NFL Power Rankings Week 3
by Robert Ferringo - 9/19/2023

In last week’s NFL Power Rankings, I talked about avoiding the overreaction. What normally happens is that bettors usually freak out over the results of Week 1 and try to glean some hidden meaning from each team’s initial performance. They do this instead of accepting that it is a long season and that people just sit back, relax, and let the season unfold.

NFL Power Rankings Week 2
by Robert Ferringo - 9/12/2023

That was UGLY. NFL Week 1 is in the books. It was like most season-opening adventures: some things went exactly the way we thought they would, and others provided some big surprises. But the overarching theme of the week was sloppy, nearly unwatchable football.

NFL Power Rankings Week 1
by Robert Ferringo - 9/7/2023

Last year was the worst NFL season of my career, a horror of unspeakable defeat and monumental failure. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Did he actually just admit to LOSING?!?!” I know, I know: bettors in The Online World of Gambling are all WINNERS! As my friend Raphael Esparza likes to say, “Gambling Twitter is undefeated!” The Online World of Gambling is paved with triumph and gold. No one ever loses.

Expert NFL Handicapping: Starting a Rookie Quarterback is a Terrible Idea
by Robert Ferringo - 7/14/2023

Quarterback is the most consequential position in sports. It’s the most important position in the most profitable and popular sport in this country. The flow of billions of dollars, annually, is directed by these offensive conductors.

Impact of Injuries on Sports Betting: Handicapping and Adjusting Your Bets
by Robert Ferringo - 6/29/2023

Injuries are one of the great equalizers of sports betting. We’ve all been there. Swollen with confidence, knowing that an upcoming bet was a brilliant, savvy play against a weak line. You’ve already started mentally spending the money you are certain you are going to win. Then it happens.

The Best Baseball Betting Strategies and Systems
by Robert Ferringo - 6/29/2023

No matter what sport you're talking about, it can be devastating to lose a perfectly good wager by half a point, half a run, or half a goal. Whether it's a run or a point, a loss is a loss and that hook can be as lethal on the diamond as it is on the gridiron, pitch, hardwood or ice.

NFL Draft Grades 2023
by Robert Ferringo - 5/1/2023

NFL draft grades are tricky because you can never really tell how a class is going to shake out until four or five years down the road. But I am grading teams based on how they did with the information they had in the here and now. So, with that in mind, here are my 2023 NFL Draft grades:

2023 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament Predictions
by Robert Ferringo - 3/1/2023

It isn’t always pretty basketball, but the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament always comes through when you are looking for drama and emotion. This tournament, which has its championship game this coming Sunday, really tips off the start of March Madness and hammers home the reality facing every team in the country over the next month: if you lose, your season may be over.

College Basketball Betting Advice: Betting on Bubble Teams
by Robert Ferringo - 2/22/2023

For the uninitiated, a “bubble team” is a college basketball team that is on the fringe of an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. Because the criteria for selection into the tournament is subjective, there is no real way of knowing who is in and who is out heading down the stretch. This isn’t like, say, the race for the playoffs in MLB or NBA, where a team’s record is the sole determination of who makes the postseason and who doesn’t.

2023 Super Bowl Outlook: Old vs. New as Eagles Will Use Brute Strength on Sunday
by Robert Ferringo - 2/10/2023

The Chiefs are hoping to create a dynasty. They won Super Bowl LIV just three short years ago, and this is their third trip to the championship game in four years. That title in 2020 was first championship for both quarterback Patrick Mahomes and head coach Andy Reid. It was supposed to harken the beginning of the league’s next dynasty.

NFL Power Rankings Week 18
by Robert Ferringo - 1/3/2023

The last thing you need is another hot take on the Damar Hamlin situation. I’m not trying to ignore the biggest story in football right now. But I’m instead going to choose to stick to the game. And I have the same advice for every football bettor every year heading into the final week of the regular season: tread lightly.

NFL Power Rankings Week 17
by Robert Ferringo - 12/27/2022

One of the themes that I’ve discussed in this space all season is that the NFL is a fundamentally different game now than it was as recently as five years ago. By extension, betting on the NFL has taken on a completely different form. There is a multitude of reasons for the changes, but the end result is that games are much closer and lower scoring than they have been in decades.

NFL Power Rankings Week 16
by Robert Ferringo - 12/20/2022

Betting on sports really can be masochistic sometimes. And last week, after watching a rash of come-from-behind wins like the NFL has never seen, I feel like anyone getting ready to bet again on pro football this week must secretly love the pain.

NFL Power Rankings Week 15
by Robert Ferringo - 12/13/2022

It looks like Mother Nature is going to have her say in the NFL playoff race. December football is a completely different beast than games played during the rest of the regular season. The stakes are higher. Teams rarely have their full complement of players due to injury. Shifting motivational and situational factors come into play.

NFL Power Rankings Week 14
by Robert Ferringo - 12/6/2022

I don’t like to have wild swings in my NFL Power Rankings. The reason is that I expect these to be a static, stoic, sober view of the pro football hierarchy each week. And to do that, you need to avoid wild swings, overcorrections, and overreactions to short-term results.

NFL Power Rankings Week 13
by Robert Ferringo - 11/29/2022

I have talked about it often in this space, but I just want to be unequivocal in my stance about young quarterbacks in the NFL: No team should ever start a rookie quarterback. Ever. Under anything less than emergency circumstances. And not only that, but with rare exception, quarterbacks should not go into their second season as the unquestioned starter. Anything short of that should be considered football malpractice.

NFL Power Rankings Week 12
by Robert Ferringo - 11/22/2022

I do want to take this opportunity to again point out that I will be releasing my football selections on Wednesday this week to accommodate the Thanksgiving holiday. That goes for all of Doc’s football handicappers, and we want to get our clients to be able to get their action in early and then sit back and enjoy an orgy of alcohol, eating and gambling that would make the Romans blush.

2022 World Cup Betting Trends and Wagering Advice
by Robert Ferringo - 11/16/2022

The easiest way to explain the World Cup to someone that doesn’t follow international futbol is to tell them that it is the soccer equivalent of the NCAA Tournament. The structure – a four-team group round robin (The Group Stage), followed by a 16-team tournament (The Knockout Round) – is completely different from its college basketball counterpart. But the upsets, the surprises, and the eventual ascent of the powerhouse teams all tracks remarkably well with one of America’s signature betting events.

NFL Power Rankings Week 11
by Robert Ferringo - 11/15/2022

I know that relying on thoughts and feelings and anecdotal evidence is usually the first step toward certain death as a handicapper. However, I’m starting to get the feeling that rather than look at the NFL bye week as a positive when handicapping teams, maybe we are approaching the time when we should start fading teams off a week of rest.

NFL Power Rankings Week 10
by Robert Ferringo - 11/8/2022

That adage is an inside joke that I used to have with a now-deceased client whom I would trade emails with. And it pretty much sums up the general absurdity and unpredictability of anything related to the game of football. We’ve passed the halfway point of the regular season, and things look murkier than ever. But it’s actually not. There is a very clear theme and throughline that has run through this NFL season. The seeming randomness of it all is a weakness on the part of us, the general betting public, and the bobblehead media to accept The Truth.