If you want to win a bet, you need to have a lot of knowledge more than the average bettor. If not, you’ll likely have the same chance as him winning. However, with a trusted source of information and a massive amount of luck, you may as well be a winner. But how? You seek out stats you think are essential, of course.
However, the thing is that no stat accurately predicts a team’s or a player’s win rate. Most of the stats you see are just an aspect of a team or a player, and you’re going to need more information to win a bet. Also, the difference between the winning and losing team is thin, such as that a small chance can change the tide of the game.
That said, what stats should you be watching out for? Well, here are some of the stats you should be looking out for when you’re betting in the NFL.
Expected Rushing Yards
When analyzing the running game, you should isolate each ball carrier from their overall contributions to their offensive line, the situation at hand, and their game plan.
With this stat, we can predict the individual player’s chances of running 10+ yards or touchdowns. You can calculate this stat by looking at a player rushing yard per season or multi-season, then comparing him to the rest of the league.
Team Defensive Yards Per Carry Allowed
Knowing both of the teams’ average yards per carrying in an upcoming game will give you an edge on how the game will turn out. For example, a team with weak running play will struggle against a team that doesn’t give out many yards per carrying.
Another example is a team with a strong running game that will easily dominate a team with a poor run defense. When this happens, the offensive team will take over most of the possessions, controlling most of the field and the clock. This also gives the offensive team a better chance at the passing play, which, ultimately, gives them a higher chance to score.
This will, in turn, force the defense to bring up more players to stop the runs, which will make them weak against play-action passes.
That said, how would you analyze a defensive team’s performance. Most bettors tend to look at the team’s defensive players. However, these players don’t tell the whole story. It would help if you looked at the team’s defensive play as a whole.
Offensive teams tend to double-team defensive players to stop them from making plays. This doesn’t affect the player’s performance but only limits him from making plays to stop the rushes.
Live Win Probability
Predicting the outcome of an NFL game starts even before the game takes place. Over the years, many analytic stats have surfaced and introduced computations to know the game’s outcome. However, most of their methods are flawed and can make a lot more improvement to be more accurate.
That said, let’s look at the Live Win Probability. The live win probability tracks and evaluates the likelihood of a team’s win probability at any moment in the game. Many factors to get this calculation started like down and distance, time remaining, expected points, team quality, and the score differential. You can even see this stat on a lot of sites online.
The live win probability stat can be used not only for a single probabilistic prediction. Let’s look at the WPA stat. The WPA stat evaluates a team’s probability of winning a game before and after a play. With this added metric to live win probability, we can see that this stat adds more accuracy to the game’s outcome. We can also evaluate coaching decisions that can influence the team’s performance and the game’s outcome.
There is also another aspect when it comes to living win probability: expected points. Expected points represent a team’s per-play value to predict the success of a specific play. The live win probability is built on an expected points model that uses previous data that will accurately predict a team’s expected points in a specific situation.
Third Down Conversion
One of the essential jobs of defense is to get off the field, while a team’s offense is to get a groove in scoring, whether in the shortest time possible or by building up his rhythm.
The defense should get off the field as fast as possible to be subjected to physical pounding and avoid having the team’s offense having a rhythm. That said, a team’s defense should get the shortest time possible in the field in three plays to avoid building the other team’s momentum.
Takeaway
As mentioned earlier, there is no stat out there that can accurately predict a game’s outcome. However, if you study the stats above, you can get a gist of how bettors think about game analysis. For a beginner, it can be complicated. But with experience, an average bettor can get an edge over the game. You can also goto FanDuel to see more stats.
