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It took me nearly 40 years of professional handicapping before I landed on a wagering method that compliments both my strategy for picking winners and quest to maximize profits. Not only that, but I didn’t uncover this gold mine during a football campaign, but rather during last year’s basketball season.

Long before I became a professional handicapper in 1981, and even before I worked in the front office of the Oakland Raiders beginning in 1973, I had developed charts to show that motivation is the most important factor in reliably identifying point spread winners. Talent is already reflected in the posted point spreads and public opinion, but the factors that tip the spread advantages to the favorite or underdog are tied to the motivation of the teams entering the contest.

This strategy most often lands me on selections that by most accounts would be on the inferior team in the contest based on talent alone, but get the edge that is driven by the motivational factors. For 38 years, I had taken the brunt of occasional tough losses with underdogs that jumped ahead, led at halftime, but didn’t have the horses to finish the game on top.

Few things are more disappointing than making a point spread selection that jumps ahead of a more talented opponent and leads the game into the fourth quarter only to have the real talent in the battle prevail in the end and cover the line on the game.

While the primary focus of Qoxhi Picks has always been the National Football League, we have offered season clients selections on the NCAA Basketball Tournament and NBA Playoffs. While the ball is a different shape than we handicap in the NFL, the motivation that dictates results is the same.

The most consistent factor is that the more motivated teams have the ability to jump ahead while the final result can sometimes land with the more talented team and occasionally that is enough to cover the point spread. With this in mind, in last year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, we recommended to our clients that they wager each game twice, once on the first half and again on the final score.

There are plenty of arguing points to suggest the National Football Conference Western Division is the toughest in the National Football League.

This offseason, those arguments have added talking points.

The four teams comprising the NFC West are the Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks, San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals. Only the 49ers from this quartet finished the 2021 regular season with a losing record and two, the Rams and Seahawks, advanced to the postseason.

The Rams, who have by most accounts the best defense in the NFL and have been one of the highest scoring teams in the league over the past three seasons, added veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford to their arsenal. Stafford was a one-time first overall pick in the NFL draft, and he replaces another overall number one selection, Jared Goff, who the Rams jettisoned to the Detroit Lions in the acquisition of Stafford.

Consider the Rams a top threat to replace the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as defending Super Bowl Champions next year.

Now, the Cardinals have reportedly added defensive stud J.J. Watt to their roster. If you are wondering how the Houston Texans have gone from a playoff participant two seasons ago to an also-ran now, consider two of their three best players from recent seasons are now wearing Arizona uniforms, DeAndre Hopkins and Watt. This while the Texans are still rumored to perhaps be parting ways with their other “best player”, quarterback Deshaun Watson.