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 5,971 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.
We’ve got more college basketball, and we try again at the NFL. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 13–9. We’re up 2.80 units and we’re up 13%.
Single-game NFL bets: On the season, we’re 14–19–6. We’re down 6.48 units and we’re down 17%.
Minnesota vs. San Francisco
We’ve got another two or three-possession favorite with a good free throw shooting percentage on the season and no significant gap between the kenpom line and the line in the markets. We’ve yet to see this approach really tested, because Friday’s win and yesterday’s each didn’t come down to the wire, but we don’t mind that. The idea with this approach is to comfortably win or lose something like 80% of the time but split that middle 20% in our favor.
Pick: San Francisco –5 (–105). Low confidence.
Buffalo @ Philadelphia
This line implies that the Bills are just as good today as the Eagles, and that seems like a stretch, even factoring in the Eagles’ admitted letdown game and the Bills playing better lately. Maybe we’re falling into a trap, but we’d rather get trapped betting on the Bills to be what they’ve been all year than fall into the trap of thinking they’ve figured it out again.
Pick: Philadelphia to win –3 (–105). Low confidence.
