NFL Week 10 Market Report
Hypothesizing a 3-tiered power rating system for the season’s second half
Matt Russell is the creator of THE WINDOW, and former lead betting analyst at theScore. If there’s a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. You can find him @mrussauthentic on X.
“Schedule-timing” is the best I can come up with for now, but I need a term for the situations that arise during the season where a team you should be fading (because they’ve become over-valued) or backing (because they’ve become under-valued) are playing one the few teams you wouldn’t want them to matchup up against.
By the time the Sunday-nighter kicked off, the Lions were overbought, as high as 4.5-point favorites in Houston, especially with Taylor Decker out for Detroit. However, still without Nico Collins and Will Anderson, the Texans weren’t an attractive underdog.
The next night, the Rams were -2.5 against the Dolphins. A line that suggested L.A. and Miami had switched places, with the Rams now considered the better team. There was plenty of reason to believe that, and after out-gaining the Dolphins 327-238, maybe the Rams are. In the same way, the Lions’ SNF comeback showed they might be the best team in the NFL.
Neither team covered though, because they didn’t play up to their rating for the majority of the game. Something that would have been predictable if the Lions and Rams hadn’t been facing two teams that hadn’t shown much to believe in lately.
For a breakdown of Week 10 and all the betting takeaways, check out the Tuesday episode of THE WINDOW: Sports betting podcastEstimated market ratings
Before the season, we explained the process of how the betting market takes the first odds offered from sportsbooks about a team’s quality - regular season win (RSW) totals - and translates that into a team rating.
Each game provides a subsequent data point that we receive from oddsmakers and bettors alike - the closing line (the last available point spread to bet before kickoff).
Taking the most recent game’s closing line into account, we adjust every team’s market rating to reflect where they were relative to the rest of the league before the previous week’s games.
These are not power rankings - a largely pointless exercise done for clicks - that simply list each team in a made-up order for readers to argue about.
They are ratings, which allow for the possibility that teams can be perceived to be equal - or have a large gap - amongst the other 31 teams in the NFL. To better understand the chart above, refer back to Week 1’s market rating column. You can argue about them, OR you can just bet against them.
One of the reasons that calling the Lions the best team in the NFL isn’t so far-fetched, is that the Ravens so frequently leave something to be desired, and have an obvious fault - pass defense (while the Chiefs seem to barely win on a weekly basis). Being vulnerable to the top quarterbacks in the league is a problem, so we should expect Baltimore to play below their mean rating against the few passers who can take advantage.
The expectation of a healthy 49ers’ return to the peak of the NFL didn’t pan out, as they weren’t able to put away the Buccaneers early in a tough “spot” for Tampa. Much of that may have had to do with kicker incompetence, but that would be less of an issue if they had just simply scored more touchdowns.
The Chiefs (another win but no cover) and Bills are rated the same, so that’s why Buffalo is now the favorite for their latest clash in Orchard Park this coming Sunday. It’s a game that screams “bet on Buffalo” until the Chiefs win and the “Mahomes as an underdog” chimes ring out throughout the land.
The Vikings’ and Eagles’ ratings seem to have found their level. Minnesota covered the early point spread (-4) but when the Jaguars’ rating fell with the news that Mac Jones would be in for an injured Trevor Lawrence, the move up to -7 was too much to overcome. Sam Darnold threw more interceptions, and the Vikings won without a touchdown. Meanwhile, the Eagles were given enough chances by the Cowboys (as usual) and their replacement QB, to eventually pull away and cover.
Then there’s the Jets. Our best call of last week was to look at a line move - Jets from underdogs to favorites - and scoff at a market that was expecting more from New York after beating a short-handed Texans team, because they had a few extra days off. Where should New York be rated? League-average (50/100) seems like a compliment at this point, doesn’t it?
The Falcons moved up, and the Saints went down. This is a good example of positive “schedule timing” for a bet. Even if it seemed like the difference between winning and losing for New Orleans hinged on missed field goals, the shocking revival of Marques Valdes-Scantling’s career, and a general uptick in NOLA vibes.
With a cover - and near win - in Kansas City, the Broncos took a step toward legitimizing a power rating that’s drifted through what was previously thought to be their ceiling. Alas, a blocked 35-yard field goal hurt the chances for bigger things in Denver - the Playoffs, Coach of the Year, and Rookie of the Year.
The Bears and Giants lose as 6-point favorites. It’s a sentence whose back half seems ridiculous in hindsight, given those teams shouldn’t be favored by more than a field goal over anyone.
The 3-tier system
While our chart above shows a gradual progression from worst in the league to first, this season feels more like there’s actually three tiers - good, average and bad.
If we just rated teams like that, I could believe that spread bets made on this premise would be profitable. Here’s how those ratings might look, in no particular order:
With this 3-tiered system, there’s about a 4-point difference between each tier.
Here’s how some of last week’s matchups might have been valued:
Cross-tier matchups like Falcons @ Saints, would suggest a spread of Falcons -2, and value on the Saints at +3.5. The same goes for Lions @ Texans, and 49ers @ Buccaneers. The Broncos would project to under a touchdown at Kansas City, making them valuable at +7 or better.
2-tier difference:
Titans @ Chargers would suggest a 9-point spread in L.A. and value on the Chargers
Vikings @ Jaguars would suggest a 6-point spread and value on Jacksonville at +7
Matchups with teams in the same tier, with an average of two points for home-field advantage would make any home underdogs valuable and the road ‘dog valuable at anything at +3 or above. Last week’s Bengals-Ravens instant-classic would qualify in tier 1, and Patriots-Bears in tier 3. While the Cardinals should have stayed as the favorite against the Jets.
Negatively, the Eagles would have been -6 at Dallas, so a bet on the Cowboys loses anyway. Bills-Colts should have been Bills -2 (not -4), and been a loser too. UNLESS… you think the Colts are a Tier 3 team, at which point the appropriate line would have been Bills -6 (eight points difference, minus two for home-field advantage), and therefore, Buffalo’s the bet.
That’s the issue - figuring out who belongs where. Are the Colts’ a “bad” team or are they thoroughly “mid”? The same goes for the Browns, who were clearly bad at the start of the season, but even after a loss to the Chargers (fair line of LAC -2) two weeks ago, any team that can beat the Ravens without it looking like a fluke probably should be in the middle tier.
Later in the week, we’ll apply this theory to Week 11’s games on the Friday episode of the podcast, and probably in our Round-robin Underdog Moneyline Parlay and Best Bets.
Week 10 betting results
