NFL Betting Pick: Arizona Cardinals +4 at Chicago Bears
After losing versus the Niners in a 29-45 barn-burner last week, the Cardinals will host the Bears in week 16 Christmas Eve action. Coming off a 17-20 loss at Cleveland, Chicago is laying the chalk for only the third time this season. The Bears have yet to cover a game this year as the favorite, and we do not expect a breakthrough performance Sunday. Accordingly, we are backing the Cards, who are 4-3 ATS as home dogs so far this season.
Supporting our perspective, we cite the following simple system, which has delivered a (statistically significant) 13% long-term return on investment.
We covered this betting angle in week 6. In that piece, we theorized that the public's recency bias caused bettors to avoid backing teams that struggled in the prior season. This aversion, we suspect, induces linemakers to price games more attractively for squads in this position, in an effort to attract action and mitigate bookies' potential liability.
We add to this hypothesis the premise that value is magnified for teams off bad seasons when they are on the road because the market tends to overestimate home field advantage. To wit, away teams covered the spread 51.3% since 2003-04. This ATS win rate is statistically significantly different than the theoretical 50% cover rate that would be evident if lines were set more presciently.
Further, in relatively close games, i.e. contests in which formerly bad teams are expected to be less than one score worse than their opposition, underdogs have exhibited a statistically significantly higher likelihood of pulling off the upset (40%, vs. 33% in action featuring wider lines).
Taken together, bookies willingly shade lines for teams facing unloved opposition. But when teams off poor prior season performances are the away squads, they also benefit from the unwitting mispricing of home field advantage. And, in contests where these teams are only modestly to moderately less talented, the potential for the outright win (and, by extension, the cover) is increased.
This observation and rationale justify our counting the Arizona Cardinals +4 among our week 16 NFL betting picks.
Happy betting!!