Week 2 Research

Week 2 has some interesting trends.  Let's see is any of them can help us choose a team to Survive on Sunday.

The first thing to look at are the Winners vs the Losers of Week 1 and how they fare in Week 2 (last 3 years).

Clearly, teams that Win in week 1 do better than teams who lose in week 1.  The winning percentage gets even better for teams that win on the Road.  

Since the NFL generally doesn't give a team 2 home or road games the first 2 weeks, the data is very small for those situations.  Here it is anyway:

Win Home then Home: 1-0 

Win Road then Road: 1-1

Lose Home then Home: 2-3

Lose Road then Road: 1-3

We could probably stop the research there, but I like to see how teams react with extra motivation games, so here is the data for teams that played a Division game in Week 1:

H-D-W stands for Home Division Win in Week 1.  The numbers are records from Week 2.

(and so on)

Pretty good record overall.  Favorites are 16-3.  Underdogs a surprising 7-10.  And here is a small chart on how the teams did with spread:

Home Division Winners and Losers both very frisky as underdogs. 

Here are the teams that qualify this week:

What can we take away from the trends?

• Teams that win on the road in week 1 are good bets in week 2. (Broncos, Eagles, Cowboys, Jets, 49ers, Chargers.  Vikings too, but they are on the road again this week).
• GB and IND are good bets as they are favored and not playing a division game.
• SD is also a good bet after winning a division game on the road, and now favored at home.
• WAS is a good bet just because they are a big favorite, as no underdog more than +7 has won outright.  (Though they do fall in to the overall 16-31 category).
• Don't pick against ARI or OAK as those teams are usually frisky.