Real Points (RP): A strength of schedule (SOS) based team
ranking. Each team starts out the year with zero points, and accrues
points for each win, based on the quality of the opponent. Due to
bye weeks, Real Points earned by a team are divided by how many
games that team has played, to help keep a balanced ranking. Once
the bye-weeks are completed and each team has once again played the
same number of games, Real Points do not get divided by the number
of games a team has played.
Win Grade (WG): A 'team fundamentals' based team ranking. Each team
receives a score based on how well it performs in specific areas that we have
deemed crucial in determining a team's performance.
That score is then factored in with how often the team wins, hence
the name Win Grade. Unlike RP, WG does not account for bye-weeks.
This is done for balance between the two rankings. Many wonder what
we mean by 'team fundamentals.' You're going to have to trust us
here. If we gave out that information, the value of our statistics
would go down, something our members nor us would like.
Combined: This is the combined ranking of both Win Grade
and Real Points.
Why is this the current week? ITN gives Week 1 picks away
for free because its fun to do, and because there isn't much
concrete info to go off of until teams have played at least one
regular season game. For other weeks, you can see visit the official
NFL schedule. ITN puts the new week up for sale Tuesday mornings, unless
otherwise posted.
Over/Under: This is the total amount of points scored in a
game by both teams. Casinos and bookies set their own over/under
mark, and we set ours. If ours is higher than the mark set by a
casino/bookie, we are recommending to take the over bet, and
likewise if our mark is lower than the mark set by a casino/bookie,
we are recommending taking the under bet. If you have more questions
on over/under bets, check out one of our preferred Sportsbooks for
more information.
Prediction Type: Each prediction we make falls into a
certain category. The most common types are standard picks made by
the rankings. We refer to them as Home Team or Away Team picks,
followed by a range of points.
- Home Team by 0-2 points
- Home Team by 3-6 points
- Home Team by 7-10 points
- Home Team by 11-14 points
- Home Team by 15-18 points
- Home team by 19+ points
- Road Team by 0-2 points
- Road Team by 3-6 points
- Road Team by 7-10 points
- Road Team by 11-14 points
- Road Team by 15-17 points
- Road Team by 19+ points
Record of this Prediction Type: Since we mark each
prediction as a certain type we can keep track of how many times
each type occurs, and whether it was accurate or not. This enables
us to give each type its own winning percentage.
Margin: This is the difference between our prediction and the NFL line. So for a couple of examples, if we are picking
San Diego to win by 10, and the NFL line has them winning by 4, the margin would be 6. Negative vaules (marked in red) indicate
a margin in favor of the road team. Over/Under totals are done the same way. If our Over/Under total is 37, and the NFL line has an O/U
total of 40, then the margin would be 3.
On Odds of: This is the approximate odds that Vegas is
giving on a bet. We do not update the odds automatically, but at 8am
each day. If you are looking to get the current odds, you can visit
one of our preferred online bookies whose ads are displayed in the
column on the right of the page.
With a Probability of: This is the chance our statistics
give of a bet being correct. So a bet that has a probability of .832
should win just better than 8 times in 10.
Expected Value: This is the combination of the odds a bet
is receiving and the probability that the bet is correct. For
example lets use a standard against the spread bet, where the odds
is always -110. This means that you have to bet $110 dollars to win
$100 (or $210 including your original bet). Lets keep it simple, and
say there is a 50 percent chance of getting the bet correct. We'll
make the bet $110.
.50 (our 50 percent chance of getting it right) X $210 (Payout if
correct) = $105
So our expected value for this bet would be $105 (which is a losing
bet since we wagered $110).
3 Game Trend: This is a score a team receives that
evaluates how it has been playing over its last 3 games of the
season. If the team has played fewer than 3 games, its calculated
over however many games it has played so far. We then categorize how
a team is doing compared to the league average:
- Cold: Performing well below the league average
- Cool: Performing a little below the league average
- Neutral: Performing very close to the league average
- Warm: Performing a little above the league average
- Hot: Performing well above the league average
%W: One of our most powerful statistics. Rates how well a
team is performing against the schedule it has played. A score over
1 indicates a team is performing very well against its schedule.
Teams with a score less than .35 are performing poorly against their
schedule.
Good: This number represents how many offensive or
defensive categories a team is over performing in.
Bad: This number represents how many offensive or
defensive categories a team is under performing in.
Above: This number represents the number of defensive
categories that a team is playing above the league average.
Below: This number represents the number of defensive
categories that a team is playing below the league average.
Candidate: By subtracting Good - Bad you get a teams
Candidate score. If a team has a score less than 1, it is a strong
candidate to be upset.
Upset Power: This number is the Candidate score added to
one half of its Above score. We use this to determine a teams upset
power against teams with a poor Candidate score.