Week 16 Newsletter and Picks
A solid week for our models as the Orb finished the week +units against both spread and moneyline picks. Favorites dominated again as they went 9-4-2 against the spread and 11-4 straight up. Things started off on the right foot as our models had a perfect Saturday performance picking the Bengals to win and the Lions to win and cover the 4.5 points. This was followed by a pretty average Sunday and then our best pick yet this season on Monday night. It is probably fair to say we had a number of lucky bounces go our way this week starting with a big comeback from the Bengals in a game that really was Minnesota’s to lose. We then found ourselves on the right side of a miracle win and spread push brought to us by Joe Flacco and the Browns. The Bears were up 10 in the 4th quarter and it was looking like a double loss for our models. Thanks to Old Joe and a dropped last-second hail mary, the Browns came away with a big win on the record and an even bigger push on the spread.
Since our models are performing well, pushes technically bring our record down towards 50% slightly as they count as half a win and half a loss but sometimes like the Browns game they feel just as good as a win. The Orb’s two misses against the spread in week 15 were by a combined 5 points as neither the Patriots nor the Cardinals could quite cover the large amount of points that Vegas handed them. The real story for us this week was our best pick so far this season which came for our premium subscribers in Monday night’s matchup between the Eagles and Seahawks. For full transparency, this was not my favorite pick and was far from it as I fully expected this to be a ‘get right game’ for Jalen Hurts and the Eagles. But when I ran our models not only did they predict Seattle to cover the 3.5 points but also to win the game outright. I had to run them three times as I thought I was reading it wrong but the data was confident in the Seahawks pulling off the upset at home. Thankfully for everyone involved, the Orb project is not based on my picks and what I think is going to happen. Our models finished Sunday night up around 2 units so I was pretty confident that we were throwing that progress away by listening to the Orb and giving out the double-Seattle picks. For anyone who missed the game, Drew Lock led a last-minute game-winning drive and cemented himself as an Orb legend. Here is how every pick from our models performed in week 15:
Spreads:
Lions -4.5 (SNF Premium) ✅
Browns -3 🟨
Patriots +8.5 ❌
Cardinals +12.5 ❌
Bills -1.5 ✅
Ravens -3 ✅
Seahawks +3.5 (MNF Premium) ✅
All spreads: 4-2-1, 64.3%, +1.636 units
Moneyline:
Bengals (SNF Premium) ✅
Lions (SNF Premium) ✅
Packers ❌
Falcons ❌
Browns ✅
Chiefs ✅
Bills ✅
Ravens ✅
Seahawks (MNF Premium) ✅
All moneyline: 7-2, 77.8%, +2.67 units
Overall a +4.306 unit performance in week 15. The last two weeks have been a great example of my unrealistic dream for the Orb against the spread. Rather than high variance performances both above and below our season average against the spread, our models had back-to-back weeks hitting right around our average. The dream of this level of consistency unfortunately isn’t possible in this game we are playing. And as we’ve seen from this season, even our best year yet comes with down weeks. This was also our first time since week 9 that the Orb had +unit weeks against both spread and moneyline picks. Interestingly we’ve only had three weeks in which it was -unit against both types of picks so more often than not at least one side of the equation has been heading in the right direction. Here is how week 15 adds to our season totals:
Season-to-date results:
Season spread picks: 55-35-6, 60.4%, +14.99 units
Season moneyline picks: 102-43, 70.3%, +8.48 units
Our models are going for their third +unit week against the spread in a row and hoping to get back or above our season peak. This weekend they are loving the home underdogs to cover. Since we had a consensus spread pick in the Thursday game, and in the spirit of the Holidays we are giving out the Saturday games here as well. Here is what our models predict will happen over the holiday weekend:
Spreads:
Rams -3.5 (TNF Premium) ✅
Texans +2.5
Titans +3
Dolphins -1.5
Moneyline:
Rams (TNF Premium) ✅
Bills
Lions
Bears
Jets
Dolphins
Broncos
Just a heads-up for next week’s Newsletter and premium picks: I will be on vacation and the blogs will probably be shorter form and less analysis-heavy. I’m still going to find time to collect our data and run the models so the picks will be out as usual. Let’s hope Christmas treats us better than Thanksgiving did!
Happy holidays to all who celebrate!
- Team Orb Analytics
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