Why NFL spreads get stuck on 3 and 7
Line up every NFL result of the last twenty seasons by margin of victory and the shape is not a smooth hill. It has two spikes: one at three points and one at seven. A field goal and a touchdown-plus-extra-point are the two units the sport is built out of, and the final score inherits them.
Three alone accounts for something close to one game in seven. Nothing else in the distribution is remotely as tall.
That is the whole reason a spread will sit at −3 for four days and refuse to move while money piles onto one side. The bookmaker is not being stubborn. Going from −3 to −3.5 does not cost half a point of edge — it costs the entire spike, every game that lands exactly on three, all at once.
Key numbers are why line shopping is worth more in the NFL than in any other sport. Finding −2.5 where everyone else has −3 is not a small improvement on a bet. It is a different bet, and the difference is the tallest bar on the chart.
The same logic, weaker, sits on 7, then on 10, then on 14 and 6. Below that the spikes flatten and a half-point really is just a half-point.
None of this tells you who wins. It tells you that in this one sport, the number matters as much as the opinion — and that a pick handed to you at −3 an hour before kick-off, when the number was −2.5 that morning, has quietly become a worse bet than the one that was written down.
The archive
What the published price did in the NFL
276 games in the NFL that are over and carried a price when we wrote them up, between November 25, 2025 and November 6, 2026. Each count sits beside what it is out of, and the share is the one divided by the other.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| The shorter price won | 155 | 263 | 58.9% |
| The favourite covered the handicap | 117 | 276 | 42.4% |
| The total went over | 143 | 274 | 52.2% |
| The home side won | 134 | 276 | 48.6% |
- Points in a game, on average
- 44.26
- Winning margin, on average
- 11.25
How wide the games were
Over 457 finished games in the NFL with a score — a margin needs no price, so this sample is wider than the one above.
- Half were decided by this or less
- 8
- One in ten by this or more
- 24
- The widest
- 38
How they ended
Over 457 finished games in the NFL whose result line says how it ended — the feed's own one-line verdict, not a reading of the play.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Went past regulation | 27 | 457 | 5.9% |
8 games landed exactly on the number — the handicap or the total — so they are in the counts they are out of and in neither result.
The prices counted here are DraftKings', as they stood when we last wrote each game up — one snapshot per game, near kick-off for almost all of them, and never a closing line. So this says what the published line did, not how it moved on the way there.
A season that happened. Nothing here predicts the next game, and none of it is advice.
Counted November 6, 2026.
Today's free pick, for your email
Team, bet, price and the hash it was sealed under, on this page the moment you send. Lose or win, it stays public.
or by email
Public record of the main pick, losses included: 115 won, 44 lost. See every pick
One free pick a day by email until you unsubscribe, in one click. 21+.