NFL Power Rankings Week 11
by Robert Ferringo - 11/12/2019

A tool I have found useful in handicapping college basketball and college football is something I like to call relative conference strength. The basic premise is that you can gauge a team's true strength based on whom they have played and how those teams stack up against the rest of the country. It's a very macro way of looking at the field, rather than focusing on the minutia of matchups and individual players.

NFL Power Rankings Week 10
by Robert Ferringo - 11/5/2019

Despite all of the talk about how the NFL has become primarily a passing league, I have definitely noticed that the pendulum has started to swing back the other way. And now, rather than teams trying to build their rosters and game plans to just outshoot and outscore opponents, we are seeing a return to the fundamental NFL strategy: running the football.

2019 Big 12 Predictions: Kansas Should Regain Control of League
by Robert Ferringo - 10/30/2019

The Big 12 is the best college basketball conference in the country. Period. That's not just my opinion. According to advanced metrics, the league has rated as No. 1 in the sport for six years running. The Big 12 has put seven teams into the Big Dance four of the past six seasons and last year produced the preseason No. 1 (Kansas) and the national runner-up (Texas Tech).

2019 Big East Predictions: League Should be All-Out War
by Robert Ferringo - 10/30/2019

Last year may have been the proverbial step back before a step forward. And this season the Big East is loaded. I can see as many as seven of the league's 10 teams competing for an NCAA Tournament bid, and everyone in the league, except for St. John's, comes into the season with a realistic chance of going to a postseason tournament.

2019 AAC Predictions: Memphis Leads the Way in Search of National Championship
by Robert Ferringo - 10/30/2019

The American Athletic Conference still sits in limbo between power conferences and mid-major leagues, and the AAC is still trying to find its place in college basketball's national hierarchy. Well, if this league is ever going to seize national respect, this is the year to do it.

NFL Power Rankings Week 9
by Robert Ferringo - 10/29/2019

Most people I know are in agreement about the product that is NFL football these days: it's pretty awful. The game is a ragged, penalty-filled mess that is routinely interrupted by instant replay reviews, commercials and promotions for network television shows.

NFL Power Rankings Week 8
by Robert Ferringo - 10/22/2019

The NFL has become a game of incompetence. Whether it is officiating errors, coaching and game-management mistakes, or just shockingly poor play, Sundays have become defined by stupidity rather than strategic or athletic excellence. The results have frustrating for bettors, and most professionals I know are starting to dread having to sit through NFL action each week.

NFL Power Rankings Week 7
by Robert Ferringo - 10/15/2019

There is any number of explanations for why underdogs are crushing it at the window each week. Quarterback play, league-wide, has regressed, and that's made everything more topsy-turvy. The sportsbooks have the most difficulty projecting teams early in the season. Defense has become en vogue in the NFL again, and that's led to lower-scoring games. Take your pick of the reason. But the reasons why don't matter. All that matters is that right now the only way to bet the NFL is to take road teams, underdogs and, when possible, road underdogs.

NFL Power Rankings Week 6
by Robert Ferringo - 10/8/2019

I don't know if I have ever seen a wider disparity between the top and the bottom of the NFL. There is still a clear, muddled middle class in the league right now. That's the forced parity that the league loves and the fuel for all of the weekly surprises on the field and at the window. However, if you look at the top eight and the bottom eight teams in the league right now, the variance is stark.

NFL Power Rankings Week 5
by Robert Ferringo - 10/1/2019

After last year's scoring explosion, in which teams combined to average 46.6 points per game, scoring has reverted back down to levels that we've seen only once this decade. With just 44.4 points per game, this season is on pace to be the second-lowest scoring year of the decade. However, this doesn't account to the fact that we are still in the early portion of the season.

NFL Power Rankings Week 4
by Robert Ferringo - 9/24/2019

The week after the season opener is the Overreaction Week. But now we are getting into Hype Week. Despite an extremely limited sample size and some outlier results, it appears that the bobblehead media is ready to make (more) wild, unsubstantiated claims on everything from Buffalo's viability in the AFC East race to Daniel Jones' Hall of Fame prospects.

The Ferringo Report: Sometimes It's Hard to Say Goodbye
by Robert Ferringo - 9/19/2019

In movies, The End comes with a musical crescendo and an emotional speech. In real life, you never know when it is Over. You never know the last time you are going to see or speak to someone. The last kiss. The last time you'll visit that place that you've been 1,000 times. Usually, you never know when those last times are going to occur. And you don't realize that it was The Last Time until much later, in retrospect.

NFL Power Rankings Week 3
by Robert Ferringo - 9/17/2019

Never forget that football is a war of attrition. It is battle. Football is sport. And it reflects the realities of nature. Football is two male rams smashing horns. It is two rhinos fighting for territory or male lions wrestling for command of the pride. It's primal and brutal.

The Ferringo Report: Overreaction Week for NFL Bettors
by Robert Ferringo - 9/12/2019

Week 2 is Overreaction Week in the NFL. Yes, it is always good for a chuckle while watching bettors, analysts and media bobbleheads freak out over the extraordinarily limited data set that is one single game. But the result is some of the most volatile, and difficult to read spreads of the pro season. For my money, Week 2 sits just behind Week 17 as the most difficult weeks of the season to handicap.

NFL Power Rankings Week 2
by Robert Ferringo - 9/10/2019

Obviously, the Patriots are going to win another Super Bowl, beating the Cowboys next February. Miami is going to go 0-16 and get the No. 1 overall pick, and Kyler Murray is going to win the Offensive Rookie of the Year Award. Everything has already been determined after just one week, so we can all just save ourselves some time.

Doc's Sports vs. a Financial Advisor: Sports Betting as an Investment
by Robert Ferringo - 9/10/2019

I still get a kick out of people's reaction when I tell them what I do for a living. When I say that I'm a professional sports handicapper, the first reaction is either surprise, expressed by raised eyebrows and a lean back, or confusion, expressed by a furrowed brow and pursed lips.

FAQs for Doc's Sports Handicapping Service
by Robert Ferringo - 9/10/2019

We get dozens of e-mails each week from people asking us all kinds of stuff about what we do and how we do it. So, what I've done here is taken the five of the questions that we get the most and tried to answer them as simply as I can to make things easier for you.

The Ferringo Report: SEC Falls on It's Face in Week 1
by Robert Ferringo - 9/5/2019

Expectations are really at the core of football betting. That's exactly what a point spread is. I understand that on its face it is simply a tool used by the sportsbooks in an attempt to balance action and flaunt their 10-percent house advantage. But at a layer beyond that, the point spread is really just a measure of expectations. It's a mathematical bar for teams to surpass or surrender to.

Use the Sportsbooks' NFL Season Win Totals Numbers Against Them
by Robert Ferringo - 9/4/2019

Every year Las Vegas and offshore sportsbooks release NFL season win total over/under numbers for each team. These initial numbers usually come out in April, they get tweaked after the draft and during the summer, and then solidify in once the preseason games begin.

NFL Power Rankings Week 1
by Robert Ferringo - 9/3/2019

There is a storm on the horizon. A storm of ritualized violence, presented by global telecommunications giants and the insurance industry, is about to make landfall. And it brings with it a hail of gambling and brutality and has helped define the sport of football as America's True National Pastime, a weekly ceremony of our own collective bloodlust and a measure of our national hedonism.