Week 15 NFL Betting Picks: Team and Game Totals

Dec 18, 2021

Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images

This is such a strange week. Some books won't even post team totals right now because of all the crazy Covid-related news that's breaking every minute. We're staying on top of things in our Discord chat, and you're missing out if you're not signed up to get our team's notifications. It's the best way to maximize your subscription with us and helps ensure that you get the information as soon as it breaks. If you need help, please let me know.

Handicapping NFL sides and totals is not a perfect science, though it does get easier to navigate as the season moves along. The more we can contextualize in-season data and adjust it for the situation and opponent, the better. I update this sheet every Wednesday afternoon, capturing the situation-neutral stats I believe matter more than most.

Whenever possible, lean into situation-adjusted stats over raw counting stats. Utilize metrics like success rate and explosive play rates over total yards and points-against. Our scheduled-adjust fantasy points allowed (aFPA) metric is a perfect example of this. It's not a relevant metric in the context of my analysis here, but the point is, it tells a more useful truth than its more commonly used counterparts.

In this space, I'll continue to focus on what I think is the biggest inefficiency in the market, and that's individual team totals. After a 3-0 Week 15, I'm 23-10 on the season for a very nice 69.69% winning clip.

*Betting lines accurate at the time of publication.