5 Essential Techniques for an Upset When NFL Straight Betting

Can someone say, upset? I sure can, given the fact I recently went 4-1 in projecting upsets in the straight betting realm. Would’ve been 5-0 had Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick hadn’t thrown a pick in that final drive and instead scored.

But hey, I’ll take it. 

In today’s article, I’m going to share with you 5 essential techniques I use that will put you in a prime position to predict an upset in the straight betting realm. 

While there are no real ways to guarantee you will predict an upset, there are ways to at least put the odds in your favor. 

Read on to discover 5 key techniques you can use that will best project an upset. 

1 – Walk the Line

How has a team fared in the past?

For example, teams like the 2019 Los Angeles Chargers and Seattle Seahawks kept games close. Literally 12 of their 16 games. If teams like these are underdogs, there’s a better chance they’ll beat the spread.

Of course, with each new season these can change, and come October it’s better to use the current season as an indicator to how well teams fare in the straight betting column. 

Different teams become notorious for covering the spread in any given season. One key point to take away here is to pay close attention to which teams are covering the spread more than others. 

When you’re early in the season, such as in September, using the previous season as an indicator is the smarter thing to do. 

Given the fact Seattle and LA were masters at covering the spread as underdogs in 2019, they’d be solid bets at least for September 2020. 

Other teams were just good at upsetting their opponents and accomplishing things no other team saw coming.

Let’s look at one more team before we head onto the next section. 


A good team who accomplished such feats in 2019 was the Pittsburgh Steelers, who after losing quarterback Ben Roethlisberger continued to defeat more talented teams like the Browns, Colts, Rams, and Chargers. While also giving teams like the Baltimore Ravens a run for their money.

So, as the 2020 season and future seasons tick on, watch out for teams like what you saw from the Steelers, Chargers, and Seahawks in 2019. Teams keeping it close even with their status as an underdog will find themselves upsetting favorites more often than not.

Study the outcome of each game throughout September of each season and you’ll find those 2 or 3 teams that always seem to pull off an upset. Either they win the game outright or they pull off the spread. 

2 – Nothing to Lose

Some teams have nothing to lose. A good example is the 2019 Cincinnati Bengals, who upset the favored Cleveland Browns in Week 17. Cincy had nothing to lose; their quarterback knew he’d play elsewhere in 2020. 

While Cleveland had practically given up on their coach – who is now in New York. 

While it sounds barbaric to some of you, look for lesser talented teams that outplay their ceilings. Many times, that nothing to lose mentality catapults teams. 

Following Week 1 of the 2020 season, I can point to 2 examples. One of which you’ll thank Captain Obvious for when I point to Gardner Minshew and the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

Since the Jags practically dissected their football team over the past 2 seasons since their AFC Championship appearance, no one gave them a shot to beat the upstart Indianapolis Colts. In fact, they were 7.5-point underdogs as of September 9th.

And I believe that spread increased as the game drew nearer. Anyway, Minshew and the Jags had absolutely nothing to lose here with one NFL analyst projecting the team to finish 0-16.

The result was a 27-20 victory over the Colts.

The other example was Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. You know the story if you follow football in the off-season. The Packers drafted quarterback Jordan Love. Rodgers was irked because the team needed help at receiver and instead they traded up for his replacement. 

And it foreshadowed a potential split between Rodgers and the Packers’ organization. You know how it turned out. Going into Minnesota as 3-point underdogs as of September 9th, hardly anyone expected anything from a declining Rodgers and a suspect receiving unit outside Davante Adams.

And as fate had it, Rodgers and his no-name pass-catching unit put up 43 points on the Minnesota Vikings for the first time in the Mike Zimmer era. Embarrassing the Vikes in front of dozens of irked cardboard cutouts. 

There’s always been a never-say-die, nothing to lose mentality within Rodgers. And it was on full display in Week 1 of 2020. 

Motivation is arguably the most underrated and overlooked attribute heading into any game. Some of us either gaff it off completely or downplay it. Not a bright idea. 

