A Line in the Offseason Sand

Alright, I’m starting to feel it.

I’m starting to feel the first buzz of anticipation for that first FootballSunday in September. Only two months away now. Some of the pre-season rituals have already begun: the purchasing of the Sporting News football preview (a personal favorite); the scouring of teams’ schedules; and the reading of some of my football sites of choice.

As a general statement, my mind is on baseball right now, but that part of me that always looks ahead to the next season is starting to zero in on that second week of September.

One of the things I’m looking forward to the most right now is getting involved again in my friend’s weekly football pool, which I took a hiatus from last season. I’m not an expert at picking games by any stretch, nor am I even a dabbler of a gambler. As Dr. Z of Sports Illustrated wrote in a recent column, “And I like the action, too, although not as a player ... it would not be professional for me to be making bets week to week ... but I like to chart the ebb and flow and write about it as well."

And while keeping my $$$ firmly entrenched in my pockets, I too enjoy looking at, dissecting and picking games with point spreads. If football existed without these numbers, as it did during my formative years, the game wouldn’t lose a substantial amount of interest for me. However, I would miss the challenge of trying to break the oddsmakers’ code, game by game, week by week.

So, the order of football-related things I’m looking forward to:

1) That first FootballSunday morning. I guarantee you I’ll be up early, putting Mike Francesca’s football show on the radio, spending an inordinate amount of time making my picks for the pool, reading the Sunday sports section… It’s my own little Shangra-La.

2) The Jets (of course, or why would I be contributing to a Jets blog?), who will be playing the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 1.

3) Opening Night: I’m still not crazy about this ESPN/Thursday night/First Game of the Season stuff, to be honest with you. It’s o.k., I guess… Last year I had a more vested interest because of the Jets’ game against the Redskins. This year, however, is such a solid match-up that unless I make a trip to Boston for this concert, I will be glued to the set for Pats/Colts in Foxboro.

4) The start of the football pool.

As I was putting this article together, my original reason #4 was the posting of Week 1 lines. Actually, Week 1 lines have already been posted despite the fact that training camps haven’t even opened yet. If that doesn’t prove that lines are based on public perception more than anything, I don’t know what does…

Besides the Week 1 lines, which seem a little silly to take too seriously at this point, there are a ton of other football odds that have been posted. Chances to win the Super Bowl, chances to win a division, etc., etc.

The only thing I can do now that comes close to any of those four options is take a look at the Over/Under lines for each team’s season. Projected season win totals for each team have been posted at various sportsbooks in Vegas, and Dr. Z, with some idle time that football fans can relate to at this time of year, did an excellent job dissecting on some of these pre-season figures in that aforementioned article.

The way these particular odds work is that each team is given a win total for the entire season. In the Jets case, it’s 9. The highest number is for the Patriots, Colts and Eagles (10.5). Then, as a bettor, you would either pick above or below that number, depending on how you think a particular team is going to perform over the course of a season.

What sportsbooks do to make picking these season win totals more difficult to pick then simply picking “over” or “under,” is they place a “vig” on the bet that varies from team to team. I’m going to let Dr. Z explain it, since he has a bit more experience writing about this than I do. From the the SI.com article:

They tell you (by posting season win over/under totals) which teams they think are going to be good, and which bad. It's a very pure way of forecasting. The way they do it is to give you an over and under price on what every team's final record will be. Most of the time the figure ends in a half, to cut down on pushes, such as Colts 10 1/2, which just so happens to be their season's number ... make that the early number put out by the Imperial Palace. It changes, house to house and week by week.

So if you think the Colts will win 11 or more regular-season games, you bet the over. If you think they won't, you bet the under. (This rather basic primer is provided for my four readers out there who don't quite understand sports betting.) But just to make it more interesting, there's another number involved. The vig, also known as the vigorish, or the bookies' edge, the juice.

Normally when you wager on a football game, a $100 bet will cost you $110 if you lose. That's the vig, 10 percent. But on these over-and-under bets on season records, the vigs are adjusted, sometimes in outlandish ways.

On the Vegas sheet you'll see a second set of numbers, the vigs, accompanying the number of wins. For instance, alongside the Colts' 10 1/2 you'll see +120 for the over, -150 for the under. What the oddsmakers are telling you is yeah, we'll give you a 10 1/2-win price to bet into, but we think the chances are much greater that Indy won't do that well. If you want to bet the under, you pay $150 if you lose, and collect $100 if you win. But if you go the other way and bet that they will have a really big year, we'll give you an edge and pay you $120 for your winning bet, whereas a losing wager will only cost you $100. That's how confident we are that the Colts won't come near matching last year's 12-4 record.

