At Qoxhi, we consider the situation and point spread more important than the team's relative talent because motivation dictates how well the talent excels. After locating a team we think is in the best position to beat the point spread, we run a standard test on the basic factors, things like home and away or favorite and underdog edges.
I won’t have a long streak without logical reasoning considered for a game selection, but I sure would second guess if a stat showed my possible choice was oh and forever in this spot. Once the game was rescheduled in Buffalo and severe weather was taken out of the equation last weekend, the Bills over the Steelers giving ten on the spread was the side.
Before releasing the pick, I ran a test on how ten or eleven point favorites did at home in the Wild Card round. Turns out, since 1996, seven home teams were favored between ten and eleven points in an opening Wild Card game, and all of them won both straight-up and against the spread.
The perfect record may be too far on the extreme to be expected to continue, but we know that the Bills last week at home favored by 10 points was a situation that had never lost. The Bills 14 point triumph over Pittsburgh moves the all-time record on these double-digit favorites to eight and oh both straight up and against the spread.
So, this week, when the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers are big home favorites, should we wager on their side? Well, it turns out the record for big home favorites in the Divisional round is not as successful as for teams playing during the Wild Card Weekend. In the Divisional round, the straight-up winning percentage is down 27 percent, to a 73% winning average. But, more importantly, those 73% straight-up winners only generated 49% victories against the line, 23-26.
That means touchdown or more favorites in the Divisional round are 8% more likely to have the point spread involved in their wager result. In applying this lesson to this week’s games, throws caution on laying the big spreads with the San Francisco 49ers or Baltimore Ravens.
My son, Kevin, has a stat that has more numbers involved than I could explain in this column. This logical data shows teams in the same spot as the Green Bay Packers this week, are 16-1 against the point spread since 1985.
Of course, the Packers have to face the 49ers, and that may be the ultimate decider in this encounter.
But, before I garner the courage to go against a stat like the one Kevin presented, I’ll take the low hanging fruit, the Baltimore Ravens over the Houston Texans.
It has been a storybook year for the Houston Texans and their two young stars; one on the sidelines and one behind center. The Texans first-year head coach, DeMeco Ryans, has guided the Houston team from years of last place finishes to the top of the division and an opening round playoff victory.
Ryans didn’t do it alone, he teamed with C.J. Stroud, arguably the most dynamic and successful rookie quarterback in National Football League history. Evidence shows that the transition from college football to pro football can be particularly difficult for a quarterback.
It wasn’t for Stroud. The rookie signal caller out of Ohio State earned the best interception to touchdown ratio in the league, a number that was among the all time best with 23 touchdown tosses versus only five interceptions.
This league isn’t better than Stroud, in fact, he showed talent that could succeed in a tougher league. And so far, there isn’t a tougher league than the NFL. So, take Stroud with the points to follow up his win over the Browns last week with another postseason victory on Saturday?
A bus route has rountein stops where passengers get on or off.
The first game on the Divisional schedule finds the Texans in Baltimore to battle a Ravens squad that earned the top seed in the American Football Conference playoffs. They’ve done everything right so far, even benefiting from losing their last game of the regular season to the Pittsburgh Steelers. That loss only occurred because the Ravens had nothing to play for, and if they would have upset the Steelers, who were favored on the spread in Baltimore, they would be in a trap this week that could have created a Houston upset.
But they didn’t.
And the Texans bus is fast approaching their final destination.
Qoxhi Picks: Baltimore Ravens (-9) over Houston Texans