What Are The Main Methods of Handicapping Football?

Generally speaking, there are three main methods of handicapping that sports handicappers (or more specifically football handicappers) employ. Namely, 1) Model handicapping (a.k.a. power ratings handicapping), 2) Fundamental analysis, and 3) Technical analysis.

When it comes to model handicapping there are two ways that football handicappers utilize models to generate pointspread predictions on individual games. One way is to generate power ratings for all of the individual teams. Then on each individual game subtract one team´s power rating from the other team´s power rating and then add a certain number of points (say 2.5 or 3 points in the NFL) to the home team´s number in order to take homefield advantage into account. The other way is to plug a certain number of statistics/variables from both teams into a multiple regression model in order to generate what the true pointspread should be on each game. Such regression models usually take how the two teams competing against each other in a particular game match up with each other.

This leads into the next method of handicapping that is employed by sports/football handicappers, namely fundamental analysis. WIth fundamental analysis handicappers try to forecast how games will likely play out based primarily on how the two teams match up with each other. That is, to what extent will each team be able to exploit its opponent´s weakneses with its own strengths. Basic examples of fundamental handicapping would be being more likely to bet on a team with a very strong pass offense competing against a team with a very weak pass defense or being less likely to bet on a team with sub-par pass blocking who is competing against a team with a very strong pass rush.

Technical analysis is the third and final main method of handicapping that sports/football handicappers utlize. The goal of technical analysis is to ascertain when teams are likely to play over their heads and when they are likely to underachieve. To do this, handicappers mainly rely on situational trends. The two types of situational trends are team trends and league-wide trends.

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