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 10 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. As of right now, I do not have a point spread and total for Washington/Detroit, so that game is not included in this week’s index.
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. The premier matchups of this week lie here. We see two excellent games near the upper left corner of the visualization with Buffalo-Arizona and Seattle-LA Rams. These are great games, one at 4:05 and the other at 4:25, which makes multiple screens (or at least the Red Zone channel) to be of prime importance this Sunday afternoon. Other games in this quadrant, Houston-Cleveland and Denver-Las Vegas also are interesting games with potential playoff ramifications.
The lower-left hand quadrant features games that are expected to be close, but not as high-scoring. The LA Chargers/Miami game is particularly interesting to see how the two rookie QBs play (and to see how the Chargers can somehow continue to lose games they should be winning). Philadelphia-NY Giants and Minnesota-Chicago also lie in this quadrant of games.
The upper-right hand quadrant has games that are expected to be high-scoring, but not close with a couple of anticipated blowouts, but an interesting matchup between Tampa Bay and Carolina. The lower-right hand quadrant has anticipated low-scoring and not-close affairs, with Cincinnati-Pittsburgh and Baltimore-New England as these games.
My top matchups for the afternoon timeslots on Sunday are Houston-Cleveland at 1 PM (EST), Buffalo-Arizona at 4:05 (EST), and Seattle-LA Rams at 4:25 (EST). Enjoy the games!
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