Betting The Weather

It’s December and December means bad weather for some parts of the US, particularly the North East.  I know you’re not here for a weather report but a weather report can be your best friend when you are making your NFL Totals picks.

Under a dome, you know both teams are going to have a stable temperature and no wind, or rain, or snow to worry about but if your team is playing the Patriots at Gillette Stadium, you can get heavy rain or a snowstorm on any given Sunday. Let’s have a look at how you can use the weather to your advantage when placing your bets.

The most important weather factor is not the snow or the rain but the wind. A good quarterback will continue to throw in the rain or the snow as we saw Tom Brady do already this year unloading 6 td strikes in the Patriots 59-0 win over the Titans. However if the teams are faced with a 30 MPH crosswind a good or even a great quarterback won’t even try to battle those conditions. If the wind is strong, teams will be forced to go with a run heavy offense. If you know the other team is coming with the run you can stuff the box to stop it. It works both ways, so it’s unlikely that a game with such heavy winds will turn into a shootout.  These conditions favor the under but of course the bookmakers know this also so as I mentioned in a previous article intangibles and insider information is key, if you can find out about the weather before the bookmakers make a drastic change to the line you are gold. If you don’t place your bet before the line changes, you are back to square one.

A good resource for weather stats is www.weather.com/outlook/events/nfl/schedule