How To React To Big NFL Upsets

Any given Sunday is often the rallying cry of those who know that any team can beat any other team in the NFL on a given week. But sometimes even those individuals are surprised when a massive underdog wins a game outright against one of the league’s best teams. After a team wins a game as a massive underdog, what is the best way to react to make sure that you are still making the best possible wagers?

Perhaps the most poignant advice one can receive about situations like this, where a double digit favorite loses, is to just not react to the upset at all. This is going to sound strange, but paying attention to the results of a big upset is not smart. Instead, you are going to want to focus on what led to those results, and use that information to inform your decisions more than you would focus on who won and lost the game.

For example, in 2018, the Minnesota Vikings lost at home as 17.5 point favorites to the Buffalo Bills. They looked terrible in that game, allowing rookie quarterback Josh Allen to do whatever he wanted against the Vikings’ strong defense. But after that game, the Vikings got it together and played a competitive game against the Los Angeles Rams on a short week. That is a case where reacting to a bad loss was a terrible idea, which is usually how those things play out.

Instead of reacting to the outcome of a big NFL upset, it’s smarter to look at how a team performs after a loss in general. Whether a team loses by one point or 100 points and whether they are a favorite or underdog when they lose, knowing how they bounce back from those losses is more important than trying to figure out how they feel after getting stunned by a team perceived to be inferior to them.

Take the Patriots, for example, who lost to the Detroit Lions in week three of the 2018 season. That was a shocking upset. But rather than focusing on that result, it would be smart to do what Bill Belichick does and say “we’re onto the next game,” because no bettor has ever made money focusing on a singular result that doesn’t have a large impact on future wagers. Knowing that the Patriots are almost unbeatable after a loss is much more valuable information.

There are exceptions to this, of course. Say, for instance, that a team was upset due to a big injury that drastically changes the makeup of a squad. That is vastly different than a normal circumstance and therefore shouldn’t be evaluated in the same way. As always, there are so many nuances to betting on any NFL game, that you would be remiss not to consider as many of them as possible before deciding what action to take before kickoff.

In any event, upsets are going to happen in the NFL. And as long as you take the right information from them, you will give yourself the best chance to win your bets.