Reading team stats: ATS, splits and matchups
What the numbers on the Teams, team and matchup pages mean, where they come from, and how much weight to put on them.
Against the spread (ATS) and cover %
ATS is a team's record when each game is graded against the point spread instead of the final score. Cover % is the share of those games it beat the spread.
A team can be 5–1 and only 3–3 ATS: it keeps winning, just not by as much as the line expected. That gap is what a Beat the Spread pick is about.
Chiefs
Each game is graded with the line the game settled on — the same line picks on it are graded against — and an exact push counts for the underdog, the same rule as your picks.
A game that never had a line isn't counted in ATS or cover %.
Point differential and points per game
Point differential is points scored minus points allowed across finished games. Per game divides it by games played, so a team that has had its bye still compares fairly.
It separates teams with the same record. A 4–2 team at +60 has usually been winning comfortably; a 4–2 team at +4 has been winning close games.
Last 5 and streaks
Last 5 shows the five most recent finished games, oldest on the left. The streak counts back from the latest game: W4 means four wins in a row.
Basketball shows the last 10 instead: with 82 games a season, five is too few to say much. On a matchup page each square also shows whether the team covered the spread in that game.
Splits: home, away, favorite, underdog
A split is a team's record in one kind of game: at home, on the road, as the favorite, as the underdog, or against its division or conference.
The favorite is the team with the minus spread; the underdog has the plus. A game with no line, or an even one, counts toward neither.
On a team page, the rows that match the team's next game are tagged This game. In this spot on a matchup page shows the same thing for both teams side by side.
The margin vs. the line chart
Each bar is the team's final margin in a game. The dashed line is the margin it needed to cover: a dark bar cleared it, a light bar didn't.
A bar above zero is a win and one below zero a loss. When the team was the underdog the dashed line sits below zero, because it could lose by less than the spread and still cover. Basketball pages show the 20 most recent games.
Tale of the tape
The tale of the tape puts the two teams' season numbers side by side. In each row the stronger side is drawn in its team color.
Bars are scaled to the larger of the two values, so a row where both bars are nearly full is close. For points allowed, lower is stronger.
Head to head and common opponents
Head to head lists the most recent meetings between the two teams that Sportpoolz has scores for, postseason included. Common opponents compares how each did against teams both have played this season.
Each common opponent shows both final scores, with each team's net margin across all of them at the bottom.
Older meetings can be missing, or have no line, if they were played before Sportpoolz tracked that league.
Live scores and covering
During NFL games the score updates about every 30 seconds. Covering means a pick on that team would win if the game ended right now.
Pages show that a game is live and its score, but not the quarter or game clock. Other leagues update less often.
Covering can change on every score. Your pick is graded only on the final.
What you see from your pools
Team and matchup pages show only your own picks and your own survivor usage — never anyone else's.
Your record picking a team counts every pool you have picked it in this season. A survivor tag shows which pool has used the team, and in which week.
How much to read into it
Early in a season these numbers come from only a few games, so one result can move a percentage a lot. Use them as one input to a pick, not a prediction.
A 3–1 ATS team is 75% after four games; one more miss makes it 60%. By midseason the same swing moves it a few points. The numbers also describe this season only — an off-season changes a roster more than any split can show.
Other help topics
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