Good teams win. Great teams cover. We’ve all heard this saying before, and when it comes to the NFL, it holds true. Think back to last season. Dallas (13-5), Green Bay (12-6) and Cincinnati were the top three NFL teams against the spread (14-7). All three teams went to the playoffs. The Bengals wound up winning the AFC championship and advancing to the Super Bowl. The Detroit Lions, who finished 3-14-1 SU, ended up 11-6 ATS and in fourth place among all NFL teams.
The Lions’ 2021 season’s performance against the spread is an outlier. It occasionally takes place. A team with a poor track record in the NFL could have one or two seasons where they consistently cover the spread. But historically speaking, everything revolves around the notion that good teams win and great teams cover.
The All-Time Top 10
NFL statistics against the spread go back to the 1979 season. That’s a sample size of over 700 games for the majority of teams. The NFL expanded so a few teams – Carolina and Jacksonville – have smaller sample sizes.
One look at the Top 10 and you can see that the great teams do, in fact, cover the spread. Nine of the ten teams have won at least one Super Bowl and eight of them have won multiple Lombardi Trophies. The only one of the ten that has not won a Super Bowl is Carolina. The Panthers are No. 8 with an ATS record of 225-212-4.
Who’s Who in the NFL
The top 10 teams against the spread in NFL history reads like a Who’s Who list. The Dallas Cowboys are ranked No. 10 among the top NFL teams against the spread (355-345-19 ATS). The Cowboys are a legendary team that has made eight Super Bowl appearances. Dallas has five Super Bowl titles to its credit.
Dallas’ NFC East foe, the New York Giants, are one slot ahead of them at No. 9. New York has played in five Super Bowls and the Giants have won four of them. The Giants have a 357-339-15 ATS record going back to 1979, despite the fact that they haven’t been very good for the majority of the last ten years.
No. 7 is Kansas City (357-330-19 ATS). The Chiefs have played in four Super Bowls, including back-to-back trips in 2019 and 2020. They have two Lombardi trophies to their name. The dynasty of the late 1980s and early 1990s was the San Francisco 49ers. The Niners have competed in seven Super Bowls and have won five of them. With a record of 368-339-19 ATS, they are ranked No. 6 on this list.
The Top 5
The top five teams on this list attest to the fact that great teams do cover. The Pittsburgh Steelers (367-337-20 ATS) have been to eight Super Bowls and have won six of them. With six Super Bowl victories, they are tied for the most. They share that record with the New England Patriots.
The Patriots (379-329-23 ATS) are in No. 2 on the list and the Steelers are ranked No. 5. Green Bay is ranked fourth (369-338-18 ATS). The Packers have played in five Super Bowls and they are 4-1. No. 3 on the list is the Philadelphia Eagles (368-334-16 ATS) who have one Super Bowl victory (2017) in three tries.
The No. 1 team against the spread is the Baltimore Ravens. They are 230-199-16 ATS since 1979. They have also gone 2-0 in their two Super Bowl appearances (2000, 2012). The Ravens have covered 53.2 percent of the time and are 126-111-11 ATS under current head coach John Harbaugh.
Despite having a decent season against the spread in 2021, the Detroit Lions are ranked No. 22 on this list with a 328-343-20 ATS record. Teams like the Cleveland Browns and New York Jets are among the bottom 10, demonstrating that great teams do indeed cover the spread.
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