Bookmakers’ power ratings differ quite a bit from the usual rankings pundits put together. Their ratings — a number of points a team should win by against the average team on a neutral field — take into account all available data, and are combined to come up with an opening point spread. But, remarkably, bookmakers’ power ratings, and thus, spreads, don’t factor in win-loss records.
And so the Rams (3-3), Jets (5-2), Giants (6-1) and Ravens (4-3, heading into Thursday night) all entered this week as market underdogs despite having better records than their respective opponents. Teams can play well and lose, or play poorly and win. Data can tell us things about a team that aren’t obvious from the box score, or even watching the game.
Case in point are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who dropped precipitously in value among the chattering class, but continued to sit in the top 10 among more quantitative rankings. That’s because the data is slower to react to a single game — the Buccaneers’ brutal loss to the Panthers last week — than the rest of us. Inpredictable, a site that rates teams based on betting market data, adjusts their model from the past week’s results by only 15 percent. (They dropped the Buccaneers from third to eighth ahead of Tampa Bay’s 27-22 loss to Baltimore on Thursday).
Hunches may prove correct in time, but short term results can be overreactions. Each week presents a new opponent with its own strengths and weaknesses; a new opportunity for listing ships to be righted.
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