Review: NFL statistics, pointspread and betting book published

Richard Hutchinson reviews the newly published 2010 edition of Point Spread Playbook by Al O`Donnell

For those who are avid NFL bettors, you know the season is almost upon us when Al O`Donnell`s Point Spread Playbook arrives in the mailbox. Point Spread Playbook is America`s oldest and best known pro football statistics book and is now in its 32nd edition.

The Point Spread Playbook is not about offering betting picks on this season`s games. What it is about is giving a detailed statistical breakdown of how teams perform in certain situations and how past performance may point to future performance.

The 126 page book has three pages per team, which breaks down performance over the past three years, including game score, what the point spread was, what the over/under was, what surface it was played on, any extreme weather conditions or major line movements. It also summarises over the past season and past three seasons how that team has performed in terms of whether the team has covered the spread in particular situations, for example on the road on artificial surfaces or how they have performed as an underdog on the road.

But the most valuable part, in my opinion at least, is O`Donnell`s written summary of the games this season and any notable trends he has spotted. For example, for the New England Patriots in this season`s Playbook, he notes that against their divisional opponents the Pats generally go over against Baltimore and Cleveland but under against San Diego. New England may be 36-9 on the field at Gillette over the past five seasons but against the spread they are a money losing 20-24-1. Laying 10 points or more they were 3-5 last season and have failed to cover in 11 of their last 13 games when they were that big a favorite.

These breakdowns are invaluable for spotting situations where you might want to have a bet or, just as importantly, stopping you from having a wager. Every time I am thinking of having a NFL bet I quickly check the Playbook to make sure I am not making a basic error.

A new feature this year is a breakdown of teams` abilities to convert in the red zone and go to goal ratios. It is a shame that they are missing the breakdown of public teams betting that they carried last year, which showed which teams were overbet by the general public. The week by week guide to how the Super Bowl winner betting odds changed through the course of last season is also fascinating and is a useful guide to how much value you can get if you pick a team at the right time.

For $19.95 the Point Spread Playbook is a bargain, not least because just one trend from the thousands in the book can make you your money back many times over.