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We’ve discussed parity as it relates to pointspread records in the past couple of articles. The same concept also applies to having a strong ‘Over’ or ‘Under’ bias as it does putting up impressive pointspread records relative to college football teams. Simply put, NFL teams just don’t have it as easy when it comes to showing a strong bias of success or (failure) against the spread nor going ‘Over’ or ‘Under’ the total. We looked at the teams that perform better against the spread than average as well as the ones that have put up poor numbers against the spread. Now we’ll look at totals performance. We’ve tracked all 32 NFL teams’ performance against the totals posted at BetOnline.ag this season. In this article, we’ll look at the ones that played the most games ‘Under’ the total. Note that these records and stats are prior to Monday Night’s game between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts:
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STRONGEST ‘UNDER’ TEAMS THROUGH THE END OF WEEK 15 OF THE 2019 SEASON
BUFFALO BILLS (3 OVER, 11 UNDER): If I had a vote for the NFL’s ‘Coach of the Year’ it would go to Buffalo Bills’ head coach Sean McDermott. McDermott has taken a bumbling Bills franchise and transformed it into a nasty and physical defensive oriented team that no one will want to face in the playoffs. Buffalo has the #3 total defense in the NFL allowing just 291 yards per game, the #3 passing defense in the league giving up just 190.5 yards per game through the air and the #10 rushing defense allowing opponents just 101.4 yards per game on the ground. Most impressively, Buffalo now has the #2 scoring defense trailing only the New England Patriots and giving up just 15.9 PPG. It’s fortunate that the Bills have such a nasty defense since their offense has sputtered at times this season ranking only #22 in points scored per game (20.8). When a team struggles to score and plays tough defense they’re going to play a lot of games ‘Under’ the total. The Bills have been a good ‘Under’ team for several seasons now but this year they’re playing marginally better on offense and significantly better on defense. That has allowed them to win games and play ‘Under’ the total. Heading into this weekend’s matchup against the New England Patriots, the Bills have gone ‘Under’ in 4 straight and 6 of their last 7. They’ve shown a strong under bias at both home (2 OV and 5 UN) and on the road (1 OV and 6 UN) but their strongest ‘Under’ situation has been as an underdog. When the Bills are getting points they’ve gone ‘Under’ in all 7 underdog spots so far this season.
As noted previously, the Bills have been on a very strong ‘Under’ run for the past few seasons. As an underdog, they’ve gone ‘Under’ in 21 of their last 30. As an underdog of +3.5 to +9.5 points they’re ‘Under’ in 14 of their last 19. On the road, they’ve failed to exceed the total in 18 of their last 24 games. Against opponents with winning records they’ve gone ‘Under’ in 11 of 14 games including 4 unders in 4 spots this year.
PITTSBURGH STEELERS (3 OVER, 11 UNDER): The Steelers are almost a mirror image of the Bills statistically and have been for several seasons. Obviously, their offensive output took a big hit with the season ending elbow injury suffered by quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and now that either Mason Rudolph or Devlin ‘Duck’ Hodges will be starting under center the rest of the way it would be unrealistic to expect Pittsburgh to put up big numbers. Their defense has been their salvation. Pittsburgh has the #4 total defense allowing 307.4 yards per game, the #5 passing defense (204.1 yards per game) and the #11 rushing defense (103.2 yards per game). They’re also tied for the #7 scoring defense in the league giving up 18.5 PPG. Offensively, they’ve struggled to put points on the board even more than Buffalo has. The Steelers have the #26 scoring offense in the NFL putting up just 19.2 PPG.
Pittsburgh has gone ‘Under’ in six straight and eight of their last nine. They’ve failed to exceed the total in 5 of their 8 home games and all six road games. They’ve gone ‘Under’ in 6 of 8 as a favorite and 5 of 6 as an underdog. Over the past three seasons, Pittsburgh has gone ‘Under’ in 18 of 21 road games and 23 of 34 games agaisnt AFC opponents. They’ve gone ‘Under’ in all 7 games against opponents with losing records this season and ‘Under’ in 14 of 17 games against sub-.500 teams during the last 3 seasons. They’ve also gone ‘Under’ in 4 straight against AFC East teams and in 6 of their last 7 games on turf.
