The 2026 MLS Schedule has been released! That's the good news. If you want to see the entire season, it seems like you have to go to a team and then view the entire schedule from there. That's fine, but I wanted it in a Google Sheet, so I had Claude work on a solution.
I present to you the mls-schedule-generator. Is it "vibe coded"? Yeah, mostly. Is this good code? Probably not. Does it work? Yeah. You can see the results in this sheet.
Underdogs beat the spread 126 times (46.3%)
Favorites covered the spread 140 times (51.5%)
There were 6 pushes (2.2%)
Last year was 144/118/9
This is a pretty big swing from last season, where the underdogs beat 53.1% of the time.
The largest spread this year was 16.5 in the Week 10 matchup between Dallas and the New York Giants. Dallas covered that spread. Dallas had the highest spread in 2022 as well.
The 3 point spread roars back into top pick of Vegas and went 27-16 to the favorites. The adjacent spreads of 2.5 and 3.5 went 18-17 and 14-14 respectively.
Let’s face it, the underdogs had a rough year, but the one bright spot was at 5.5 where they managed a 13-9 showing. Well done, all you 5.5 underdogs! The 8.5 spread also had a 6-2 for the underdogs and the 7 spread was 7-3 for the favorites. Again…rough year to be the underdog.
This won’t console any 49er fans, but they were favored in every single regular season game and covered the spread 11 times to take the crown. Dallas and Detroit tied for second with 10 covers as favorites.
Buffalo and Green Bay tied at 8 for failing to cover the spread. But what, where’s KC because we know they suck at beating the spread as favorites! They failed to cover 7 times, so…they were in the running and they were favorites 16 times. Woof.
Arizona, Chicago, and NYG tied for first at beating the spread as underdogs with 8 a piece.
Carolina, last years darling at beating the spread as an underdog, failed to cover 11 times. Ouch. The closest teams were Arizona and Tennessee with 9 failures. Yes, Arizona was the underdog for every regular season game, good catch.
Underdogs beat the spread 144 times (53.1%)
Favorites covered the spread 118 times (43.5%)
There were 9 pushes (3.3%)
Last year was 140/130/2
The largest spread this year was 17 in the Week 14 matchup between Dallas and Houston. Houston covered. Oddly enough Houston was favored by 17.5 over Arizona last season. Arizona covered.
The 2.5 point spread retains its first place status, barely, and went 19-15 to the favorites. The 3 point spread went 17-16 for the favorites. The 4 point spread went 8-7 for the favorites. 7 landed at 10-9 for the underdogs.
Between 4.5 and 6.5 it went all to the underdogs. 1.5 came in at 8-6 for the underdogs as well.
The crown this year goes to Cincinnati with an 11-3 record. For those keeping score at home that’s the same score Dallas ended with. San Francisco was 11-5.
Kansas still sucks against the spread as a favorite at 5-9. Baltimore, Green Bay, Philly, and Tampa Bay all failed to cover 8 times each as favorites. Buffalo and Denver each failed 7 times.
Carolina was money against the spread, beating 10 times and failing only 4 as underdogs. Detroit and New York Giants both delivered 9 beats as underdogs.
Chicago, Houston, and LA Rams all failed to cover 8 times. In defense of Houston, they did beat the spread 8 times. They were underdogs in every single game. 🤣
Once again I've compiled the season into this quaint little overview. Maybe someday this will be replaced with GPT3, or GTP4, but for now it's still handcrafted.
Underdogs beat the spread 140 times (51.5%)
Favorites covered the spread 130 times (47.8%)
There were 2 pushes (0.7%)
Last year was 132/116/7
The largest spread was 17.5 in week 7, Arizona vs Houston, which Arizona covered 31-5. This breaks the NY Jets two year streak of being involved in the largest spread.
Jumping from second to first in the race for most common spread was 2.5, narrowly edging out 3 this season, 30-29. Unsurprisingly the 3 point spread was a dead heat with favorites covering 15 times and underdogs beating 14 times. Now, 2.5 got weird with only 9 favorites covering and 21 underdogs beating the spread. As they kids say these days…daaaaaaaaang.
So 2.5 should get mentioned here, but I already gave you the details. Next up is 5.5 with 2 favorites covering and 9 underdogs beating the spread. A single point saw 9 favorites cover and only 4 underdogs beat. 10.5 was 8 favorites covering and only 3 underdogs beating the spread.
Coming from seemingly out of nowhere, Dallas took the crown with an 11-3 record at covering the spread. Way to go, Big D! KC slightly reversed their situation from last season (5-8 as favorites) with a 9-8 record when favored.
