One of the most frustrating things about the early football season in both college and the pros is when a team fails to meet expectations in their first game. But how is one to know exactly of those expectations? Did you hear them from Sports Center? Are you an alumni? What are your qualifications? Even coaches aren’t for sure about a team until they’ve watch them in action.
We spend a lot of time over the spring and summer deciding what to expect from a team, so when they don’t look anything like we thought we have to go back to the drawing board. It’s frustrating when a team we thought was good tanks, but it’s just as frustrating when a team we had written off looks like natural born killers. When you are forced to reconsider a team after their opener.
Is there an end game? Absolutely! That’s when it’s more important to know what the projected point spread was and look for adjustments in latter games. That’s when you pick up the slack and the added value offered. It’s more important to know the projected lines rather than the player personnel.
Put away your excitement until after the game is played. There’s no reason to get all hyped upon the future. It comes anyway. Just be ready for it.
Quite often we get excited about the chances of a team because of changes they have made. Maybe they have changed defensive schemes, or they have installed a new offense. While those changes often pay real dividends in the long term they might not be smooth in the short term.
The first game of the regular season is the first chance that the starters have had to implement their new systems at full game speed for a whole game. Chances are good that there will be issues. That doesn’t mean that the team is doomed to disappoint all year. It just means that they will have to build up to their full potential. It’s important, then, to make sure that your expectations are based on what a team is now, not what they have the potential to be in a few weeks. We have exactly the same questions as the Joe’s have. However, we take our emotions out of the equation and investigate.
There are four factors when running your checklist. (Actually more but let’s start here).
1. Maybe the issue wasn’t that the team didn’t meet expectations, but that you set bad expectations. Rethink your initial analysis.
2. Did you get sucked in by hype, or fooled by negative but inaccurate reporting in the media? The suits on the four letter network might know how to read scripts but do they know what makes a Vegas Number?
3. Did you give a player(s) too much or too little credit? Maybe your teams credit was perfect but the Oddsmakers made the line -10.5 instead of -6. That’s more likely your misread.
4. Did you forget to account for a change in coaching staff, or did you give a change too much significance?
One must be have patience when there are new coaching staffs and even more patient with new player transfers.
This is where the Pro’s shine over the Joe’s. There are all sorts of ways to miss the boat on a team, and it happens to everyone. The successful bettors are the ones who can recognize when they have done it and quickly make adjustments.
The season is not won or lost in Week 1 or week 2 for the team and especially the bettors. Don’t get wiped out with your bankroll by making poor decisions and stubbornness. It doesn’t work like that.