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.

NFL Power Rankings Week 17
by Robert Ferringo - 12/29/2020

Greed is good. Since the coronavirus explosion in March, I have had an unshakeable reliance on the overall greed and sociopathology of NFL owners to see to it that there would be a full and completed NFL season. I don’t mean that as a pejorative, simply as a statement of fact. And, well, here we are. This week marks the completion of the NFL regular season. The playoffs are the icing on the cake. The fact that we’ve had four uninterrupted months of football is a silver lining in an otherwise horrific year. And the driving force behind that reality has been the overwhelming greed of those at the top of the professional football food chain. So good job.

NFL Power Rankings Week 16
by Robert Ferringo - 12/24/2020

There have been 41 games this season in which a team lost a game despite holding at least a 14-point lead. I want you to think about that for a second. We’ve played 15 weeks. And we’ve had 14 comebacks of two touchdowns or more. That is an average of three wild, can’t-believe-they-did-that comebacks every…single…week.

NFL Power Rankings Week 15
by Robert Ferringo - 12/15/2020

It’s time to tank. I know that players and coaches in the NFL all say the right things about tanking. They talk about how people are fighting for jobs and for money so it is impossible to tank. They talk about how physically it doesn’t make sense for teams to sit back and get rolled over. They talk about pride and professionalism.

NFL Power Rankings Week 14
by Robert Ferringo - 12/9/2020

There is an inherent paranoia that comes with being a professional gambler. It’s hard not to let it overtake you, actually. There is a feeling of impending doom that comes with every wager. And since I’ve lost bets just about every way imaginable – you wouldn’t believe me if I told you – every week I can’t help but wonder, especially when things are going well, when things are going to fall apart.

NFL Power Rankings Week 13
by Robert Ferringo - 12/1/2020

This whole 2020 NFL season has been a mess. Fans and bettors have been able to gloss over the inconsistency and the scheduling issues and the weekly coronavirus personnel updates. We’ve been able to grin and bear it because that’s what 2020 is all about. And because we have no other choice. Some football, even if it is being played with a practice squad wide receiver lining up at quarterback or if it is played on Wednesday afternoon, is better than none.

NFL Power Rankings Week 12
by Robert Ferringo - 11/24/2020

It’s Thanksgiving week, which is easily one of my favorite times of the year. It won’t seem like quite the same respite this year, given that lockdowns and quarantines and a complete social and business slowdown this year leaves me less in need of this holiday week’s slow pace. Though it is always a good time to take stock of all the benefits, accomplishments and good fortune that one has in their life; A little self-reflection never hurt anyone.

NFL Power Rankings Week 11
by Robert Ferringo - 11/17/2020

Frankly, I’m in a pretty foul mood. I’ve had two of the worst weeks of my career as an NFL handicapper the last two weekends. I was on the wrong end of both the Arizona and the Cleveland bad beats last week and have gone 1-5 against the spread with my last six top plays in the pros. Losing streaks aren’t rare for anyone that gambles as a profession. The pendulum swings both ways. And after 14 years of making my career based on the bounce of a funny shaped ball, I know that it comes with the territory.

NFL Power Rankings Week 10
by Robert Ferringo - 11/10/2020

The single most overrated angle in NFL betting is to assume that teams coming off a bye week are going to be more prepared for their upcoming game. Last week was another perfect example of the phenomenon, which routinely buries bettors. Arizona, Washington, Jacksonville and Houston were coming in after weeks off. Houston played Jacksonville, so that was a wash against the spread. Arizona and Washington? Both lost outright as post-bye week favorites.

NFL Power Rankings Week 9
by Robert Ferringo - 11/3/2020

One of the defining characteristics of this NFL season is the massive inequality between the top and bottom tiers. The good teams are really, really good, and the bad teams are completely and totally pathetic. This flies in the face of the NFL’s structure, which is to promote parity, but it seems like a 2020 truism.

NFL Power Rankings Week 8
by Robert Ferringo - 10/30/2020

So, the reason that this week’s Power Rankings are late is because I spent most of Thursday without power and without Internet. What I was able to cobble together from my phone and some time at Panera Bread was used to finalize my actual card for the weekend, so I had to push this back until today.

NFL Power Rankings Week 7
by Robert Ferringo - 10/22/2020

The ‘under’ was the big winner in the NFL last week, with 10 of 14 games staying ‘under’ the total. That was able to stem the high-scoring, high-rising tide of ‘over’ wagers cashing early in the season. And now the question is pretty clear: was last week the beginning of an ‘under’ avalanche that continues through the rest of the season or merely a blip on the radar as the NFL’s highest scoring season continues?

NFL Power Rankings Week 6
by Robert Ferringo - 10/15/2020

Each team should set up its own bubble – a quarantined area for all players and essential support personnel – in its home city immediately. The players should be restricted to team facilities and that’s it. These guys travel on chartered flights and it is not difficult to quarantine for the 24 necessary hours in visiting cities. Really, it’s not that difficult for these players to stay restricted to the field, either their own or a visitor’s, for the rest of the season.

NFL Power Rankings Week 5
by Robert Ferringo - 10/8/2020

We’ve already seen the beginnings of the The Purge, as coaches and quarterbacks suffer the consequences of early season struggles. Most of these moves are acts of desperation (like firing Bill O’Brien). The rest (like benching Dwayne Haskins) are belated attempts to rectify mistakes that never should’ve happened.

NFL Power Rankings Week 4
by Robert Ferringo - 10/1/2020

Apparently the NFL decided that professional football should be more like Big 12 football. The overriding story of the first three weeks of the season – besides the Covid-19 tightrope walking that everyone is doing – is that scoring is up. Way up. Astronomically up. Teams are combining to average 49.4 points per game through the first three weeks. That is up 16 percent from the first three weeks of last season and 22 percent from the average of the previous 20 years.