Being the Team

I do not wish to go ZEN LIKE on you with this article however there is an element of visualization needed if you desire to take your sports handicapping to another level.  To become part of the elite you MUST learn to BE THE TEAM.
The term BE THE TEAM for me states I can anticipate how I see the game playing out from BOTH sides of the equation.  No handicapping of a game is complete until I have performed this task.  How are you going to win this game or how is the other team going to lose are questions that have to be visually played out in your mind BEFORE you place the bet. If handicapping was JUST about numbers if the better team ALWAYS won and covered we would already all be rich and there would be no more sports books.
So how do you get yourself to a level of being able to always BE THE TEAM? Well it is many, many hours of work, research, watching games, pouring over box scores, being a sponge of acquiring information, all with the ultimate goal of hitting 54 % winners consistently.
It all starts at the college level learning the players, learning the systems they play in, learning the coach’s style.  These are the players that give you a jump on how they will perform at the pro level and what impact they will have if any on their new teams.
It is watching as many games as you possibly can and reviewing ALL box scores in every sport regardless if you bet the game or not.  This will always net you information to be used in the future maybe not right away maybe 3 games from now or maybe not even until next season.  It is knowing the coaches tendencies in depth how they bring young players along, what pace do they want to play at, do they run up scores, how do they react with a big lead, do they use all their bench, how is their in game adjustments, are they conservative, aggressive, emotional you get the idea.
It is going back in depth and reviewing the games you bet.  Did the game play out how you visualized.  What did happen that you expected what did not.  Just because you won DOES NOT MEAN you were on the right side even though it is good for your bank account; if you won despite yourself you need to make adjustments for the next time.  Conversely if you lost and your visualization was bang on other than a bad call or a bad bounce you should not feel as bad and DO NOT drastically change your approach moving forward regarding these 2 teams.
Some of you are probably saying by now I could never get to this stage.  Well you can if you want and you are willing to put in the time.  When does your work begin for example in the NFL (it is the same for all sports).  The day before pre-season, a week before the regular season, the day of the draft; WRONG if you guessed any of the above.  It is the day after the super bowl.  The day after the super bowl you start charting ALL teams personnel and coaching changes (not just head coaches but assistants as well) you start monitoring all teams public comments is it a rebuilding year, retooling year, going for it year etc. etc.  Then you update in a big way all the teams info after the draft including starters and reserves for the upcoming season and how their draft will impact the team.  See how it all comes together as I began this article and talked about how it all starts at the college level.
In conclusion you can see how number crunching is just a small aspect of overall handicapping.  Practise on a small scale to start off BEING THE TEAM and as you get better expand to more teams and more sports and watch your win % start to increase.  Like any businesses if you want to be in the top echelon, you have to be willing to do those things that others are not willing to do in order to accumulate your edges.