2022 Week 2 Reflections
Alt Line Extravaganza
Welcome to Throw The Dam Ball!
If this is your first time reflecting with us, I'd recommend first reading the inaugural piece of this series to get a sense of what I'm trying to do in this space.
Prediction game: It was neither NFL favorites nor my best week, but I’m still sitting pretty in top 20% of the game. As the weeks roll along we will have more to say about this prediction game and the utility it provides to bettors… so stay tuned.
Macro Thoughts:
Perhaps I’m guilty of a strong bias here, but from what I’ve gathered this week from football media/football twitter, many folks are mostly ready to fully jump from their offseason priors in favor of utilizing exclusively the data from 2022. Whereas last week people were(smartly) not overreacting to week 1, I sense an overcorrection this week, but maybe I’m wrong.
Now I’m not saying to ignore these 2 weeks, but this serves as a reminder on how to price in change. When evaluating change questions I ask: is the change built in? Or has there been a fundamental shift? Example: Did Jalen Hurts or Tua turn into an elite QBs? Or was their production within their predicted range of outcomes? Better yet, is it just noise in a small samples size? Or signal to pounce on before the market fully prices it in?
Point is: contextualize change and measure it against a firmer prior before jumping to conclusions after 2 weeks. Sometimes it’s time to change your opinion, sometimes it’s not—but don’t get caught up in short term noise. For me, these questions about change are anything but clear, but if the market prices in certainty of change where there is uncertainty, I see opportunity room to capitalize. It’s tough to be off market and to discount recent play, but that’s how we make $ betting. And all I want to do is make $ betting: “football is great, making money is good, making money from football is the Highest good” Ok, rant over let’s dive into some trends:
Team Trends:
A quick note on Drive Quality as it will be something I reference constantly this season. In essence, Drive Quality generates the “earned points” based on the quality of the drive, independent of realized scoring outcome. This filters through some noise and is more predictive of future points scored than using prior points scored or EPA .
PHI:
It’s hard not to like Jalen Hurts and the Eagles right now. They are chilling on right on our Drive Quality graph. Hurts’ play in PFF’s stable metrics such as: clean pocket grade, avoiding negative play, early down grade, are all 95% percentile or above. The O-line is 2nd in Perfectly Blocked Pass play Rate, and they have 4 WR’s above average at generating separation per PFF. I was not as high as market early in offseason and I’m not sure I’m ready to buy Hurts if his surroundings worsen from injuries. But so long as they’re healthy PHI is a contender in a wide open NFC.
TEN:
I was selling TEN hard this offseason, but I think this team might be worse than I envisioned. Using the drive quality metric we developed at Sportfoliokings, TEN’s average losing margin is 15!! This is the worst in the NFL by almost 4 points. The team can’t block nor cover. All the reasons I was selling them in the offseason are seemingly coming to fruition and they find themselves in the wrong spot of our graph as a result.
CIN:
An offense reliant on explosive plays is going to be volatile game-to-game. And there’s a difference between regression and volatility. I’m not ready to jump off train because it didn’t come to fruition in two straight games. Bet on the talent of Burrow, Chase, and Higgins not to be held down for long.
One area of concern, though, is the coaching which manifests both in poor decision-making—CIN curiously lacked urgency trying to stage a late comeback—and a lack of offense creativity. My boy Arjun captured part of this equation in this graph on efficiency on scripted plays
MIA:
Yes they looked awesome against Baltimore, but I wouldn’t bank on that being an every week occurrence. MIA, I think, will be fairly matchup dependent. If teams can cover Hill and Waddle, the team will struggle. But if opponents struggle in coverage, Miami will feast. Baltimore’s secondary was reeling and Hill and Waddle exemplified the dangers of not being able to cover the Dolphins.
Bets:
Cardinals -5.5+ 390:
I had a couple angles why I liked alt line in this spot and we’re going into detail here so giddy up.
Angle 1: If either pass rush influences this game, it will be Arizona overwhelming Las Vegas.
Kyler Murray led the NFL in EPA (expected points added) on non-perfectly-blocked plays in 2021: Essentially this means that even when the blocking failed and/or pass rush won, Murray did not see a dip in his play. In fact, he was better at mitigating the effects of the pass rush than any other player in the NFL (.20 EPA/Play). This mitigates the best asset on the Raiders defense — which is the pressure Maxx Crosby and Chandler Jones can create.
