Heavy favorites struggling against the spread in NFL
Vegas is fast these days: Before Richard Sherman could hop on Twitter to mock Tom Brady for losing in Seattle, the line for the Patriots-Jets game the next week was already released.
As it came out, I felt, "surprisingly high."
Patriots -10.5 over Jets at Sportsbook.com. That's surprisingly high.
— Will Brinson (@willbrinson) October 15, 2012
It's a big-time rivalry game, both teams are part of a four-way tie for first place in the AFC East, the Patriots are coming off a surprising road loss to the Seahawks, and the Jets just dominated the Colts at home. But a lot of the responses that I got on Twitter thought it wasn't high enough.
So when Ryan Wilson and I recorded the latest edition of the Pick-Six Podcast (subscribe on iTunes here!), I posited that not a single double-digit favorite had covered this season. I decided to take a look at the heavy favorites thus far in the season. Boy, was I wrong.
There have been six double-digit favorites in the NFL this season:
Favorite | Line | Underog | Week | ATS Record | SU Record |
-12.5 | 1 | 1-0 | 1-0 | ||
-10.5 | 1 | 2-0 | 2-0 | ||
-12.5 | 2 | 2-1 | 2-1 | ||
-12.5 | 4 | 2-2 | 3-1 | ||
Houston | -12.5 | 4 | 3-2 | 4-1 | |
-10.5 | 5 | 4-2 | 5-1 |
(It's worth noting a couple things. One, that's a really, really low number of double-digit favorites through six weeks, right? And there are probably some lines that creeped up above double digits by the time the games started, like the Jets/Texans MNF game. I went with the spreads that are listed in our NFL Expert Picks.)
All of those games were at home for the favorite, so home/road splits are irrelevant here. But what's interesting is those teams were 4-2 against the spread and 5-1 straight up. Only the Patriots lost, and only the Pats and Ravens failed to cover. Also potentially worth noting: Rookie quarterbacks were 1-3 against the spread in those games as well.
So, load up on the big favorites, right? Well, maybe. Given that this season really feels like a good year for underdogs and parity and whatnot, I decided to take a look at other heavy favorites this season.
There have been 17 games so far featuring a team that was favored by 7-10 points:
Favorite | Line | Underog | Week | ATS Record | SU Record |
-7.5 | 1 | 0-1 | 1-0 | ||
-7.5 | 1 | 0-2 | 1-1 | ||
-9.5 | Cleveland | 1 | 0-3 | 2-1 | |
-7.5 | 2 | 0-4 | 3-1 | ||
Houston | -7.5 | 2 | 1-4 | 4-1 | |
-7.5 | Cleveland | 2 | 1-5 | 5-1 | |
San Francisco | -7.5 | Detroit | 2 | 2-5 | 6-1 |
Chicago | -7.5 | St. Louis | 3 | 3-5 | 7-1 |
San Francisco | -7.5 | 3 | 3-6 | 7-2 | |
-7.5 | Tampa Bay | 3 | 3-7 | 8-2 | |
New Orleans | -9.5 | 3 | 3-8 | 8-3 | |
-7.5 | 4 | 3-9 | 9-3 | ||
-7.5 | New Orleans | 4 | 3-10 | 10-3 | |
New York Giants | -9.5 | Cleveland | 5 | 4-10 | 11-3 |
Green Bay | -7.5 | Indianapolis | 5 | 4-11 | 11-4 |
Houston | -8.5 | 5 | 4-12 | 12-4 | |
Atlanta | -9.5 | 6 | 4-13 | 13-4 |
What do we see here? Teams that are favored between seven and 10 points have done poorly against the spread this year, 4-13 in all games ATS. In those same games, though, the favorites have won a pretty impressive 13 times against just four losses.
Home teams favored by a spread of 7-10 points are 3-8 ATS (vs. 9-2 straight up), while teams that are favored by 7-10 points on the road are 1-5 ATS (4-2 straight up).
Add the games from the two cross-sections of spreads (7-10 point faves and double-digit favorites), and we see heavy favorites are 8-15 against the spread, while they're also 18-5 straight up. Those same teams have gone 7-10 against the spread when favored at home, 14-3 straight up at home. The road records remain the same because we haven't had any double-digit road favorites.
In short, the NFL is full of parity. Heavy underdogs are performing extremely well against the spread, particularly heavy underdogs at home.
Does this guarantee anything when it comes to the Patriots playing the Jets? Of course not. As always, Vegas would love to see even money on both sides of the line -- 10.5 points will probably accomplish that, considering plenty of people think the Pats will shellack the Jets, while there's unquestionably a lot of folks who believe the Jets will manage to cover a two-score spread.
Look no further than this week's expert picks, where we have five writers on board the Pats' bandwagon and three on board the Jets'.
Straight up, wisely, we all believe the Pats will win.
