A Hard Task: Pro Football Picks

Written by Jason Miles Saturday, 23 April 2011 11:55

Deciding which teams deserve your pro football picks each season, or each week, can be extremely difficult and even daunting. In fact, when it comes down to cold hard cash, or sometimes sheer pride, it's difficult for people to make their final decision. While it's difficult, it isn't something that's impossible, especially when comparing just two teams. There are a variety of elements of each team that can be analyzed in making the right choice.

Deciding which teams deserve your pro football picks each season, or each week, can be extremely difficult and even daunting. In fact, when it comes down to cold hard cash, or sometimes sheer pride, it's difficult for people to make their final decision. While it's difficult, it isn't something that's impossible, especially when comparing just two teams. There are a variety of elements of each team that can be analyzed in making the right choice.

The first, and probably the most obvious, is that you should consider the performance of teams from the previous year. Not always, but often a team's record from the previous year can be one of the most telling statistics when making picks for the upcoming year. However, it is often a statistic that is overlooked merely for its simplicity. There are exceptions, of course, which is why you need to base your decisions on more than one factor.

Another thing that you'll want to consider is the change in the roster of each team. As you well know, no team is the same from year to year. Most players may be retained, but in some circumstances, you'll hear names a year later with which you're completely unfamiliar. These changes definitely effect a squad's chances.

Injuries are also something that can change the way that a group of players work with one another. If one component is missing from the lineup, or one gear is missing from the machine, there could be a lot of problems. Sometimes it's big name players, other times it isn't. Players contribute in a variety of ways - scoring points isn't everything.

Another way to gather information on different teams is by keeping tabs on their practices, pre-season games, etc. Obviously, you can't tell all that much from a pre-season game. But, you might be able to get a feel for the team's general approach to the season, from which you can infer if they're ready to compete or not.

Lastly, you should give some weight in your decision to your gut feeling. Obviously, you don't want to go completely with gut. Sometimes it works out, yes, but not often. It's important to assess teams first using the other contributing factors. In the end, though, it's going to come down to gut. Some will stack up perfectly with the others, and when you have a nice group of contenders to choose from, you'll have to make a tough decision. Might as well go with instinct.

Making pro football picks, like making any sort of sporting picks, isn't easy. It takes a lot of knowledge and understanding to even make an educated guess, and even when you do that, the chances of picking correctly aren't that good. That being said, you can better these chances by doing your research. Heck, you may get lucky. The harder you work, the luckier you get.