Week 18 BALLER Model: Best Bets to Cover the Spread (Fantasy Football)
This article series covers BALLER*, a machine-learning betting model that predicts which team will cover the spread in each NFL game.
Through seventeen weeks, it has gone 53.5% overall, and since adjustments last week, it has gone 54.6% on its selected ‘Best Picks’ (‘Best Picks’ are determined through a combination of model confidence and outside football intuition). The model looks to bounce back on ‘Best Picks’ and realign with the overall average.
This is not an official Fantasy Footballers betting model* but hopefully a useful tool to make your decisions for fantasy and leans on certain spreads and who could cover. For the full array of betting material, find season-long and weekly props in the DFS Pass and tune in every week to the DFS & Betting Podcast.
In this article, I will break down the model’s best picks for Week 18 (four games) — let’s dive in!
Week 18 BALLER’s Best Bets
Keep in mind a couple of key points with this model:
- It focuses on the spread of the home team.
- It is applied primarily on which team can cover the spread, NOT “use this xSpread” the model spits out.
Green Bay Packers (-3.0):
The Packers face the Bears in a win-and-in matchup — a victory would send Green Bay to the playoffs in its first season with Jordan Love at the helm. Not only have they won two straight, but they defeated the Bears in Week 1 by a decisive 18 points. While a lot has changed since then, this Packers team will do whatever it takes to secure a victory — lucky for us, in seven of their eight wins, Green Bay has won by a margin of three or more points. Look for them to cover in this one.
Miami Dolphins (+3.0):
In a battle for the AFC East, the Dolphins open as three-point underdogs at home against the Bills. This checks out, as when these teams met earlier this season, Buffalo handled Miami by a whopping 28 points. What may be the reason to believe things will be different this time around? When we look at the teams’ EPA trends since Week 9, the Bills have been far more inconsistent — while both teams are coming off rough weeks, Miami has been the stronger team in the back half of the season. Look for them to take advantage of the three-point spread.
Indianapolis Colts (+1.0):
In yet another win-and-in game, the Colts are set to take on the Houston Texans to secure an AFC playoff spot. They’ve won six of their last eight games and defeated the Texans by 11 points earlier this season in Week 2. In addition, the Texans are 0-2 against the spread as the away favorite this year — not to mention, C.J. Stroud has a tendency to come up short in big games (he went 0-2 against his biggest rival, Michigan, during his collegiate career).
New England Patriots (-2.5):
The Patriots face off against the New York Jets in a must-lose matchup. A win could cost New England a few valuable positions in next year’s draft. Despite this, the BALLER model is still taking them to cover. The Jets are 5-8 against the spread as underdogs this season and lost by five to the Patriots in Week 3. The BALLER model sees this one as a pretty lopsided affair — we can back this up by checking out the teams’ EPA/play trends since Week 9. While both teams have been poor, the Pats have shown slightly better tendencies and a more consistent style that should give them the edge in this one.
That’s all for this article, as always, feel free to reach out on Twitter with any questions!