The Turnover Index - Week 11

Here are the Turnover Index numbers for Week 11 of the NFL season.  The purpose of these weekly posts is to find betting opportunities by exploiting the market's tendency to overvalue a team's season to date defensive turnovers when evaluating future performance.  See here and here for more background.

Last week's picks went 2-0 against the spread.  Cincinnati covered the spread (and then some) in their matchup against the Giants.  The Giants managed to force only one turnover, despite having averaged about 3 per game for the season.  The Bears failed to cover the spread against the Texans, having lost Jay Cutler to a concussion midway through the game.  Chicago forced two turnovers in the game, which is above the league average of 1.6, but below their season-to-date average of 3.5.


Here are the results for the season:

Turnover Index Through Week 10 (ATS): 7-3-0

Week 11 Picks

There are once again two betting opportunities this week.

• Chicago at San Francisco - San Francisco has 17 fewer defensive turnovers than Chicago, so we would expect San Francisco to cover the 4 point spread against the Bears.
• Indianapolis at New England - In a single game against the Jaguars, the Colts doubled their season total of defensive turnovers, but they are still well below the league average at 6, and 17 below the Patriots' season total of 23. Because of this, we would expect the Colts to cover against the Patriots as a 9.5 point underdog.

Here is the complete matchup table: