NFL Power Rankings Week 16
by Robert Ferringo - 12/22/2021

Well, this is a mess. The next three weeks of the NFL regular season are going to be a debacle. COVID is wreaking havoc across the country (again). And if the last week is any indication, the NFL decision makers are ill-equipped to handle it.

NFL Power Rankings Week 15
by Robert Ferringo - 12/14/2021

Sometimes in life, being successful doesn’t mean seizing the moment or claiming victory because of your amazing talent. No, sometimes being successful is the direct result of simply not being a screw-up. Simply not making unforced errors and just not messing up is actually a pretty valuable skill in life. And in the NFL, that is the difference between cashing tickets and breaking bankrolls.

NFL Power Rankings Week 14
by Robert Ferringo - 12/8/2021

Bill Belichick is the greatest coach in the history of North American team sports. That’s not meant to be a “hot take” or anything. There might be someone out there that would make an argument against my statement. But that argument would be wrong.

NFL Power Rankings Week 13
by Robert Ferringo - 11/30/2021

I’m not sure when it happened, how it happened, or why it happened, but home field advantage no longer exists in NFL football. So far this season, NFL home teams are a putrid 89-90-1 straight up and 78-102 against the spread. That means that blindly betting on NFL road teams has produced a 57 percent winning mark so far this year.

NFL Power Rankings Week 12
by Robert Ferringo - 11/23/2021

I want to start this week’s Power Rankings with some house cleaning. This week all the handicappers at Doc’s Sports will be releasing their football picks on Wednesday to accommodate the Thanksgiving holiday. Like normal, that one release will include all college and NFL selections for the entire weekend.

NFL Power Rankings Week 11
by Robert Ferringo - 11/16/2021

Every NFL season is unique. The same can be said for the NFL betting season. Every year there is a betting trend that usually presents itself as kind of a through line or subplot to the pro football betting season. Sometimes home underdogs crush it. Some years it is NFC teams over AFC teams. Things like that crop up from time to time, the public gets ahold of it, and then everyone starts banging the books with the same picks each week.

NFL Power Rankings Week 10
by Robert Ferringo - 11/9/2021

One of the biggest themes of last week was the confirmation and verification of a gambling truism: always bet on teams that lose a star player. We see this all the time across all sports. When a team loses a star player to trade, injury, suspension, or some other malady, you always want to bet on those teams in their next game. It is counterintuitive. But it is effective.

NFL Power Rankings Week 9
by Robert Ferringo - 11/2/2021

I have long said that betting on NFL teams coming off a bye week is one of the most overused and overrated handicapping angles. The assumption is that with an extra week of time and preparation, teams coming off a bye week will be extra ready to play and therefore have a big advantage over their opponents.

NFL Power Rankings Week 8
by Robert Ferringo - 10/27/2021

There is no stopping progress. As I’ve gotten older, I expected to get more cynical. Instead, I think I’ve become more optimistic. That’s been due in part to seeing that history bends toward what is right and what should be. There are always fits and starts. But eventually things find their level and inch closer to What Should Be.

NFL Power Rankings Week 7
by Robert Ferringo - 10/19/2021

One of the biggest misconceptions of betting the NFL is that the spread is extremely important. It isn’t. I know that statement flies in the face of what you’ve read and heard your entire life: that “line value” is critical. In some sports it is. The NFL is not one of those sports.

NFL Power Rankings Week 6
by Robert Ferringo - 10/12/2021

I have a handicapping tip for you: Over the next four months, you should ignore NFL teams’ win-loss records. I know it’s hard. The records are usually right there next to the team’s name when odds are listed. But, mentally, you need to try to pay as little attention as you can to a team’s record.

NFL Power Rankings Week 5
by Robert Ferringo - 10/5/2021

Compared to the average NFL head coach, my football knowledge is probably about 10 percent of what they know. Seriously. When it comes to schemes and nomenclature and all of the minutia of an actual NFL game plan, I would be completely lost. Any average NFL fan knows probably half as much as I do, and they would be lost too, so this isn’t some big revelation.

NFL Power Rankings Week 4
by Robert Ferringo - 9/28/2021

The general held consensus in the NFL right now is that rookie quarterbacks should start. Teams should invest heavily in selecting quarterbacks with high-ranking first round picks. And then those quarterbacks should be thrown into the fire as soon as humanly possible. You hear this nonsense espoused regularly by media bobbleheads and average fans, and there is no doubt that “draft ‘em and start ‘em” is the prevailing theory in the league.

NFL Power Rankings Week 3
by Robert Ferringo - 9/21/2021

I’m going to keep this week’s intro short and sweet. I’m on a working vacation (they are all working vacations; I literally work 365 days a year) down in Florida. And as soon as I wrap this up, I’m headed about 100 yards down to the beach. The sea is balm for my soul and my need for getting blackout drunk in the sand at 10 a.m. on a weekday is a part of my nature that, for this seven days, I no longer have to repress.

NFL Power Rankings Week 2
by Robert Ferringo - 9/14/2021

One down. Seventeen to go. Week 1 of the NFL season is in the books. For me, it was one of the best opening weekends I’ve ever had, going 13-3 on Sunday with an array of big plays, totals and teasers all coming through with relative ease. In fact, if you include Saturday’s college football success, I had one of the best football weekends, +4,300 on Saturday and Sunday combined, in the 50-year history of this company.

NFL Power Rankings Week 1
by Robert Ferringo - 9/7/2021

Normal. New Normal. Old Normal. Everywhere you turn, someone is trying to explain what “normal” is supposed to be. Normal at work. Normal at home. Normal in public. It’s all about getting back to “normal”. I’m tired of hearing about normal. So, I suppose it’s a good thing that the NFL season is back upon us. Because nothing about professional football betting is normal. Blown leads and bad beats. Backdoor covers and stacks of dollar bills.

2021 Tennessee Volunteers Football Predictions: Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/30/2021

Josh Heupel is in. All the Volunteer players are out. The Jeremy Pruitt debacle came to its merciful conclusion after another losing season in Knoxville. Tennessee football continues to be an SEC punch line and has endured three losing seasons in the last four years. Heupel, who led Central Florida to a 28-8 mark over the past three seasons, has been brought in to pick up the pieces.

2021 Texas A&M Aggies Football Predictions: Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/30/2021

head coach Jimbo Fisher boasted that the Aggies are going to “beat (Nick Saban’s) ass”. The noise continued through summer as the bobblehead media all suggested that Texas A&M is some kind of legitimate challenger to the Crimson Tide in the SEC West. And it reached a crescendo when the Aggies started the season ranked No. 6 in the country.

NFL Betting: Turnover Disparity Often Good Indicator of Team Regression or Ascension
by Robert Ferringo - 8/26/2021

“That’s why they play with a funny-shaped ball.” When I first started out as a football handicapper, I had a client that would e-mail me every few weeks to chat about this or that. He’d celebrate big weekends. He’d try to boost my confidence after bad ones. And when I was particularly frustrated by a bad beat or a brutal loss, his response was always the same: “That’s why they play with a funny-shaped ball.”

2021 Florida Gators Football Predictions: Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/26/2021

I’m a big fan of Dan Mullen’s work on the field. All Mullen does is field quality teams in one of the most competitive conferences in football. He has gone 29-9 straight up in three years at Florida and has a 98-55 career record; all in the SEC. Mullen is legit. On its surface, last year’s 8-4 campaign seems like a nondescript year.