Baltimore was our top loser, failing to cover 9 times. Nine times… Cleveland, KC, and Tampa Bay all tied with 8 failures in this category.
Detroit, a not very good football team, managed to beat the spread 10 times this season, but failed 7 times. Yes, that means they were never favored in a single game. This should shock nobody. Pittsburgh was 8-4 beating the spread.
Jacksonville had a very, very hard time beating the spread, going 5-10. Chicago, Houston, NY Giants, NY Jets, and the Washington WTF’s all tied with 9 failures to beat the spread.
Overall:
Underdogs beat the spread 132 times (51.8%)
Favorites covered the spread 116 times (45.5%)
There were 7 pushes (2.7)
Last year was 136/113/7
Large Numbers:
The largest spread was 19.5 in week 8 and KC covered over the NYJ. Last year the NYJ were also part of the largest spread, but they covered last year.
The largest spread covered was 17, the NYJ covering against the LAR in week 15. J! E! T! S! Jets!
Common Numbers:
Again, the 3 point spread was the darling of Vegas with favorites covering 13 times and the underdog beating 16 times.
Odd Numbers:
The standout spread this year, for underdogs at least, was 3.5 where the underdogs beat 16 times and the favorites only managed to cover 8 times. Runner up was 6.5 points where this year the favorite covered 9 times to the underdogs beating 5 times.
Favorites:
A 3-way tie for first with Bal, Buf, and Sea all covering 9 times. KC was the worst at covering the spread, failing 8 times.
Underdogs:
NYG beat the spread 9 times, failing 5.
NYJ failed to beat the spread 10 times, but did manage to beat 6 times. J! E! T! S! Jets!
SF and...fuck those guys:
For the locals that care about "local" football, if you consider Vegas local now...
SF was 5 and 4 as the underdog and 2 and 5 as the favorite.
LV was 7 and 4 as the underdog and 2 and 3 as the favorite.
I thought I would be doing this every year, but I guess 2017 was the only previous year I managed to post something.
Anyways, I'm in a Yahoo! Fantasy Sports pickem league that uses the point spread. Each season I almost exclusively pick all underdogs and then I track everything in a messy, complex Google Sheet. Here are some trivia I pull out of that Sheet for the 2019 regualr season.
Overall:
Large Numbers:
The largest spread was 22.5 in week 3 and the New York Jets managed to "beat" that against the New England Patriots.
The largest spread covered was 21.5, Dal over Mia.
Common Numbers:
Surprising nobody, 3 points was the most common spread with favorites covering 20 times and the underdogs beating 17 times.
Odd Numbers:
A real standout number this year was the 6.5, where underdogs beat 16 times and the favorites only covered 3. I haven't seen anything like this in the 4 seasons that I've been keep track of this nonsense.
Favorites:
The Kansas City Chiefs and the New England Patriots tied, as favorites, covering the spread 9 times each. Kansas City failed 4 times, while New England racked up 7 failures. Those large spreads are tough.
The Los Angeles Chargers were by far, the worse favorite as they failed to cover 8 times and managed to cover a meager 2 games.
Underdogs:
The Arizona Cardinals, as an underdog, beat the spread 10 times, while failing 5, and pushing 1.
The Detroit Lions, as an underdog, failed to beat the spread 7 times, along with the Jaxonville Jaguars, the Miami Dolphins, the New York Giants, and the team from Washington DC.
For quite some time I've been participating in a NFL pick 'em fantasy football league/pool that is against the spread. That is, you pick a team based on if you think they'll beat the spread or not. If you need a primer on how the spread works, that is beyond on the scope of this endeavor. Very early into this competition I wondered if there were any patterns I could take advantage of to, you know...win more. It turns out that the patters of the spread of well known to just about everybody that bets on this kind of action. I was not one of those people, so I re-invented the wheel. Go me.
Here are my observations of the NFL 2017 regular season:
Conventional wisdom shows us that Vegas will set the spreads so that favorites and underdogs (my terms, do not use these if you want to sound like you know what you're talking about) generally finish the season equally. That is to say, 50% of the winners will be favorites and 50% will be underdogs upsetting the favorite. Yes, you may insert the obligatory "any given Sunday" reference here.
