Betting Implications of Eliminated NFL Teams

As any NFL season begins to unwind, it is only natural that contenders begin to create separation between themselves and the bad teams in the league. Natural selection dictates that only a few will survive all the way to January, while the vast majority of teams will fall short and instead have to focus on the future. But even among them, there is a smaller subset of squads who experience miserable results for most of the year and don't have much to play for throughout most of the season.

And yet, while for most of the year we can always point out to the pride and sense of competition to provide an incentive to fight for most of the regular season, what happens in the final weeks? As teams become officially eliminated from playoff contention, their motives to keep on playing become more and more limited, as the lack of motivation kicks in and only a nice vacation time is on the horizon once the season is completely over.

Of course, coaches and fringe players need to fight for their jobs, prospects still have to show enough to remain on the active roster, and there are matters of pride and self-respect that have to play a role to prevent eliminated teams from simply rolling over as the play out the proverbial string. Also, the race towards the best picks in the draft play a role, even as it is hard to point out that a team might be tanking. So as the final weeks of the 2015 season are about to give us a number of teams involving eliminated teams, can we take advantage betting against them?

To answer this question and try to find an edge for the end of 2015, I went back to the past 5 seasons and examined the results of the bottom 25% of the NFL in terms of winning record. This means that I took the results of the worst 8 teams through Week 15 from each season (2010-2014) in terms of record. In case of a tie, the team with the worst point differential was selected to fill out the sample. This gives us a total of 80 games played between the final two weeks of each season.

The sample was then adjusted to cancel all games that involved two of these teams playing against each other, leaving out a total of 72 games to analyze. The results were then divided to represent specific scenarios and compare them to what we will be seeing in the final two weeks of 2015.

To begin, here are the 40 teams that were taken to create this study:

As we can see, this sample of teams represents some of the most dysfunctional and downtrodden franchises in the NFL. The Browns, Bills, Raiders, Jaguars and Redskins make at least four appearances on the list, while other teams like the Panthers, Bengals, Colts, and Broncos were able to maximize their prime draft positions to make a quick turnaround.

And yet, that is a bit beside the point. We are interested in how these teams in the bottom 25% did against the NFL's top 75%. Leaving aside the four games that pitted two of these sampled teams directly against each other (2011: Vikings-Redskins, Jaguars-Colts; 2012: Titans-Jaguars; 2014: Jaguars-Titans), we are left with a total of 72 games to take into account. Not surprisingly, these teams were only favored in 3 games out of the whole sample.

Of course, everything makes sense when we consider that these teams have been the absolute worst in the NFL, so there is no reason to think that they will suddenly get better to close out the season. The rare opportunity to affect the playoff race or trip up a division rival may not be enticing enough in the final weeks, instead allowing bookmakers to present heavy point spreads against the league's also-rans.

The results from the sample are definitely not pretty.

NFL Bottom 25% 2010-2014

Overall

Straight-Up: 15-57 (.208)
Against the Spread: 31-40-1 (.436)

Against Winning Teams

Straight-Up: 8-40 (.166)
Against the Spread: 24-24 (.500)

Against Losing or .500 Teams

Straight-Up: 7-17 (.292)
Against the Spread: 7-16-1 (.304)

On the Road

Straight-Up: 2-32 (.059)
Against the Spread: 11-23 (.323)

As we can see, the numbers paint an interesting picture. The bottom 25% has posted a better record against the spread versus the NFL's best teams than against the middling squads, but that has mostly to do with large spreads that have been tough to cover even against the league's absolute worst. On the other hand, facing teams that also missed the playoffs but with more respectable records, the bottom 25% has been absolutely terrible.

This means that in games involving two bad, eliminated teams, it is usually a good idea to take a chance on the one that is less bad. After all, betting on a game like this (think Week 15's Miami-San Diego game) is the only thing that could make it watchable. Also, it makes sense that the NFL's worst teams will be even more dreadful on the road, but the overall results to end the year have been an abomination, both against quality and middle-of-the-road opposition.

In fact, the only road wins recorded in the analyzed sample came in 2010, when the Lions beat the 7-7 Dolphins, and in 2014, when the Jets beat also the 8-7 Dolphins to knock them out of the playoffs. Outside of that, home teams are 32-0 versus the league's bottom 8 teams since 2010, with only a few close contests making the results against the spread a bit more respectable.

In the end, while it makes sense that teams that have few things to play for are vulnerable to close out a season, the results over the past five years have shown a clear pattern to suggest that we can profit from their misery. Check back during the week to see which games of the present season could provide a nice chance to take advantage of a friendly point spread. As our friend Bob Sullivan has demonstrated, history tends to repeat itself regarding NFL betting trends and archetypes, and so we can take a few educated chances to close out 2015.

It may not be fun for eliminated teams to play in the final weeks of December, but we can certainly find the fun in rooting for their extended failure.