NFL Betting Trends: Signal or Noise?

The New York Jets have been bad this season, blowing last week’s game against the Patriots with a combination of missed kicks, silly penalties and cowardly punts. Yeesh.

In fact, the Jets have been so ineffective in 2024 that betting against them on the money line each week would have made a bettor more money than betting on the undefeated Chiefs to win every game (!!).

But is this information useful? The Jets are bad…water is wet…the sky is blue.

Will this pattern of the Jets being overvalued on the money line continue, and can a bettor make money by basing future bets based on this insight?

This topic is critical to making good betting decisions, and as the Robin Hood of sports betting, taking from the house and giving to the bettors, I’m pumped to dig in.

I’ll share my approach to separating the wheat from the chaff, identifying which trends have forward-looking value and which are just retrofitted noise. As always, we’ll use our analysis to make some immediate bets of the week.

Let’s get after it.

The Value of Historical Trends

Historical trends can be valuable information for bettors trying to find an angle, but they can also lead one down a rabbit hole of meaningless correlations.

Infinite Monkey Theorem tells us that enough monkeys with enough typewriters will produce Shakespeare. The same is true for parsing through data to find betting trends.

You’ll see stats regurgitated on Twitter like “Brock Purdy hasn’t lost a 1:00 game against an opponent below .500 in 3 years”, but rarely will this be paired with analysis about how or why this might matter going forward. Knowing how to filter these trends is huge!

When I do this, I use a combination of research and experience/insight. Here are the three key factors I’ll start with to assess if a trend is worth my attention:

1. Time Horizon and Sample Size: How long has this trend been happening? What's the sample size, and how big of an outlier are we seeing? If a trend is based on 20 years of data, is there enough consistency in the team/players/circumstances for it to be meaningful? A trend that's held true for a few weeks might be a fluke, while one that's persisted for several seasons could have real value. Given my background in betting and poker, I can often gauge this intuitively, but I’ll sometimes use tools like these to validate my assumptions.

2. Cause and Effect: Can we explain the trend with a credible hypothesis? Is it related to coaching tendencies, weather, travel, or rule changes? A trend without a logical explanation is more likely to be coincidental. For example, if certain types of games consistently go over or under the total, or if a team overperforms in specific situations (like after a bye week), I’d like to be able to explain why with a theory that makes sense.

3. Sportsbook Adjustment: Have the books "priced in" the trend or even overcorrected? Any trend that says "bet over the total in circumstance X and you'll make money" is vulnerable to adjustment by sportsbooks to eliminate whatever edge might exist. The key is to find trends that the books haven't fully accounted for yet. I’ll use tools like Juice Reel to look at line movement and distribution of bets in order to form an opinion on if the books have “caught up”.

Let's apply this framework to some sample trends that have been talked about recently and should serve as good proxies for you do to similar analysis on your own.

Trend #1 — “Primetime Unders”

Betting under the total in standalone games (Thursday, Sunday, and Monday nights) has been profitable in recent years. Over the last six seasons (2018-2023), these primetime unders hit at an impressive 60.2% rate.

Through Week 9 of this season, unders are 19-8 (70.4%) in primetime games. This includes a 7-2 (77.8%) record for Thursday Night Football and a 12-6 (66.7%) record for Sunday and Monday Night Football combined. So what do we think of this trend? Let’s apply the key factors.

1. Time Horizon: Good. This trend has persisted for several seasons and continues in 2024. The sample size is significant, with more than 330 games over multiple years going under at 60.4% vs a baseline 50.1% unders in all other games. This is statistically significant at a 95% confidence level.

2. Cause and Effect: While not definitive, we can find credible hypotheses for this trend. Thursday games give teams less prep time, potentially favoring defenses. Primetime games get unique public attention, leading to more conservative play-calling. Coaches might be more risk-averse in these high-profile games, leading to more field goals and punts instead of aggressive fourth-down attempts.

3. Sportsbook Adjustment: This is the trickiest factor to assess. On one hand, this trend is out there. On the other hand, as we discussed in a previous newsletter, primetime games attract more public money, and the public loves betting over the total because it's more fun to root for points than for defense. This suggests the edge could sustain, as books may hesitate to move the line towards the under, fearing a flood of public money putting them at risk.