That Vegas can hit this 50/50 mark almost gives one the impression that the game is rigged. Seriously, 131 to 117 (with 8 pushes -- that is, the scoring gap was exactly equal to the spread and thus neither team "won") over the course of 17 weeks and 256 games is some Nostradamus level voodoo. Except Vegas pretty much pulls this off every year. So, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
| Spread | Favorites Covered | Spread | Underdog Covered |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 18 | 0 | 10 |
| 1 | 6 | 1 | 12 |
| 1.5 | 1.5 | 1 | |
| 2.5 | 19 | 2.5 | 10 |
| 3 | 16 | 3 | 12 |
| 3.5 | 3 | 3.5 | 5 |
| 4 | 5 | 4 | 2 |
| 4.5 | 8 | 4.5 | 3 |
| 5 | 2 | 5 | 4 |
| 5.5 | 8 | 5.5 | 7 |
| 6 | 2 | 6 | 3 |
| 7 | 9 | 7 | 6 |
| 7.5 | 8 | 7.5 | 3 |
| 8 | 1 | 8 | 3 |
| 8.5 | 2 | 8.5 | 5 |
| 9 | 2 | 9 | 1 |
| 9.5 | 2 | 9.5 | 2 |
| 10 | 4 | 10 | 7 |
| 10.5 | 3 | 10.5 | 1 |
| 11 | 1 | 11 | 3 |
| 11.5 | 1 | 11.5 | 4 |
| 12 | 2 | 12 | 1 |
| 12.5 | 1 | 12.5 | 2 |
| 13 | 1 | 13 | 1 |
| 13.5 | 1 | 13.5 | |
| 14 | 2 | 14 | 3 |
| 14.5 | 1 | 14.5 | 2 |
| 15 | 1 | 15 | 2 |
| 17 | 1 | 17 | 1 |
| 17.5 | 1 | 17.5 |
Clearly I'm no Edward Tufte. So, what about the teams? Who was dominant as a favorite, crushing the spread? Which teams were great at playing the spoiler? Which teams couldn't do either?
Minnesota and New England tied, each with eight in the win column when they had to beat the spread. Pittsburgh was alone at the top of pile of favorites that couldn't manage to beat the spread (closely followed by New England!).
| Team | Beat the Spread | Team | Failed to Beat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Min | 8 | Pit | 8 |
| NE | 8 | NE | 7 |
| Dal | 7 | Sea | 6 |
| NO | 7 | Atl | 5 |
| Ten | 7 | Bal | 5 |
| Atl | 6 | Car | 5 |
| Jax | 6 | Jax | 5 |
| KC | 6 | KC | 5 |
| LAR | 6 | LAC | 5 |
| Phi | 6 | LAR | 5 |
| Pit | 6 | NO | 5 |
| Bal | 5 | Ten | 5 |
| Buf | 5 | Was | 5 |
| Car | 5 | Cin | 4 |
| Det | 5 | Den | 4 |
| LAC | 5 | Hou | 4 |
| Den | 4 | Oak | 4 |
| GB | 4 | Phi | 4 |
| Sea | 4 | TB | 4 |
| Cin | 3 | Ari | 3 |
| Hou | 3 | Dal | 3 |
| Ind | 3 | Buf | 2 |
| Was | 3 | Chi | 2 |
| Ari | 2 | Det | 2 |
| Oak | 2 | GB | 2 |
| SF | 2 | Mia | 2 |
| Chi | 1 | Min | 2 |
| Mia | 1 | NYG | 2 |
| TB | 1 | Cle | 1 |
| NYJ | 1 |
| Team | Covered | Team | Failed to Cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| NYJ | 9 | Cle | 11 |
| NYG | 7 | Ind | 8 |
| SF | 7 | Ari | 7 |
| Chi | 6 | Den | 7 |
| Cin | 6 | GB | 7 |
| TB | 6 | Mia | 7 |
| Ind | 5 | NYG | 7 |
| Ari | 4 | SF | 6 |
| Buf | 4 | Buf | 5 |
| Car | 4 | Chi | 5 |
| Cle | 4 | Det | 5 |
| Det | 4 | Hou | 5 |
| Hou | 4 | NYJ | 5 |
| KC | 4 | Oak | 5 |
| LAC | 4 | TB | 5 |
| Mia | 4 | Dal | 4 |
| Phi | 4 | Was | 4 |
| Was | 4 | Atl | 3 |
| Bal | 3 | Bal | 3 |
| GB | 3 | Cin | 3 |
| Jax | 3 | NO | 3 |
| LAR | 3 | Sea | 3 |
| Min | 3 | Ten | 3 |
| Oak | 3 | Car | 2 |
| Sea | 3 | Jax | 2 |
| Atl | 2 | Phi | 2 |
| Dal | 1 | KC | 1 |
| NO | 1 | LAC | 1 |
| Pit | 1 | LAR | 1 |
| Ten | 1 | Min | 1 |
Mostly nothing. As I stated, these are all just observations that I made during the season. Sure, you can make generalizations, like Cleveland sucks, the Jets were underated, or the Pittsburgh offense was a disappointment.