2009 Giants Look SWEET!

It’s that time of year again, the dreaded doldrums of NFL activity. No draft, player trades or training camps to analyze.
So we decided to get a jump on the 2009 season by publishing our picks for the NFL playoffs. We’ll review a team a day for the next 12 days and offer our season win totals prediction for each team. Without publishing our full process, we’re offering a short summary of why we have chosen each team to make the postseason. The season win totals numbers are taken from bookmaker.com at the time of publication.
Before making our 2009/10 playoff team picks, we analyzed the past 10 years of performance straight up (SU) and against the spread (ATS) while also taking into consideration the strength of schedule (SOS) rank and the year-over-year win percentage for each team. Additionally, we took into consideration the ranking of each team with regards to points scored and/or allowed (PS/PA) by the offense and defense over the past three seasons. New York Giants OU 9.5
The Giants finished 2008 with 12 wins, giving them two consecutive years of double-digit wins. Since 2006, teams that win 12 games average 10 wins the following season with 67% of teams winning 10 or more games.
Since 1999, only seven teams have won at least 10 games three or more years in a row: Denver ‘03-’05, Green Bay ‘01-’04, Indianapolis ‘02-’08, New England ‘03-’08, Oakland ‘00-’02, Philadelphia ‘00-’04 and St. Louis ‘99-’01. The Giants are poised to join the triple-double club and it may rest upon their defense. Teams with a defense that allow 295 or fewer points in a season, follow up winning an average of 9 games. And 38% of those teams win 10 or more games.
New York enters the 2009 season with an SOS of .527, the 23rd easiest schedule in the league. They finished the regular season with the 5th best PA defense and 3rd best PS offense. Since 2006, teams that finish with a top 5 defense win an average of 9.5 games the next year. And teams with a top 3 offense follow up winning an average of 10.2 games the next year.
The Giants Points Scored/Allowed differential was 133 for the 2008 regular season. Over the past ten seasons, when a team’s Points Scored/Allowed differential is 133 or more and their defense allowed less than 295 points the previous season, the average number of wins the next year is 9. And nearly half of those teams win 10 or more games.
Sure, we have concerns over the loss of Burress and the injury to Boley but the leadership of this team has remained intact. We believe the Giants are going to be one of the best teams in the NFC this year and should win at least 10 games.
Pick: Giants Over 9.5
The Giants have been profitable five times the last ten seasons and only once following a year when they won more than 8 games. It’s going to be very tough to find value with the Giants this year and the best value appears to be the division odds. To win the division, the current number on the Giants is +190.