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 7 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 upper-left hand quadrant games are typically the most interesting games as they are expected to be close and high-scoring. Great matchups between Pittsburgh and Tennessee and Seattle and Arizona highlight these games. In addition, a good Sunday night game between Tampa and Las Vegas also is situated in this quadrant. Other games do not have as good of teams (hence the red color), but still have the potential to be interesting games.
The lower-left hand quadrant also typically houses good games, but unfortunately this week this quadrant is full of NFL East teams. Although these games are expected to be close, the quality of play of these teams have been disappointing to say the least. Another matchup in this quadrant is between two inconsistent teams that still have the potential to turn things around in San Francisco and New England.
The upper-right hand quadrant only features one game this week, which is expected to be relatively high-scoring, but not exactly close and that is between Carolina and New Orleans. The lower-right hand quadrant has four games this weekend, with Chicago at the Rams on Monday Night being the best of these matchups. Other matchups in this quadrant, where games are not expected to be close and are anticipated to be lower-scoring affairs, include Buffalo-NY Jets, Kansas City-Denver, and Jacksonville-LA Chargers.
On Sunday, the best matchups for each time slot are a battle of unbeatens at 1:00 PM (EST) between the Steelers and Titans, while the best late afternoon game (among the 4:05 and 4:25 start times), in my opinion, is the Seahawks-Cardinals game. Hope you enjoy this weekend’s slate of NFL games.
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