If you already subscribe to the sports betting theory that familiarity directly contributes to predictability, then you are well aware of the benefits of betting on division rivalries in the NFL. Each of the league’s 32 teams will play six divisional matchups as part of a 16-game regular season, so any given week during the course of this 17-week run there will be a few golden opportunities to cash-in as long as you can uncover the hot trends and the soft lines.
The biggest benefit to betting divisional matchups in the NFL is the wealth of information that is readily available concerning the past and recent betting trends when two teams from the same division clash. Sometimes they paint a picture of complete dominance no matter where the game is played and sometimes home field advantage has become the biggest factor in determining the outcome of a game.
Players on any given team’s roster change from season to season, but the rivalries that have been built over the years in many of the divisional showdowns that take place twice a year during a typical NFL regular season do not. These are the kind of games where emotion and momentum come heavily into play and your job in handicapping matchups such as this is to determine which team wants it more.
Sometimes you can even throw-out current form has a strong deciding factor, when the recent trends favor the underdog over the favorite in a division game. In the 2013 NFL season, the Minnesota Viking only won five games straight-up with a 2-3-1 SU record in the NFC North, but they covered against the spread in both games against Chicago as part of an overall record of 9-7 ATS and a 4-2 record ATS in division play.
Studying past trends in NFL divisional matchups will sometimes uncover some amazing streaks between two teams both SU and ATS. These patterns do not last forever so a good strategy is to simply focus on the results over the past five seasons. When you take a close look at the results for all four teams in any of the eight divisions, you are bound to find some instances where one team has covered against the other in eight or nine of the 10 games. This could be something that weighs heavily on which way to go in the first meeting between to division teams in a new season as riding hot betting trends until they cool has proven to be a very lucrative strategy when it comes to wagering on the NFL.
The revenge factor is not as big in the pros as it in the collegiate ranks, so be careful not to fall into the trap of believing that one team is due after multiple losses both SU and ATS to another division opponent. I actually believe that the exact opposite is true when betting on the NFL. If one team has another team’s number in a divisional matchup, the value in the betting odds favor that team no matter what the designated spread might be. As a big fan of the NFC East, I can remember times when New York could not catch a break against Philadelphia and Washington would always give Dallas a tough battle even though the Cowboys on paper were the much better team.
As I mentioned earlier, betting trends in divisional matchups are cyclical and they do not last forever. However, when you do uncover a hot trend in a particular head-to-head battle I would continue to ride it until it cools. You still have to go through the process of handicapping a divisional matchup just as you would any other NFL game, but never discount the importance of a hot betting trend’s impact on the actual outcome of that contest.
