Each NFL season I try fruitlessly to encourage gamblers to hasten slowly. My advice is easy and grounded in common sense. It’s directed to those in a hurry to make a football wager before the season starts, or even before pre-season starts.

Many poorly informed bettors wager at the behest and advice of people in the reporting business who have huge hours to fill and oh so little to say. Some are handicappers, yes, but those that handicap every sport January to December are simply generalists able to blab and bet but they offer very little value. They are not profitable sports gamers.

I have always encouraged doing one’s own handicapping. It’s work but performed effectively due diligence now can be converted into profit later.

This is the time of year to read to study and to be in little hurry to do anything but prepare yourself to be able to understand each team.

Advantage will be uncovered during this work and when discovered information allowing the handicapper to fade a team and/or any accomplishments they may earn in the upcoming year are the target.

Striving to find weak, maimed teams and by maimed I refer to the fact that perhaps a team is getting overly thought of without doing anything to earn it other than a coaching change (Atlanta, New York) or coordinator adjustments (Seattle, Kansas City, Baltimore) then the key is to figure out a way to bet against any team accomplishments.

That’s my sole focus currently.

As far as the positive bets, the bets I wish to make on teams on which I am bullish?

Those bets are only made AFTER the preseason so injury, trade, divorce, or dereliction cannot adversely affect my bet before the season starts.

Once football begins we must live with the early choices made.

My early choices can only be aided or advanced by adverse effects, injury or whatever. If you bet positively on team accomplishments now then in all honestly you should think about your process.

Adverse effects occur every day in the NFL world people.

Pease, be diligent out there.

Each NFL season I try fruitlessly to encourage gamblers to hasten slowly. My advice is easy and grounded in common sense. It’s directed to those in a hurry to make a football wager before the season starts, or even before pre-season starts.

Many poorly informed bettors wager at the behest and advice of people in the reporting business who have huge hours to fill and oh so little to say. Some are handicappers, yes, but those that handicap every sport January to December are simply generalists able to blab and bet but they offer very little value. They are not profitable sports gamers.

I have always encouraged doing one’s own handicapping. It’s work but performed effectively due diligence now can be converted into profit later.

This is the time of year to read to study and to be in little hurry to do anything but prepare yourself to be able to understand each team.

Advantage will be uncovered during this work and when discovered information allowing the handicapper to fade a team and/or any accomplishments they may earn in the upcoming year are the target.

Striving to find weak, maimed teams and by maimed I refer to the fact that perhaps a team is getting overly thought of without doing anything to earn it other than a coaching change (Atlanta, New York) or coordinator adjustments (Seattle, Kansas City, Baltimore) then the key is to figure out a way to bet against any team accomplishments.

That’s my sole focus currently.

As far as the positive bets, the bets I wish to make on teams on which I am bullish?

Those bets are only made AFTER the preseason so injury, trade, divorce, or dereliction cannot adversely affect my bet before the season starts.

Once football begins we must live with the early choices made.

My early choices can only be aided or advanced by adverse effects, injury or whatever. If you bet positively on team accomplishments now then in all honestly you should think about your process.

Adverse effects occur every day in the NFL world people.

Pease, be diligent out there.

Yes NFL enthusiasts I believe this week we witness four games that will not fall withing a seven point difference. Here are my predictions for each game. As an FYI, My NFL clients are sitting on a 3 team 7 point teaser this week. Interested parties can access that release at VSiN.

Buffalo 22 vs. Denver 11

Seattle 28 vs. San Francisco 18

New England 23 vs. Houston 10

Los Angeles 28 vs. Chicago 19

Good Luck to all and check right back here early next week for my early Championship Round predictions!

It is a timeless piece of wisdom from Gill Alexander—I’ve heard him drop this Wild Card nugget on his VSiN program, ‘A Numbers Game’ for years, and it’s backed by solid historical data.

The core idea is that Wild Card games tend to produce decisive outcomes: favorites either blow out opponents (covering comfortably) or underdogs pull off outright upsets, with very few “win but no cover” scenarios for the favorite.

Recent trends support it closely. In the last 74 Wild Card games (per VSiN data from early 2025), the outright winner covered the spread 86.3% of the time (63-10-1 ATS). “Win-no-covers” (favorite wins but fails to cover) are rare, happening only about 14% of the time—very close to Gill’s 12% figure from the pre-expansion era.

Even with the playoff format expanding to six games per round since 2020, the pattern of lopsided results has largely persisted, though underdogs have been strong ATS overall in recent postseasons.

You’re spot on about this year’s setup adding extra intrigue: opening lines show three home underdogs entering Wild Card weekend (as of January 5 lines).

My advice is to simply to focus on picking the winner of any particular contest and let the spread take care of itself 86–88% of the time it is sharp—especially in a round known for blowouts or chaos.

Good luck this weekend, Let’s cash some winners!