Super Bowl Losers Have Awful Week 1 Hangovers: NFL Week 1 Stats And Trends
Football is back and so is the stats lab.
Now to give the same old spiel I give every year. Every Sunday morning during the NFL season, I'll be blogging the stats I used on Barstool Sports Advisors that week, plus some other ones I found from my research for each game we covered. Whenever I pour through the data each week, I try to separate the meaningful trends from the nonsensical ones. For example, a team with a really good ATS record against a specific division (not their own)? Probably doesn't matter that much. Teams are always changing, and there's nothing that suggests all the same teams in a division play a certain way or anything. But a coach being really good off a bye week? That says something. A team covering a lot as a road dog? Probably means they're being consistently undervalued. League wide trends that hold steady across hundreds of matchups spanning years and years? Those are gold. So you have to look at every stat individually and decide if it matters.
Below is my entire cheat sheet I used for Advisors this week. Lines courtesy of the Barstool Sportsbook, subject to change from the time I compiled this (Wednesday afternoon).
Last year I converted the stats into picks and had a profitable year, going 50-44-3 ATS. Here's to another one hopefully.
Cincinnati Bengals (12-4, 12-4 ATS) @ Cleveland Browns (7-10, 8-9 ATS)
1 PM on CBS
CIN -2.5
T 47.5
The easy pick might be to take the Bengals and the new richest QB in the league here but there's some value on the Browns. Home dogs in Week 1 divisional matchups are 25-13 ATS. If we think back to last year, the Bengals started the season against the Steelers and lost as a significant favorite. They tend to start the season slow sometimes. Also Cleveland is one team Burrow has struggled against. Burrow is just 1-4 SU against the Browns in his career.
The Stats Say: Browns
San Francisco 49ers (13-4, 11-6 ATS) @ Pittsburgh Steelers (9-8, 10-6-1 ATS)
1 PM on FOX
SF -2.5
T 41
If Mike Tomlin is getting points, you probably just want to take them. The Steelers are 51-27 ATS as an underdog under Tomlin, and they're an absurd 16-4-3 ATS as home dogs under him. The 49ers are another team that sometimes take a minute to find their strike. Kyle Shanahan is 4-7 ATS in his career as a favorite in September
The Stats Say: Steelers
Green Bay Packers (8-9, 8-9 ATS) @ Chicago Bears (3-14, 5-11-1 ATS)
4:25 PM on FOX
CHI -1
T 42.5
This was a tough game to find trends for. The Aaron Rodgers Era is over so a lot of past Green Bay trends are meaningless. And we're still early in the Fields/Eberflus era. But here's what I do have. Even with Rodgers, the Packers offense has started slow under Matt LaFleur. Week 1 unders are 3-1 under him with the Packers averaging just 16 PPG in those games. Honestly, all unders might be a good bet this week. Over the last 2 years with the shortened NFL preseason, the under is 20-12 overall in Week 1.
The Stats Say: Under
Philadelphia Eagles (14-3, 8-9 ATS) @ New England Patriots (8-9, 7-9-1 ATS)
4:25 PM on CBS
PHI -4
T 45
This was what they call an ole eye-popper of a trend. It's good for the Patriots. Bad for the Eagles. Since 2000, Super Bowl losers are 5-18 ATS in Week 1 of the following season. We talk about Super Bowl winner hangover sometimes but we don't talk enough about Super Bowl loser hangover. Also, Jalen Hurts is just 6-13 ATS in games outside of Philly.
The Stats Say: Patriots
Dallas Cowboys (12-5, 10-7 ATS) @ New York Giants (9-7-1, 13-4 ATS)
8:20 PM on NBC
DAL -3.5
T 46.5
I might be a biased Giants fan but the stats aren't. First of all, the stat I gave for the Browns about Week 1 divisional home doggs applies here too. But also, the Giants were an NFL best 13-4 ATS last season, including 10-2 as an underdog. Daniel Jones is 26-15 ATS as an underdog in his career. And the Cowboys have never won a Week 1 game under Mike McCarthy (0-3 SU).
If you missed this week's Advisors, make sure to catch up here to get all your winners before kickoff.