Editor’s Note: Since November 2018, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of –0.7% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,953 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% across 2,249 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us).
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you’re afraid you might have a gambling problem, seek help.
Odds for these come the better option between Bovada and BetOnline. We used to use the Vegas Consensus, but it’s no longer consistently available in an accurate form online. We use Movelor heavily to make college football picks. We use kenpom heavily to make college basketball picks. We use FPI heavily to make NFL futures picks, but not spreads and totals.
It’s an NFL Sunday, and we’ve got college basketball to go with it. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 8–7. We’re up 0.27 units and we’re up 2%. We’ve won seven of our last ten.
Single-game NFL bets: On the season, we’re 13–16–6. We’re down 4.46 units and we’re down 13%.
Grand Canyon vs. South Carolina
We’re still high on South Carolina. We think they’re good enough to not be bad. So far, they’ve backed that up. Grand Canyon is impressive and might turn into a very fun mid-major (low-major?) to follow, but even with the game in Glendale, it’s hard to believe the Antelopes should be favored by more than a point or two. This is continued overweighting of last year’s Gamecocks.
Pick: South Carolina +5 (–117). Low confidence.
Chicago @ Detroit
If you remove the Browns from the equation, because of their quarterback situation, the average number of points a win vs. .500 is worth in today’s spreads is 1.64. With the Lions five games over .500 and the Bears four games below .500, that implies a neutral-field line on this one would be nearly 15 points.
Obviously, this is an arbitrary way to do arbitrary math, but it does hint at the Lions being undervalued relative to their results on the field so far this year. I’m sure some of this is Justin Fields’s return, but things weren’t exactly going great for the Bears when Fields was last out there.
Pick: Detroit –8 (–105). Low confidence.