Since most of you visiting this site are probably Jets fans (but hopefully not adverse to football talk on the whole) the Jets number is 9, as I mentioned above. But it’s a “soft” 9. Based on Dr. Z’s explanation the oddsmakers are more in favor of the Jets finishing under that number than above it, and from my standpoint (I’m thinking 8-8 at this point), that certainly makes sense to me. To another Jets fan I know who’s thinking somewhere around 5-11 or 6-10, the Under probably looks like an absolute lock.

According to the late May posting at the Imperial Palace in Vegas (the lines Dr. Z referenced in his article), picking the Jets at over 9 wins is an even bet. Bet $100 to make $100. But by betting the under, you’re going to lose $130 to make $100. They’re enticing you to take the Over (if you lose that bet, you’re not losing as much), because they’re at least somewhat confident the Jets won’t be over 9.

I’m not going to post the season over/unders figures for every team (especially since they do vary so much between different oddsmakers), but here are the most profitable (and least profitable) bets according to the May 30 Imperial Palace lines. Keep in mind that the most profitable are the outcomes they think are least likely to happen.

Profitable/Least Profitable

*I don’t think I have to point this out, but I will anyway. There is a converse effect; if the Cowboys have the most profitable line (which they do), they also have the least profitable line.

+130/-160
Cowboys under 9

As Dr. Z noted in his article, and this figure shows (you have lay $160 just to bring home $100 if you take the over), Oddsmakers are very high on the Cowboys entering the second year of the Tuna regime

+120/-150
Colts over 10 1/2
Dolphins under 9
Bengals under 7 ½

+110/-140
Packers over 9 ½
Texans over 6 1/2

+105/-135
Eagles over 10 ½
Titans over 10
Bucs under 9
Giants over 6 ½
Chargers over 4 ½

+105/-105
Bears over 7

Even/-130
Rams over 9 ½
Jets over 9
Vikings under 8 ½
Jaguars under 7 ½

So looking at all possible outcomes (58 total for 29 teams - the only team that didn’t have a line posted is the 49ers b/c of their QB injury), the Jets finishing under 9-7 ranks in the top 16 in terms of likeliness of these outcomes, according to these particular lines.

As I noted above, these figures are now over a month old. For more up-to-date numbers I checked out Sportsbook.com.

Check these figures out, and how much some of them differ from the ones above:

Profitable/Least Profitable

+125/-155
Jaguars under 7.5
Minnesota under 8.5

+125 is the biggest profit margin on sportsbook.com right now. They, like the Imperial Palace, are indicating they believe Jacksonville is going to be at least 8-8, and Minnesota is going to win at least 9 games. The Cowboys who had the best bet/worst bet above, appear to have an even chance to be either over or under 9 (-115/-115).

+115/-145
Lions under 6.5
Giants under 6
Raiders under 7.5
Rams over 9.5

+110/-140
Browns over 7.5
Colts over 10.5
Bucs under 9

+105/-135
Bears under 6.5
Packers over 9.5
Jets over 9

Again, the oddsmakers are saying that they think the Jets are more likely to finish under 9 than over it. And they’re placing that likelihood in the top 12 of all 60 possible outcomes. The Niners are on the board on this sheet.

+100/-130
Bills under 7.5
Saints under 7.5
49ers under 5
Titans under 9.5


Some other odds before I wrap this thing up:

Odds to Win the Super Bowl
Kansas City Chiefs 17-1

St. Louis Rams 18-1

New England Patriots 7-1

Philadelphia Eagles 9-1

Indianapolis Colts 12-1

Tennessee Titans 20-1

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 22-1

Green Bay Packers 15-1

Denver Broncos 18-1

Miami Dolphins 20-1

Dallas Cowboys 22-1

Minnesota Vikings 20-1

Atlanta Falcons 22-1

Seattle Seahawks 20-1

New York Jets 25-1

New York Giants 45-1

Cincinnati Bengals 40-1

Baltimore Ravens 18-1

Buffalo Bills 45-1

New Orleans Saints 50-1

Pittsburgh Steelers 50-1

San Francisco 49ers 125-1

Carolina Panthers 20-1

Washington Redskins 20-1

Chicago Bears 45-1

Cleveland Browns 45-1

Jacksonville Jaguars 40-1

Oakland Raiders 35-1

San Diego Chargers 200-1

Houston Texans 70-1

Detroit Lions 50-1

Arizona Cardinals 125-1

Oh, and one last thing before I put all this odds-and-ends stuff to rest for a bit. The Jets are 4-point favorites against the Bengals in Week 1. I’ve also seen them listed as 4.5 point favorites in another spot.

I'd like to thank Mike for letting me contribute to the site. I currently have a baseball blog running here, so I'm not sure how often I'll be able to write about football. But I would like to look at some of these numbers again before the season starts. And I would also like to add more specific insights on the Jets. We'll see how it shakes out.