One sure fire way of increasing a handicapper’s earnings potential, is being able to spot areas of advantage that the betting public and oddmakers don’t. And one area that often gets overlooked, is how good or poor a team’s offensive line is or isn’t.

While quarterbacks and running backs get lots of attention, the hog mollies on the line rarely attract any headlines. The reasons being that offensive lines don’t produce any stats to speak of, and don’t produce the flashy plays casual fans are attracted to.

Nevertheless, good football handicappers need to be able to recognize teams that have an effective o-line, and then compare them to the opposition’s offensive line. And while that’s not easy to do, there are some ways to getting it done faster and easier.

With that, here a few tip to get handicappers started to become an outstanding success like the legend Jon Price the worlds best sports bettor as named by Card Player Magazine. .

Number one — returning starters. While this is not so critical in the NFL, it is in the college football ranks.

And while casual bettors often focus on skilled position returning starters, that only tells a part of the story.

Offensive linemen that have spent two to three years playing the line are going to be much more familiar with each other and usually have their assignments locked down. So, if one team has a very significant advantage in years on their starting offensive line, that would be the smart bet, especially if the gap in experience between two teams is particularly significant.

The sports betting public will usually never pick up on this, giving smart bettors an edge.

Next, two additional things to consider when handicapping a team’s offensive line, is yards per attempt and yards per rush.

In order for a quarterback to put up decent YPA numbers, his o-line has to protect him, giving him time to make decisions and find receivers. They have to keep him healthy too. One way of comparing two teams, is looking for quarterbacks that have a rating of at least 7-8 YPA. This will probably indicate that they have a better o-line than a QB that is below 5.

Subsequently, if a QB has that low of a YPA rating, he is probably being sacked more times than he’d like. So, looking at pass attempts per sack allowed is also key to figuring out how good a team’s o-line is.

An easy way to calculate this statistic is by dividing the number of pass attempts by the number of sacks allowed. Then handicappers can compare that number from team to team, looking for big gaps between two teams.

Additionally, while yards per rush is a clear indication of a team’s rushing game effectiveness, it also indicates how well its o-line is performing. Still casual bettors seem to ignore this. If an offensive line can open up holes for its running backs, they can create a dual threat offense, especially if their QB has a decent YPA.

Usually this leads to a potent offense that can consistently convert third downs, which is the final factor when handicapping offensive lines.

If one football team is considerably better than the other in third down conversions, then its o-line will be much better fighting hard for short yardage, especially when defenses have a much easier time predicting what the offense is likely to do.

When a football team has a good third down conversion percentage, it’s probably safe to wager on them.