First page is a summary of how many games this season had what winning margin (split by divisional, conference, non conference games in case that’s useful). Remaining pages are the actual scores which I used to build the summary, I have left these in there for info.
Hope it’s useful. This is just the sort of thing I like fiddling with so please do shout if you want something similar doing and I will see if I can knock something up !!
This is just the sort of hard to find information that I love. If I can analyze something I dig it and this is probably why I enjoy football so much… Great job, your a numbers man of the highest order sir!
For instance, I could tie the actual margins in with the vegas line before the match
e.g. There were six games last year where a team was favoured on the Vegas line by 5.5. Three of those times they covered ( such as the Vikings beating the Bears 38-17 in week 15), and three times they didn’t (such as Buffalo losing 24-10 to the Giants when they were favourites in week 4). Happy to run off something along those lines , if you can explain what would work for you
Good stuff! Would be interesting to see the margins versus the Vegas ones, though I expect Vegas have probably calculated their margins with such info already - it’s kind of why I don’t get into betting against the spread too much.
I have posted up a new link showing vegas lines, margins etc
Tab 1 is just a list of every regular season from 2015, showing the official vegas line and final score etc
Tab 2 shows how often a team made or didn’t make a particular spread. For example, you can see that three teams were 8.5 point favourites - one time they covered the spread, twice they didn’t
Because the Vegas head starts were spread a little thinly, I have also grouped them. For example, 56 teams were favourites by 3.5 points to 5.5 points inclusive - 24 covered the spread and 32 didn’t.
It is noticeable on this second table that when a team was a narrow favourite (1 to 3 points), they covered the spread OVER half the time. When they were a heavier favourite (every grouping from 3.5 upwards) they covered the spread UNDER half the time
Tab 3 shows, for a given vegas spread, what the final margin was (grouped in 6 point bands as that’s what I think the bookies tend to work with). For example, you can see that three teams were 8.5 point favourites- one won by over 13 points, one won by 1-6 points, and one lost to the underdog by 1-6 points.
Because the Vegas head starts were spread a little thinly, I have also grouped them. For example, 56 teams were favourites by 3.5 points to 5.5 points inclusive - of these, 15 won by 13+ points, 5 won by 7-12, 12 won by 1-6 points etc…
It is noticeable on this third table that when a team was a narrow favourite (1 to 3 points), they actually lost quite heavily, quite often (losing by 7-12 points about 1 game in every 8 and losing by 13+ points about 1 game in every 7 - I suspect the odds may have made that a worthwhile bet over the course of a season?)
Hope you guys find this interesting / useful - any thoughts welcomed !!