NFL Preseason Football is a half step away, and there is no better way then to start preparing the season than looking at some data. Now, it is pretty well known that betting preseason football is quite a bit different than during regular season football due to coaching changes, quarterback changes, preseason goals, shorter pre-season, new coordinators, and maybe the most important factors in motivation. Coaching philosophy is the single most important factor when handicapping pre-season football and it is imperative that we know what some of these coaches did in the past to try and accurately predict the future.
Since the 2019 NFL football season, there have been a lot of coaching changes, and less preseason games due to Covid, so many of the coaches this year do not have many data points. My philosophy for betting games with coaches that have limited data is to stay away in general with a potential exception in the first week where new coaches in general sometimes want to start their season out on a positive note with a win. This is not a hard rule, because some coaches do not care, but it is best to try to avoid fading them unless they are playing against one of the bulls that we will discuss.
Getting back to the most important aspect for handicapping the NFL preseason, it is great to have the data on these coaches. It is also important to understand that we need a good sample size to start making determinations on what these coaches are more prone to do. I personally have to have at least 8 games played, or 2 seasons of pre-season football to make a determination. As said earlier, some coaches are very bullish on winning games that have 0 significance to what their record will be at the end of the season, and some coaches do not care whatsoever and will instead be a lot looser with their play calling, and very liberal on which athletes that they will put into play the game. Coaches that want to win in the preseason will play a lot of their good 1st, 2nd and 3rd string players and determine if their lower tier players will make the team during OTAs. They also will in mainly stick to their main playbook without fear of showing their hand in the preseason. Other coaches that do not care much at all about winning will tend to play their worst players to determine if they will make the team during the preseason games rather than in practice or OTAs. These “bearish” coaches will also try out a lot of new plays during the games that were created in the offseason, or plays that were never a factor in their playbook in the previous years. 
On a sadder note, we lost two great preseason coaches to bet on last year in Mike Zimmer, who was 20-9 in preseason football as well as Jon Gruden who was 39-19. May they rest in peace. Here is some of the outliers below that could make us some money.
Some of the most winning coaches who will be paying my bills:
- Sean McDermott at 10-5 at 67% – I must break you!
- John Harbaugh at 40-12 at 77% – I don’t care if I injury my whole team!
- Frank Reich at 7-4 at 64% – I will out-nerd you!
Some of the most losing coaches who could also help pay some bills are:
- Mike Vrabel at 4-7 at 36% – Lose now to win later!
- Dennis Allen at 4-8 at 33% – I came back to coaching just to lose in the preseason!
- Zac Taylor at 2-5 at 29% – The art of losing!
When looking at coaching records, it is also very important to look at how they approach the preseason. Now I know that we only have three preseason games since last year, and here on out for the foreseeable future, but It is still important to know what these coaches do in the beginning, the middle and at the end. Due to the change, I had to recompile our data to show the coaching record for week one, the middle weeks, and the final week. I basically had to combine weeks two and three for the NFL Preseason before 2021. Some of the significant data that we found show that Jon Harbaugh is 13-1 in game one but only 8-5 at the final week. Maybe be a little more careful with that. Also, Bill Belichick is 66% at 15-7 on game one, and only 9-12 in the final week. On the flip side, Sean McDermott s only 2-2 in game one, but 4-1 in game the final week. If you want an extra edge in your handicapping, looking at these week to week records could certainly help.
I know what you are thinking. Why are you giving me coaching records per game rather than straight ATS? Well, the reason for this is that preseason spreads are usually very small due to the fact that the best teams are not always trying to win and the worst teams might have some more skin in the game when it comes to QB competition. The winning team usually covers, so motivation can be read more easily just based on the coaching records.
A few things to keep in mind for 2022. The preseason schedule remains only three games. Even though it is a big change from week four, I do not think that it factors in much to what these coaches do with respect to their history in the in the first game, the middle game, and in their last game. There also isn’t as many fade coaches as we have had in the past being that Andy Reid decided to go 3-0 last year in the preseason moving his average up to 48%, as well as the high number of coaching changes. I think that looking at the coaching records during the individual weeks might be here on out more important than looking at the coaching records in total.
In summary, it can certainly be profitable to bet preseason football if you understand how some of these coaches approach their season juxtaposed with what some of these other teams want to accomplish. If you have any questions about this, feel free to tweet me @OBKiev or @TheOddsBreakers.
