The NFL “Watchability Index” is based upon betting market point spreads and totals for the week and current wins of both teams in the 2020 season. This information can be combined to peer into the future and determine what games are the most “Watchable” for week 8 in the NFL. The visualization shows the absolute value of the point spread on the horizontal axis and the total (over/under) on the vertical axis. Additionally, the sum of the wins (home team plus road team) is noted by color with gold being the highest sums and red being the lowest sums. The shape reveals the day and time of the game.
Based on this week’s numbers, what games are most “Watchable”? The games that are expected to be both high scoring and close are in the upper-right hand quadrant. An excellent matchup between San Francisco and Seattle is located here, along with good games between Las Vegas and Cleveland and Indianapolis and Detroit.
The lower-left hand quadrant features games anticipated to be close, but not as high of scoring as the games in the upper-left quadrant. The top game of the weekend is located in this quadrant as Baltimore hosts undefeated Pittsburgh. Additional good matchups are situated here with New Orleans at Chicago and the Tua-led Dolphins hosting the Rams. Other potentially competitive and interesting games here include Thursday’s Atlanta-Carolina, and Sunday matchups of Chargers-Broncos and Patriots-Bills.
The upper right quadrant features games that are anticipated to be high-scoring but are not necessarily expected to be close. Tennessee-Cincinnati and Minnesota-Green Bay are located in this quadrant. The lower-right hand quadrant has games that are not expected to be close or high-scoring as there are anticipated blowouts here in Tampa Bay-NY Giants and NY Jets-Kansas City. Although unlined at this point, the Dallas-Philadelphia game will also likely be situated in this quadrant.
In my opinion, the best Sunday afternoon games are Pittsburgh-Baltimore at 1 PM (EST) and San Francisco-Seattle in the 4:25 timeslot. Hope you enjoy this weekend’s NFL games.
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