Verdict: I believe this is legit - put some weight on this trend. It has teeth.

The combination of a strong historical record, plausible causes, and potential for continued value make this a trend worth considering in your betting strategy for now.

Trend #2 — Steelers Monday Night Magic

When the Steelers beat the Giants Monday night, it was their 22nd consecutive win at home on MNF, dating back more than 30 years! That’s a wild stat, but is it actionable for bettors?

1. Time Horizon: The sample size seems reasonable at first glance, especially given the extreme performance outlier (no losses in 22 games). But given the changes in the team, league, and rules 30 years is too long for an NFL trend of this type! This trend spans multiple quarterbacks, countless roster changes, and significant rule alterations that have changed how the game is played. Does a MNF win in 1993 really matter to a game in 2024? I’m skeptical.

2. Cause and Effect: The Steelers' coaching stability (only two head coaches in this period, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin) provides a credible reason for uniquely good performance. Both coaches are legends! They’re known for their ability to prepare the Steelers for big games, and the continuity of only having two coaches over this time is unique to Pittsburgh.

3. Sportsbook Adjustment: I feel confident books have adjusted on this one, to the extent it’s a trend at all. The mystique around the Steelers, their rabid fan base, and their long-term excellence is very well known. Casual bettors love the idea of betting on Pittsburgh, and professional bettors think twice about following their models when they recommend fading Mike Tomlin.

Verdict: Not real, at least for betting purposes.

If anything, look for opportunities to go against the Steelers when other value signals align.

Quick note: Even if it were viable, this has smaller profit potential vs our last example. Because home teams are typically favored, and the Steelers were a very good team for much of this period (17 straight seasons at .500 or better and counting), money line bets on Monday night Steelers home games were both infrequent, and paid short odds.

Trend #3 — Fading the Jets

As discussed, betting against the Jets has been wildly profitable this season. A $100 bettor would be up $765 betting on their opponents' money line each game. They’re also 2-6 straight up and 0-5 against the spread in their last 5 games. Is this a trend worth weight?

1. Time Horizon: Eight games in 2024 is a small sample, but the Jets are 8-17 against the spread since the start of last season, suggesting a longer-term struggle vs expectations. However, this is still a relatively short period of time, not enough to pass a statistical significance calculator, so I’m wary.

2. Cause and Effect: The Jets fired their head coach in this window, traded for a new receiver, and are currently led by an interim head coach who has never held that position before in the NFL. These feel like credible reasons for underperformance and inconsistency now and moving forward.

3. Sportsbook Adjustment: This trend appears priced in to me. For example, the Jets are favored against the Texans tonight, and money is flowing heavily towards their opponent. Despite this, the betting line held steady at Jets -2. This suggests that the books are already accounting for the Jets' poor performance in their lines, believe they’ll turn things around, and are comfortable taking meaningful money on the Texans.

Verdict: Not real going forward.

"Team X is bad" trends typically get priced in quickly by sportsbooks. It's very unusual for such a trend to last more than half a season. I’d assess Jets’ games weekly, on their merits, and not apply historical weight.

Bet of the Week $$

Last week we made two teaser bets and went 1-1, winning Rams + Eagles and losing one leg of the other tease when the team we keep talking about — the Jets — became the first team in NFL history to lose a seemingly unlosable game. That one hurt!

Even so, since starting the newsletter, bets given out in this section are ahead 3.2 units, at a positive 26% ROI. We’ll update this regularly.

Based on the research and strategy above, I am making the following bets this week:

• NY Jets Money Line @-130 on BetMGM for 1 unit

• Under 46 in the Chiefs/Bucs Monday Night Game (Primetime under) @-110 on ResortsWorld Bet (FanDuel if you don’t have access) for 1 unit

I know what some of you are thinking: you can’t be serious about taking the Jets. I understand that reaction, and if ineptitude triumphs over math, we may lose again!

But the signals I’m seeing from Juice Reel’s SharpMush scatterplot support the Jets as the ride side tonight.

Next week we’ll talk about another modern evolution in betting and how to play it most skillfully.

Please fill out the survey about today’s newsletter and let me know your thoughts! Happy Halloween.