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A few years ago, I got a call from a prospective Qoxhi Picks client. He said he was prompted to call Qoxhi, he didn’t know how to pronounce it, because he had heard we were 16-4 the previous season. Winning 80% is very sweet, but I cautioned the caller not to expect any more than what the service has delivered for more than four decades; winning Top Picks that ranged on an average of 65 to 70 percent winners in a typical season.

Lifetime records show a return on investment of an expected range of 30 to 60 percent profits. That figure is routinely achieved when employing the Basic money management strategy available online. Higher gains are possible, some seasons have been both above and below the expected range.

My wife tells me that my columns have too many statistics.

Seems she gets bored with numbers, but loves the human interest stuff when I talk about people interactions. So, to appease her desires, and not to abandon my forte, numbers, I will forego listing the stats for what I’m about to say. At the same time, I request you trust that numbers bear out my positions while I forgo them in favor of the story around it.

My best friend started out as a client.

Five years my senior, my buddy hunts alligators at night in Florida waters and considers it a win when he wrestles one into his boat.

There are five preseason games scheduled today beginning with an opening act that pits two teams expected to struggle this season, the Atlanta Falcons and Detroit Lions, and concluding with a matchup between two squads with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations, the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers.

In Green Bay, as has been the case for more than a decade, the quarterback focus is on their future Hall of Fame signal caller, Aaron Rodgers. In this first summer skirmish the Packers coaching staff have already decided their prize quarterback will be in Santa Clara tonight with a view of the game exclusively from the sideline. Conversely, the 49ers brass is very interested in getting their projected starting quarterback extra work this preseason.

The Jimmy Garoppolo era in San Francisco is by all accounts over, and the 49ers are turning to their 2021 first round draft choice, Trey Lance. He is saddled with the responsibility of leading the team to their first Super Bowl win since Steve Young guided the 1994 49ers to their fifth franchise title. The 49ers have made a pair of Super Bowl appearances since last winning the final leg of the NFL season. In 2012, behind the brief success enjoyed by quarterback Colin Kaepernick, the 49ers lost their first Super Bowl, Joe Montana had won four before Young won his, to the Baltimore Ravens. Three seasons ago, Garoppolo guided the 49ers to a Super Bowl berth and narrow defeat to the only Super Bowl Patrick Mahomes has won for Kansas City Chiefs to complete the 2019 campaign.

Last season, in Garoppolo’s apparent final year as the 49ers starting quarterback, he led San Francisco to the NFC Championship Game and a narrow loss to the eventual Super Bowl winning Los Angeles Rams. Garoppolo’s success in San Francisco was often derailed by injuries, and that perhaps is as much as any reason why the 49ers spent a bevy of draft choices to move up in the draft two years ago to select Lance.

On his way out the door, we salute Garoppolo while reminding 49ers fans that he took over a struggling San Francisco team in 2017 that had won only one of their first eleven games and finished that year with five straight victories. Injured early the following year, the 49ers dropped down to also-rans without him behind center. The following season the talented quarterback avoided injuries and led the team to a Super Bowl berth, and last season had the 49ers back in the NFC Championship Game.

Those results, nearly as good on paper as any quarterback of the past five seasons, never gained Garoppolo the full throated confidence by either his fan base or the 49ers front office. Tonight, we are going to get a look at what John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan hope will be the next glorious chapter in this storied franchise history with Lance running the show on the field.

The National Football League kicks off their first full week of preseason action tonight with a pair of games. The contests include the New York Giants visiting the New England Patriots and the Tennessee Titans at the Baltimore Ravens.

Whether it is preseason or regular season the first step in beating the books is making sure you don’t give them what they want. The people most adept at setting lines and moving numbers that attract average gamblers to the wrong side of a proposition are the bookmakers. The books often take sides in games; the idea that they can balance wagers equally on both sides of a contest with line adjustments is mostly a myth.

That is not to say the books wouldn’t love to have an equal amount of money on both teams in a game and make their sure profit on the vig alone. But, given equal betting amounts on both sides are rare, the books are just as committed to enticing the bettors to what they consider the less likely side to win.

Tonight, we have a couple games that illustrate this point.

The home-standing Ravens have won 20 straight preseason games under head coach John Harbaugh and in 13 of those contests had a winning margin of a touchdown or more. Betting against the Ravens in the preseason appears high risk. This week, the books opened Baltimore as a 2½ point favorite over the Tennessee Titans and people with knowledge of the Ravens preseason success ran to the window to get down on Harbaugh’s team. The line quickly shot up to Baltimore favored by five points.

In a move I can’t fully understand, the line has dropped down since that initial surge even while nearly 80% of the individual wagers are backing the home team. Today, the Ravens are favored by a field goal or a half point more than three points.

Some confuse handicapping with predicting what came before will come again. More importantly, handicapping requires the ability to determine why something happened in previous games and whether it has objective reasons to repeat.

More often than not, what came before is highly subject to not occuring again when deciding factors indicate clear reasons for results to be reversed.

If one is to run to the window and wager on the Baltimore Ravens in the preseason just because they have won 20 consecutive games this time of the season they might be out of luck.

Or not.

Why has Head Coach John Harbaugh won 20 consecutive preseason games and covered the point spread in 18 of those with only a single loss against the number and one tie? The only loss against the line for the Ravens was in the 2018 Hall of Fame Game, a contest Baltimore won 17-16 over the Chicago Bears while giving 2½ points on the line. Two weeks later, against the Indianapolis Colts on the road, they incurred their point spread push while favored by one and beating the Colts, 20-19.

This week, the Ravens are the heaviest favorite on the board, giving five points for their home contest against the Tennessee Titans. This game opened with the Ravens favored by 2½ points, and since posting that opening number the books have responded to the public backing of Harbaugh and his exceptional preseason mark with the additional 2½ points on the line.