Derek Carr's inferior O-line has 4 negative successful blocking players, or put simply, 4 weak links in pass protection: Unlike Murray, Carr sees a huge drop-off when a play is not perfectly blocked (.01 EPA/Play). Watt and Golden could feast against the porous Raiders offensive line, with Carr unable to mitigate the damage.
Arizona was better equipped than Vegas to exploit bad O-line: Because of Murrays ability to escape pressure, I thought the Cardinals would get to Carr a few more times than the Raiders to Murray. In this game script and with these offenses, a couple sacks stalling drives or creating a turnover can be all the difference in altering the script.
Angle 2: Betting on Kyler’s deep ball
Deep-ball disparity: Kyler Murray was by far the best quarterback in the NFL throwing deep last year, with a 8.1% Big Time Throw rate (BTT). It is no coincidence he also led the NFL with a 99.9 PFF Deep Grade. Murray is one of, if not the best, deep-ball throwers in the NFL. Meanwhile, Carr had a 5.9% BTT and 83.3 PFF Deep Grade. I suspected this would be a back-and-forth battle, in a game script that will lean on the quarterbacks. I wanted to like bet on the QB who would make the difference themselves. Murray has a unique ability — expressed in these 2 stats and his rushing prowess — of putting the team on his back and being the difference.
LAC -5.5+175 (grab KC live)
I wanted to bet on the volatility of the Chargers and two elite offenses. I wanted to start by grabbing the juice on Chargers ML +175 eyeing a live bet if LAC jumped out to a lead(bang!).
Now, there is almost always a case for the Chargers to be a live betting option, considering their style of play invites volatile games. Going for it on 4th down — especially in aggressive situations — means that Chargers games have huge probability swings and large corresponding odds moves as a result. Not to mention, the Chiefs would be without kicker Harrison Butker, introducing more 4th-down variance.
This bet was as simple as the fact that elite offenses score points quickly and efficiently. But just as quickly as one team gains a lead in this type of game, the other elite offense can score quickly and efficiently and provide opportunity for a middle.
Commanders -5.5+198
With the injury news coming in that the Lions would be missing the starting C, LG, RG, I thought this was a spot to pounce on the Commanders. Why? Jared Goff has seen some drastic difference in play, when his pass blocking does their job as opposed to when the pass blocking fails. Jared Goff is a top-15 QB in EPA when the play is perfectly blocked; he is a bottom-10 QB when the play is not perfectly blocked. Offensive line is a weak-link system, and I thought the Lions would be full of weak links for Washington to exploit.
WAS has three receivers who could separate and Detroit’s corners are weak on paper. Detroit was set to play mainly man coverage, and man coverage, more so than zone, reflects the quality of the better WR or CB. This was advantage WAS for me.
Jags -5.5+ 280
I’ve been selling the Colts all offseason and Indianapolis didn't quell my fear that 2021 issues weren't only about Carson Wentz. In a week 1 game with little bad luck , the Colts simply did not outplay what should be a bad Houston team. Top teams don’t often get outplayed in a normal game script against bottom teams. This bet was as much a sell on the Colts as it was buying the Jags. But I like the Jags too. Why?
Away from Urban Meyer, I think Trevor Lawrence takes a massive leap in year 2. As much as I love stats and data, sometimes you need to take a leap of faith and be willing to discount the data. I’m willing to bet the situation with Urban Meyer was so so bad that there was nothing meaningful to learn about Lawrence from 2021. There was good reason Lawrence was deemed a generational—and yes I mean generational here— prospect. I put faith in that prior over Lawrence with Meyer in 2021.
DFS Breakdown:
Believe it or not, I didn’t really see much value allocating capital to DFS this weekend. The spots I liked were better suited for SGP’s and I attacked in those markets. Here was my process for the SGP’s.
Reflection: I bet lots of alt lines this week. I think this speaks to the inherent variance of early season games and my lack of fear in being off market. It didn’t work out so well in week 1—even if we were on the right sides— but we more than made up for it in week 2! If you have conviction—especially if its rooted in a well formed offseason prior— don’t be afraid to bet and move the line to grab some extra juice. I’m liking my process so far, but it only gets tougher from here on out!
That’s it for this week. As always, thanks for reading and we will be back in this space next week! Please subscribe and share this post if you enjoyed and if you think others might stand to benefit as we together learn and improve our betting process!