If a team is facing adversity or if analysts are heavily stacking odds against a specific team, it’s an indicator that an upset is on the way. 

Never underestimate the motivation and nothing to lose mentality. 

3 – Home Field Advantage

A big one here, but 2020 is an outlier because of the pandemic. In any other season, teams are far more likely to pull off their upsets at home either through winning games they were supposed to lose or by covering the spread. 

That said, some teams just play their best football at home in front of the hometown crowd. We know teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers, highlighted earlier, don’t lose at Heinz Field. You can see this around the league.

Their divisional rival, the Baltimore Ravens, also field among the league’s greatest home-field advantages.

 

Of course, they still need to cover the spread for you to win the bet. But if a team is playing a stronger opponent at home, there’s a good chance an upset is in the making. 

Look around the league at the teams who consistently win at home and even during a down season, it’s more than likely they’ll at least cover the spread. As they have the advantage of feeding off their hometown crowd’s emotion. 

Like the nothing to lose mentality, the momentum a home crowd brings to their team is underrated, but as you can see with the Steelers and Ravens examples above, it definitely heightens the odds they will either cover the spread or pull off an upset. 

Others, like the Minnesota Vikings, Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts, Dallas Cowboys, and Green Bay Packers tend to always fare better at home either in the win column, or they have closer contests. Augmenting their chances to come away with the win. 

4 – Strengths Versus Weaknesses

Sometimes teams are underdogs to the NFL’s brass. However, they can pull off an upset because their strengths play to opponents’ weaknesses.

For example, a team like the Arizona Cardinals have played the San Francisco 49ers well because of Kyler Murray’s ability to outrun the Niners’ pass rush, despite a 5-10-1 record in 2019. If not for a freak turnover in Game 2, they would’ve covered the spread. If not for a last-minute collapse, they’d have won the game. 

Fast-forward to Week 1 of 2020, and Kyler’s ability to run around in the backfield, stretch plays, and scramble made life miserable for the NFL’s most notorious front seven. 

It’s true you’ll see the 49er defense bully opponents, but the key takeaway is that they have a major weakness in their aggressive unit. 

They can’t stop scrambling quarterbacks. They couldn’t stop another division rival in Seahawks’ quarterback Russell Wilson in 2019.

But they made life miserable for pocket passers like Baker Mayfield, who they ravaged in Week 5 of the 2019 season in a 31-3 blowout. 

The key takeaway from this section is to always, always, always look at how the underdog’s strengths relate to the favorite’s strengths. And if they relate favorably, an upset could be looming. 

5 – Who’re the Opponents?

Who’s playing who? A good example are rivalries. Something like 49ers-Seahawks, or Steelers-Ravens. You know when both teams are at full strength, the underdog has as much if not a better shot to win than the favorites. 

While you can look at the history between the 2 teams and see outliers, like the Ravens’ 28-10 upset over the Steelers in Week 17 of the 2019 season, you also almost always find close, hard-hitting games in heated rivalries.

That said, it’s more likely teams could cover the spread. 

Or, in cases where one rival possesses a huge advantage in talent over another, you can expect a blowout and an easy covering of the spread. 

But look at how many of these rivalries play out in the current season. Teams whose talent levels are either equal or see just a small deviation often put together one-possession discrepancies in the final score. 

Meaning you’ll see a lot of them cover the spread unless it’s something meager like 3.5 points or fewer, which you will see in some cases. However, it also increases the likelihood the underdog wins the game outright and pulls off the upset. 

You see it often with Pittsburgh and Baltimore, or San Francisco and Seattle.

But look at recent games between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Baltimore and Cincinnati. Baltimore and Cleveland. There are exceptions, but oftentimes you find blowouts. 

Conclusion

No one strategy will guarantee you can predict every upset on any given Sunday while betting on the NFL season. However, the strategies and techniques listed above can certainly increase your odds.

As you can see, I love using recent history pertaining to within the last year to influence how I bet. And oftentimes in the NFL recent history serves as a decent indicator to how well 2 teams match up and if an upset is looming.

What kind of strategies do you like to use when betting on upsets? Let us know in the comments.