much that can impact a team’s yards per game average. Yards per play, on the other hand, gives you a better picture of how a team is going to perform on each play of a game, and shows how well each team maximizes the number of snaps that they get in a game.

Some teams might play at a faster or slower pace than others, which is what makes yards per game numbers less useful when evaluating teams against the spread. A great example of this is the 2018 Kansas City Chiefs, who play at a fast pace and try to run as many plays as possible, whereas a team like the 2018 Jacksonville Jaguars might like to slow things down and keep the clock moving. If the Chiefs have a better yards per play average and play at a faster pace, that is significant, whereas if the two teams had similar averages a game between them could be determined by which team is better able to enforce the tempo that they like to run.

Turnover margin is another statistic that is a good indicator of how a team is playing recently. As mentioned earlier, it’s important to remember the context behind each turnover and not to blindly look at the margin, but if a team has a better turnover margin than its opponents over the period of time you are evaluating and those turnovers are deemed to be legitimate, that is another advantage that you could have when placing your bets.

Strength of schedule also has the potential to be a useful tool, as long as you remember some of the things above that could impact its effectiveness. If a team is doing well against the spread against a tough schedule, that typically means that they are either a team that will be worth backing when they take on weaker opponents if the market hasn’t given them the credit they’ve deserved for making it through the tougher parts of their schedule or that they are a team that will be overvalued going forward.

A team’s record against the spread is generally a good indicator of how a team is performing relative to the expectations of oddsmakers and other bettors. It’s hard in the NFL for a team to fly below the radar against the spread for too long, whereas in sports like college football it can be easier thanks to the sheer number of teams and games that there are to bet on. But if you find a team that is consistently beating the spread and the odds haven’t caught up to them just yet, that is a team that you will want to keep an eye on and consider when making each week’s selections.

To go even deeper, looking at how a team’s point differential is relative to the spread can be an even better way to make those evaluations. If a team is favored by a touchdown and wins the game by 28 points, they are theoretically more impressive than a team that was favored in the same situation by a touchdown who won by two touchdowns. Knowing how teams have performed against the weight of their expectations is something that separates pros from Joes.

As with every metric, though, this too should be scrutinized and evaluated. Because if a team goes into a game as a seven-point favorite and wins by 52 points, it is going to skew their overall margin against the spread. Looking for teams that consistently beat the spread by a healthy margin is what you want to do, as opposed to looking at the margin and not going into what made it so.

Overreacting To Form

The NFL, like most pro sports leagues, is full of fans who like to overreact to things. That’s why fans have things like sports talk radio, blogs, and other avenues to let out their frustration, jubilation, or any other emotions that come from the biggest stories in sports. And those overreactions can open up the possibility to profit on the emotions and naivete of other bettors.

This concept is harder to quantify than things like yards per play and against the spread margin, but can often be more effective. But keep your eyes on ears open to sports media throughout a given week leading up to the weekend’s NFL games. Find out what is being talked about around the league, whether it is a team underperforming, where a player stands in the pantheon of the all-time greats, or anything else that is being talked about. Normally, those discussions are what fans are talking about and thinking about throughout the week, which they bring with them to the betting window.

In many cases, going against the main narratives contained within these discussions can give you a great chance to make some money betting on the NFL. After a week of listening to talking heads in the media talking about how great Aaron Rodgers is, for example, casual bettors are more likely to go to the betting window and throw some money at Aaron Rodgers. After all, they were just told by people who know about sports that he is the best thing since canned beer! But that kind of analysis does nothing to actually take a look at Rodgers’ matchup for that week or any other circumstances that would be helpful to bettors in any meaningful way.

The idea of giving some extra scrutiny to a team that just blew an opponent out is one that falls into this category, as the added attention that a team receives for a convincing victory can lead to them being overvalued the next week in a lot of cases. This is even more true in instances where the team that was blown out is one that isn’t performing well themselves. Beating a weak opponent by a lot of points is commendable in that it shows that a team can take care of business without getting distracted or overlooking their opponent. But beyond showing that a team is able to take care of its business, it doesn’t do much to prove that the winners can tangle with teams of higher quality, unless there is other information to support that they can available.

This kind of methodology is by no means foolproof. Otherwise, bettors would just listen to sports radio non-stop and place bets based on the opposite of what everyone thought. But if you hear a large consensus on a particular topic of conversation, just know that there is a chance that information can be used to your advantage relative to a team’s performance on the field.

Instances Where Recent Form Is Diminished

The importance of a team’s recent performance on the field is obviously important, as outlined above. But there are plenty of cases where that form can have its impact drastically diminished. Being able to spot those instances is a key component to using recent performance to your advantage, as knowing when to apply information is often just as important as knowing when not to apply it.

One such time when a team’s performance is not as impactful as it would be otherwise is in rivalry games. Teams often try to rise to the occasion when it comes to rivalry games, but the presence of those games on a team’s schedule can have all sorts of impacts on how well they play in those moments. A team raising its level is certainly one of those ways, but teams can also play more conservatively or with some nerves early on, or any number of things that could alter their performance.

Take the rivalry between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers, for example. It is traditionally one of the most fierce, hard-hitting rivalries in all of football, and has produced some of the more memorable moments in the history of the NFL as a result of that physicality. So why would you put much stock in a recent game against a poor team heading into a game between the Ravens and Steelers? As with many of the elements in this guide, context is so important, and rivalry games tend to transcend the context of a team’s recent form in many cases.

Another place where recent performance is not all that useful is when there has been a change in a team’s makeup due to injury. We mentioned player transactions earlier with the San Francisco 49ers, but injuries can have an effect on a team’s ability to cover the spread as well. Even if a team is winning games consistently both straight up and against the spread, key losses can invalidate those previous results as a team has to figure out how to get similar production out of players who were not originally selected to fill a given role within the team.

A great example of this is with the 2018 49ers. While the 2017 Niners season ended with a huge high note, the 2018 season saw Jimmy Garoppolo suffer a season-ending knee injury. That prompted the team to turn to backup quarterback CJ Beathard, who was not nearly the quarterback that Garoppolo is. Sure, the Niners were playing well before the injury, but that form stopped being so meaningful when CJ Beathard started taking snaps.

NFL betting is full of complexity, and evaluating the recent performances of teams is no exception. There are a lot of layers to break through to find out what information is valid and relevant to a situation, and what information can be cast aside. And though it can feel like a case of information overload in many cases, the results of sifting through everything to find out where there are advantages can make all of the difference, whether you are betting recreationally or for higher stakes.