Click Away for Free Picks from the Nations Best   Revenge can be sweet - By Al McMordie 2002 Revenge is overused by handicappers. Many times, a handicapper will cite revenge as a reason for a selection (e.g., the Bears were beat 20-12 at home by the Packers and will have revenge in the 2nd meeting at Lambeau Field) when there are no numbers to support its use. And when revenge is not being overused, it's being misused. Often, I will hear other handicappers say that a team is a good selection because they're playing with revenge. Last week, a handicapping friend of mine loved Ohio + over Pitt because the Bobcats were playing with revenge. I grew up in Pittsburgh, and am a Panthers fan, and for the life of me, couldn't remember them playing last season. I looked it up, and Ohio did indeed have revenge-from 1994! Pitt won that game 30-16, but to confound matters, there wasn't even a pointspread on the game. Perhaps that Ohio team (which finished 0-11 that season) walked off the field very happy with their effort, in that they only lost by 14 points to a Big East team. In any event, the players on that team weren't in the stadium last Saturday, unless they took their wives and young children to Heinz Field and were sitting in the bleachers. They might have vaguely recalled losing to Pitt 8 years ago, but none of the current coaches or players had any memory. As a concept, revenge just isn't valid when used this way. And then some handicappers choose to limit revenge to the last 2 years. Although much more reasonable than the first example, I still don't accept it. For me, revenge is only valid if it occurred the previous year for football teams, or in the current season for basketball teams. I will make an exception in college basketball if the 2 teams are non-conference opponents, and met the previous year, or are conference opponents, and met in a conference tournament final, or the NCAA Tournament. The reason that I place these limitations on revenge is that I need the handicapping THEORY behind the numbers to be logical. And with the turnover in personnel in both college and pro athletics, it's just not logical to use revenge when the game was 2 or 3 years ago. The emotion just isn't there to justify a more focused effort. But when the meeting was from the PREVIOUS football season, or in-season in NBA/College basketball, then it's logical to me that the players may exert an extra effort which could give us the slight edge we need to beat the house. With Week 1 of the NFL season upon us, I decided to review revenge in SEASON-OPENING games, as memories from last season would be strongest in Week1 as opposed to Week 9 when memories from the current season would replace last year's concerns. I looked at both single-loss revenge (non-division matchups), double-loss revenge (divisional matchups), and Playoff loss revenge. If ties were involved, I treated it as an invalidating event. I reviewed the data from 1990 to 2001, and found that in Week 1, revenge is a minor factor. Overall, teams playing with revenge were 35-25 ATS (58.3%), including 3-0-1 ATS in 2001, 2-3 ATS in 2000, 5-2 ATS in 1999; 3-2 ATS in 1998; and 3-2 ATS in 1997. The most recent 5 years, then, are 16-9-1 ATS (64%). Double-loss revenge was 19-14 ATS since 1990, and Playoff revenge (e.g., this week's Pittsburgh/New England matchup) was, surprisingly, 50 percent. In all, there are 7 matchups this week where Revenge is at work: Double Loss revenge: Arizona, Minnesota, Buffalo Single Loss revenge: New Orleans, Cincinnati, Green Bay Playoff Loss revenge (single): Pittsburgh Good luck, as always this week.. Al McMordie Owned and operated by Alliance Sports Media  Any information furnished by this site is for information and entertainment only and is not to be used in violation of any federal, state, provincial or local laws - Privacy Policy Contact Servus - Picks2bet.com