NFL Power Rankings Week 2
by Robert Ferringo - 9/10/2014

The Ray Rice debacle has muted what is usually one of the most entertaining weeks on the football calendar: Overreaction Week. There is an almost comically large build up and anticipation for the open to the NFL season. And the results of the first games invariably lead to an irrational overreaction by fans and gamblers alike on the following Monday and Tuesday after Week 1. The sportsbooks know this, and they generally use the rush to judgment against desperate bettors in Week 2.

NFL Power Rankings Week 1
by Robert Ferringo - 9/3/2014

We are on the eve of destruction, waiting, anxiously, to unleash the fury of a thousand backdoor covers on unsuspecting sportsbooks in our attempt to dominate another NFL season. The six-month sojourn of professional football has come to close, and we are ready to begin another six-month-long football gambling odyssey as the 2014 NFL season commences this weekend.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 17
by Robert Ferringo - 12/23/2013

I almost had to do a double take on Sunday. For a minute there I thought I was watching real, live football. There was hitting and defense, and each game was not some free-for-all shootout. It was glorious. Not so glorious was getting caught with my hand in the totals cookie jar. The past two seasons the scoring faucet shut off much earlier than Week 16.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 16
by Robert Ferringo - 12/17/2013

Like I touched on last week, defense has essentially been outlawed in the NFL. And right now bettors are almost blindly betting on every game to beat the posted total. The books are scrambling to adjust. But they know that this week features a host of what are essentially playoff games, which are usually lower-scoring. The books are caught in the middle of the road. And the freight train that is NFL scoring just keeps bearing down on them.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 15
by Robert Ferringo - 12/10/2013

Well, I was right and I was wrong last week in saying that weather would be a major factor in Sunday’s games. While the snow and the cold made for some incredible television – and the elements seemed to heighten the drama exponentially – the weather really didn’t slow down any of the offenses playing this past weekend.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 14
by Robert Ferringo - 12/3/2013

Weather will be a major factor this week in the NFL as we have several dome teams heading out into the elements in some of the key games this weekend. Indianapolis heads to Cincinnati. Detroit will travel to Philadelphia. Baltimore hosts Minnesota. And Dallas will head up to Chicago on “Monday Night Football”. The temperature should be at or below freezing in all four of those games and wind, snow, and rain could all be major factors.

NFL Power Rankings - Week 13
by Robert Ferringo - 11/26/2013

Every week we keep waiting for some teams to separate themselves from the pack in the NFL Playoff picture. But every week it seems like all things do is get more muddled. Over half of the teams in the NFL are still in the playoff hunt, and 22 of 32 teams are either at or within one game of .500. Parity rules. But this is also the time of the year when those overlooked teams on the bottom rungs of the NFL hierarchy can be moneymakers for bold bettors.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 12
by Robert Ferringo - 11/19/2013

What did we learn this week in the NFL? Not that much, really — at least compared to most weeks. The Broncos are better than the Chiefs, but we already knew that. The Panthers are for real, but they were favored against New England on Monday night, so the public had already figured that out. New Orleans is better than San Francisco — as long as they are playing at home, at least. Knew that one, too.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 11
by Robert Ferringo - 11/12/2013

Can anyone play this game? Four weeks ago it looked like Ron Rivera was going to lose his job, and now his Panthers are coming off a convincing win over preseason Super Bowl favorite San Francisco, and Carolina is favored over Tom Brady on “Monday Night Football”.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 10
by Robert Ferringo - 11/5/2013

The public continues to take it on the chin this year in the NFL after another windfall week for the sportsbooks. Houston’s collapse against Indianapolis saved a lot of gamblers on Sunday. But overall it was another big winning week for the books. Ten of the 13 games on the board last week had lopsided action, with 70 percent or more of all betting coming down on one side. Only four of those square plays came through.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 9
by Robert Ferringo - 10/29/2013

I pointed out last week that the end of October and early November is “separation time” for most of the teams in the NFL. This is the time of the year when the top-tier teams start to pull away from the muddled middle in the parity-driven league while the bottom feeders bumble their way to the basement in their respective divisions.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 8
by Robert Ferringo - 10/22/2013

In a league devised for parity to reign supreme, there is becoming a very clear delineation between the Haves and the Have-Not’s in the NFL. We are seeing more double-digit spreads, and some teams are starting to gear up and work toward securing playoff positioning while others are already starting to cast a gaze to next year.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 7
by Robert Ferringo - 10/15/2013

It has become a disturbing trend across the league over the last several weeks; coaches are consistently eschewing chip-shot field goals on fourth down to make ill-conceived attempts at touchdowns. Off the top of my head, I can think of five times in the last two weeks where a coach went for it on fourth-and-short inside his opponent’s 10-yard-line instead of simply taking the three points. Not only did it almost never work out for the offense, but those three lost points went on to be a major factor in the outcome of the game both straight up and against the spread.

NFL Power Rankings Week 6
by Robert Ferringo - 10/8/2013

Depth is becoming more and more of a factor around the NFL as several teams have lost critical parts over the past two weeks. Julio Jones, Clay Matthews, Vince Wilfork and Jake Locker are just some of the big names that have gone down, and their losses have changed the complexion of their respective teams.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 5
by Robert Ferringo - 10/1/2013

Last week I touched on the fact that the AFC had been dominating the NFC so far this year and how that had been one of the underlying trends in this first month of the season. The AFC promptly went out and went 5-4 against the spread versus its rival conference, running its mark to 15-8 ATS this year.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 4
by Robert Ferringo - 9/24/2013

I felt that one of the overarching themes of this 2013 NFL season was the fact that the NFC was clearly the superior conference in the league. Conference superiority has swung back and forth for the past 25 years, and after the beginning of this century was it was controlled by the AFC (seven of 10 Super Bowl titles). I felt their counterparts had regained the upper hand after taking three of the last four championships.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 3
by Robert Ferringo - 9/17/2013

Week 3 in the NFL is Desperation Week. NFL teams that start the season 0-2 have about a 10 percent chance of making the playoffs. The tension and angst that builds up on such a slow start is already palpable for teams like Washington, Tampa Bay and New York. And all of them know that teams that start the year 0-3 have virtually no shot at the postseason. That puts these teams in full-on Desperation Mode early in the season.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 2
by Robert Ferringo - 9/11/2013

Generally, the week following NFL Week 1 is one of the most obnoxious of the season. The teams that won their first game are all destined for big years and have everything clicking. The teams that lost their first game are in full-blown panic mode, and all of those weaknesses that were so obvious to every fan all offseason are insurmountable. Or something like that.

NFL Power Rankings – Week 1
by Robert Ferringo - 9/3/2013

I have been staring at these spreads for a month. Time has seemingly been standing still over the past six weeks as we have endured the time between the start of training camp and the actual start of the 2013 NFL season. Professional football is one of the most massive industries in this country, and it has become a 365-day-a-year obsession. But after seven months of pointless speculation and gossip, we are finally at the moment where it has come time to prove one’s self.

2013 NFL Power Rankings – Preseason Edition
by Robert Ferringo - 7/31/2013

I wish I had something provocative or surprising to offer you in the way of The Best Team in Football. But it is the 49ers. San Francisco is the best team in the best conference in the game. The offseason didn’t sabotage them. Each loss to free agency or injury was replaced by a comparable part. The 49ers have the best defense and one of the best running games in the NFL.