Following a week of outliers muddying the waters, this week’s Thursday Night Football prediction, unfortunately, has one of the season’s most unpredictable team’s on the docket in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tom Brady, who is trying to be half-pregnant as a player this year, has been the epitome of inconsistency.
On the other side, it’s one of the league’s most consistent teams in the Baltimore Ravens. Even at just one game over .500, the way they behave on both sides of the ball within the context of who they are playing has made Baltimore one of the more predictable teams this season.
My applied behavior analysis-focused sports betting model is 4-0 when predicting games involving them. You can see how the model has performed in other categories by following me on Pikkit and earning yourself up to $100 for doing so.
One way we can determine a team’s consistency is by looking at their bounce rates on both sides of the ball. What is their range of outcomes based on historical performance this season? This is where the Buccaneers vs. Ravens prediction becomes interesting.
The Bucs have a 28-point differential between their lowest-scoring output this season and their highest. On the defensive side of the ball, the differential is even higher at 38 points. On offense, their bounce rate is x3.9.
MORE: Buccaneers vs. Ravens Player Props
Tampa Bay’s weekly performance can vary from lowest to highest by a ratio of almost x4. A bounce rate this high indicates that the environment has little control over how they perform. Internally, the Bucs have not yet figured out their identity, and it’s showing week in and week out. Below you can see the wide range between the green lines, which indicates bounce.
The Ravens, on the other hand, have been much more predictable. After some variability in their first three weeks, the point differential in the last four weeks has been four points between their lowest and highest scores.
Aside from Weeks 2 and 3, Baltimore has scored 24, 20, 19, 20, and 23 points, respectively. This has produced a much more useful bounce rate of x1.9. Think of this as a sort of confidence rating. You can see below in comparison to the Bucs chart, the Ravens have a much narrower gap between the green bounce lines.
Now, what is most interesting is that the Ravens have yet to win or lose back-to-back games. Yet, in October, the model is 4-0 in predicting them against the spread, on the moneyline, and over/under. The Ravens may not be consistent in the win/loss column, but their on-field performance has certainly been, enticing me to place a wager on this Thursday Night Football prediction.
For this Ravens vs Buccaneers prediction, this model took four separate standard celeration charts, 28 weekly data points, four sets of celeration rates, and four sets of bounce rates, among other data, into consideration for its single-team projections. It’s then layered for environmental context. This accounts for opponent and location.
Without that context, the model has the Bucs scoring as low as 3.5 points and as high as 13 points. Likewise, it has the Ravens scoring between 13 and 25 points. Once you add the environmental context to the other data, you get a projected score of Ravens 23, Buccaneers 20.
Prediction: Ravens 23, Buccaneers 20
ATS Pick:
Baltimore -1.5; With the Ravens being projected to win outright by three points, they should cover the 1.5 points they are giving the Bucs.
Moneyline Pick:
Baltimore -125; The final-score projection has the Ravens winning outright. I would bet the spread, but if you are so inclined to bet the moneyline, Baltimore should still be your pick.
Over/Under Pick:
Under; The model is predicting a total score of 42.5 total points. This is under the total of 45 by 2.5 points.
I would wager the under. The Bucs have looked dreadful on offense as of late, scoring just three points this past week against a woeful Panthers team. Now they turn around in four days and have to play again without the time likely needed to fix all the problems they are having. Baltimore has scored under 25 points in five of seven games this season, including their last four. Add to that, they may be down Mark Andrews on a short week.
Confidence Rating:
Moderate; The Buccaneers’ bounce rate on both sides of the ball is in the red zone for me, which is anything above x3.5. On top of that, their celeration rates are also in my red zone, which is anything above x2 or below ÷2.
The saving grace here is the Ravens. They have 2 celeration-rate green zones (anything in between x2 and ÷2), a bounce-rate green zone (anything under x2), and a bounce-rate yellow zone, which is barely yellow at that coming in at x2.9 on defense.
*All picks made above are based on Caesars Sportsbook.
