Football Handicapping

VIPFootballPicks.com your source for free NFL football picks and free college football picks.

And we get asked a lot, how do you come up with your picks. So here you go....without giving away the real secrets to our success:

How does VIPFootballPicks.com come up with our picks?

We have a staff of 18 handicapping experts, led by 4 senior handicappers who each have a separate leadership responsibility for the AFC, NFC, major college FB, or small college football. Our staff is divided into NFL and College groups. Each week a strict process driven methodology is followed to arrive our selections.

Most weeks start on Tuesday for us, Thanksgiving week normally changes this as do some of the Thursday night games. But whatever day we start the process is the same.

On Tuesday, all cappers review the full schedule in either the NFL or College. They predict all the games, provide a "cover by" number which is essentially a strength of the play rating. So if one of our handicappers thinks a 4 point favorite will win by 8, the cover by number is 4. If they believe a 7 point underdog will lose by only 4 the number is 3. So the higher the number the stronger the play. They also assign a confidence rating of A-F to each pick. This is of course how confident they are in the cover number they've come up with for the game. Each handicapper is on their own for the method in which they pick their games. We believe this gives us an edge. We have different handicappers looking at the game differently. And as you'll see as you continue to read this leads to strengthing our picks process. Once all picks are in they are reviewed by our senior staff to get ready for Wednesday.

On Wednesday all the games that were split between the handicappers on the initial review are thrown out. The only exception is if a senior handicapper has this game as a 3 or more cover by and a B+ or higher confidence rating - these picks will get reconsidered in the next phase of the process. Games that remain for consideration are passed to the individual teams for further scrutiny. So now our AFC staff has AFC games, NFC staff the NFC games, and the same for big college (BCS Conferences) and small college (all other teams normally on the rotation). Although our cappers follow all game and all teams they are responsible for in-depth knowledge on their are of expertise. They will review the games assigned. They do not know the cover by and confidence ratings scores from the previous days handicapping. On day 1 of the process, only picks are made - no comments are included with the picks. On day 2 this is no longer the case, handicappers again review the games, again assign a cover number and confidence and do a write up on why this is their pick.

Thursday morning all picks and ratings from both days are released to all handicappers for review. Any picks with two days worth high cover by numbers (sorry we can't give away just how high it has to be) and high confidence rankings are given consideration for plays of the month or plays of the year. This is a good time to keep in mind that in the off season and pre-season, every regular season game is evaluated by all handicappers. So before the season even kicks off we have a pretty good idea of what games have a chance to be these big plays. When those games (which only the senior handicappers know about at the end of the pre-season process) match this criteria for weekly evaluation we have a potential big release! The games are then ranked based on their two day evaluation and slated for realease as best bets, power plays, locks, etc.... This is all done through a discussion around a normally very loud table with each of the AFC, NFC, and two college groups meeting with the senior handicappers.

On Friday we look back at the picks and make sure we're confident in everything we've slated for release. And, as we've done throughout the week we watch the news wire, and review all local newspapers. Then we usually go play golf. It's good to clear our heads before the final picks for Saturday action is release Friday night. Reflection can sometimes lead to changes in what's released where but most of the time simply strengthens are confidence in our picks.

Saturday morning we double check weather, news, etc... but mostly we watch football! And the process for next week is already underway. We watch games to learn what went right and what went wrong with our picks for that week. For the games we won, did we win for the right reasons - was our analysis and handicapping accurate or did we just get lucky? And on our losses (sorry - we don't win every game), what happened. We learn a lot from both wins and losses every week.

Sunday morning is much like Saturday morning, check the latest news, weather, etc... then watch football! But again with a professional eye and as a learning process to start our preperation for next week.

On Monday we look back at the weekend and review what we learned while watching the games over the weekend. Then we review the analysis and picks during the weekly process for Monday Night's game and re-evaluate what we'll release for our Monday Night Football picks.

And that's (mostly - can't give away everything) how we do it at VIPFootballPicks.com!

For more information about VIPFootballPicks.com please visit our about us page.