We are currently grinding through the next month whilst awaiting football season’s arrival. Pre-season football is something we tend to tread lightly with here, as most of our regular season analysis, such as financial type projection models of games and backtesting, does not apply to pre-season games. However, we did happen to notice something very interesting in this coming week’s games.
Two of the most consistent trends I’ve seen while betting pre-season NFL are betting against both the Indianapolis Colts and the Kansas City Chiefs. Here we look to examine the Chiefs. The following table summarizes the Chiefs performance during the pre-season under Coach Todd Haley.
| Year | Week | Vs | Score | Margin | KC Line |
| 2011 | 1 | 25 | L 2.5 | ||
| 2010 | 4 | -4 | P -4 | ||
| 2010 | 3 | 3 | L 1.5 | ||
| 2010 | 2 | 5 | L 2 | ||
| 2010 | 1 | 10 | L 2.5 | ||
| 2009 | 4 | 8 | L -1 | ||
| 2009 | 3 | 4 | L -3 | ||
| 2009 | 2 | 4 | L 3 | ||
| 2009 | 1 | 6 | L -3 |
As we can see the Todd Haley led squad is yet to cover a pre-season game. An 0-8-1 trend is quite a trend of underperformance. It may lead one to think that playing against Kansas City is a good approach moving forward. Sadly, the bookmakers have adjusted greatly sending out the Chiefs as a 6 point underdog to the Baltimore Ravens.
Some square bettors may argue that it doesn’t matter; Coach Haley has never covered a spread. This has to be a play against game, how could you back the Chiefs? Well if we look closer we see Kansas City may not have been as non-competitive as it may seem. They’ve never been more than a 3 point underdog and if you look at the spread of +6 (which has moved up to +7.5 at some places), they would have gone 5-3-1.
Clearly, a market correction here is warranted. The question then becomes, is this an over-correction or an under-correction? You could argue it either way (I would lean toward an over-correction, especially if you can get it at +7.5). The point is to understand the market correction, see how far it has corrected, and look to play against an over- or under-correction rather than just blindly thinking “The Todd Haley led Chiefs have never covered a pre-season spread. I want to lay the touchdown with Baltimore.”
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