Week 12

NFL Point Spread Picks:
New Orleans -3
Kansas City -6
Indianapolis -11.5

Motivated by one of our readers, I have decided to run the current model and show you two GREEN picks and two YELLOW picks. At the top, with 71% confidence we have New Orleans covering a spread of 3 at Carolina. Personally I don't like this pick, but I have to disregard my thoughts and feelings since they might be biased by reading other people's opinions and blogs. Secondly, we got Kansas City covering a spread of 6 at home against Oakland. I do like this one.

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The computer also shows some other attractive games which are worth mentioning. The model is predicting Indianapolis over Atlanta by 18 points which would comfortably cover a 11.5 spread. The line has shifted to 12.5 in some sites which is still a bargain since it is below two TD's. One curious game that I have not highlighted in yellow because it goes against most people's opinion (which might actually be good) is Houston defeating Cleveland by 3 while the spread is currently set at 3.5 favoring Cleveland. The Browns are playing well so I didn't want to include this game might be an anomaly in the model. Finally, we have Green Bay over Detroit by more than 3.5 at Detroit. This one has been chosen by the model with 56% confidence and backed up by most (67%) experts. Also, the line has moved about 1/2 to 1 point for Green Bay which may be signs that the spread was to low to start with.

Let's dig in deeper into the current stats for both of the GREEN picks.



New Orleans @ Carolina
First, let's look these teams have paired up against the spread in the past 5 games.

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In the past two weeks, both teams have not covered the spread but New Orleans being farther off including a surprising loss against St. Louis where they favorites by 10 points and lost by 8. Before that, NO covered by more than 12 points in week 8 and 9 against SF and JAC, Jacksonville being the only heavy contender. Carolina on the other hand has not won or covered the spread in the past 4 weeks although they've had a slightly tougher schedule playing with IND, TEN, ATL, and GB. In 10/14 you see a huge jump of 20 when they beat Arizona by 15. Let's look at their OFF/DEF stats.

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In the past 5 games, Carolina has averaged about 10 passing yards less than their opponents per game while New Orleans has been significantly better with 40 yards more per game. Rushing yards were quite surprising to me. New Orleans averaging 20 yards less per game while Carolina has a little above 5.

Finally, we will look at how these two teams have faired off against each other since 2001.

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Watch the red bars, if they are above zero it means Carolina covered and if the green bars are above zero it means Carolina was favorite. The last game was on 10/07/2007 when the Vegas line was favoring New Orleans by 4, but Carolina covered by 7 beating NO with a score of 16-13 at New Orleans, this gives me chills. Notice any patterns? I see Carolina has been favorite since 2004 until the last game this year, but covering the spread half the time. Not really a pattern and I do not see anything significant jumping at me so I will back up my model and say New Orleans -3.

Oakland @ Kansas City
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