Preseason strategies

Normally, I'll place an occasional bet on preseason games. The edge that I'm looking for is how will the head coaches approach the game.

Ideally you'd have both coaches announcing how long they'll play their starters for the game, which is normally a series, a quarter, a half or even the majority of the game. The reality is you might hear/read about a team's coach strategy, regimen, or personnel playing. You won't know about both teams approach and the coaches change their mind on the fly or at the half.

Their have been instances when a coach will try to win each preseason game. You'll see this normally w/new coaches w/new players that need "seasoning". With ten "new HC's" (some on their second/third team as HC) this is likely to happen. The most likely candidates are (in no particular order) GB-McCarthy, HOU-Kubiak, MIN-Childress, NO-Payton, NYJ-Mangini, and STL-Linehan.
BUF-Jauron, DET-Marinelli, KC-Edwards, OAK-Shell are much older and conservative coaches in my mind (you could put Kubiak in this group, but I had to place him somewhere and w/a new OC and OL?'s I leaned toward winning preseason games) and will more likely do grouping of personnel and evaluate on a more conservative scale.

Another clue that may give me an edge is the quality of the backups. If the backups could start on another team and they play the majority of the game, they are more likely to beat the other teams backups.

This year the Ravens have acquired several ST players from other teams and appear to be a much more veteran unit than most teams. I believe McNair will be playing longer than a series or two to have him and his WR's in sync prior to the regular season and they competition @safety.

Dallas has ?'s along OL and QB Drew Henson played very well in NFL Europe, so look for OL to play longer together and w/a good backup QB may be on the plus side of the ledger.

Another stategy is to rate the 3rd string QB's and find out how long will they play? Early in the preseason, they'll account for at least a half, w/some teams 3 quarters and w/a few almost the whole game. Usually the seasoned veterans play better than the new rookie.
Bears appear to have a veteran roster of QB's

I've noticed that blitz packages are appearing during preseason. In the past this was not the case, but this seems to be occuring much more often due to the DC wanting to test the effectiveness of his scheme/grouping vs a known OC package/scheme. This will keep the total score lower than normal (say 38? during the regular season the norm is in the low 40's).
Raiders may fit this build w/a very young secondary.


I'd like to test the theory that if the same teams will meet in the regular season, they will play a more vanilla game and thus keep the total low again, but I don't have the time (day job, whew).

I like to see a coach upset after a game, even in the preseason, the thought is the players will play much better the next game after having a disappointing outing and give you a better than even chance in covering the spread for the upcoming game.

Caution: at this time, the NFL.com site doesn't have the updated player rosters, even the official team sites are behind in updating their rosters. You'd have a much easier time purchasing a football magazine such as Phil Steele's Pro Football scorebook or his Power Sweep newsletter for a much more accurate view of preseason rosters

Update: I've read that TEN HC Fisher will emphasize the runnin' game and w/a plethora of RB's this may make a more interesting preseason. Run the ball more means less time for other team to score and if they can score runnin' the ball this will bode very well for this team or is it just a ploy to protect QB's? You can count on DEN as well w/their group of RB's and to a lesser extent CHI and IND.

NYJ will have QB's in a tizzy, ATL w/DT/NT emphasis and kicker's duel. I wonder will SD have QB Rivers playing several series from the first game? PHI will also have their DL playing alot and NE maybe looking for opportunities to test their FG unit as well.