Houston texans and losing teams.

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Just picking good teams to do what they do well.

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You're on exactly the right path OD (I don't say this in a condescending way, you are doing much better than me this year) but the trick is knowing which teams will be good, week in, week out, and in what situations. In 2005, virtually no teams have emerged as good that were not already considered good by Week 4/5, nor few that are bad now which were considered good earlier on. This is historically rare and singlehandedly torpedoing my season.

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So then motivation for playing good is a factor in the line. If motivation is a factor in the line then what if any do you put in your system a team's motivation for winning. If you do not have past historical references to this like I was referring to (5-10 years ats playoff chance etc) then how can you tell whether or not the line being given is a true line when you compare it to what your system says.

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If the line accounts for this motivation, as I believe the Rams/Texans line did, then there is no edge to be had and thus no reason to search for such trends. If my assumptions as wrong, then yes I do need to look at this more closely.

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Here are a few more. Is he sick, injured, death in family, drug problem, fight with the wife, caught cheating on wife, baby coming, friend hospitalized, friend dying, doesnt like teammates, doesnt like coach, is upset with his contract, legal problems, doenst like how many times hes getting the ball, traveling a big road trip, doesnt like flying, homesick, someone in family hospitalized And so on and so forth. I was simply rebutting the statement these guys are professional and they are in fear of losing there jobs so theyre going to play at their best no matter what is simply wrong.

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You make some good points. However, there are two reasons I think these points can be overrated or are accounted for in the line:

1) There are roughly 30 players on each team who participate in 30+% of the snaps in an NFL game. You're absolutely right that distractions can make a player lose focus, but what if there are an equal number of these 30 players on each team, thus mitigating these effects? With our limited knowledge, it's nearly impossible for us to know which players are negatively impacted. Still, I think this number is relatively small -- these men are paid big money to perform their jobs, which take place over the course of just 48 hours (16 games x 3 hours) per year. Having played amateur sports (basketball) at a serious level, let alone professional, I can not imagine a huge portion of 30 players not getting geared up for a game, unless all of them have caught the same flu bug or what have you. In the end, you're left with a situation you cannot turn to your advantage unless you have lots of information about a large percentage of regulars on one team.

2) There is one player on each team who has an extremely disproportionate impact on the outcome of an NFL game -- the quarterback. Having special information about the QB not accounted for in the line can be extremely valuable. Most of the time, however, this information is not special and instead publicly available.

In the end, while there are innumerable focus/motivation factors that impact an NFL game, many of which you mention, most are accounted for in the line.

Also, I was wondering if you could answer this: "Why do you think home team lines are moved 3 points either way most of the time. Its because the people playin are human." I didn't quite understand what you meant.