We are so back and so blessed to have football back tonight. To quote the great Bart Scott “can’t wait.”
For those new here want to reiterate the goal of the newsletter is to use the data, research, and general process to match with one’s own views of the game as they craft a story and bets & trades accordingly. We have a bias towards looking at tail angles and understanding the different trades offs and ways the game might play out. With that, let’s dive into some of the angles for tonight.
PHI vs NE:
We, of course, open the season with a rematch of the Super Bowl, but these are different teams with changes in roster, coaching, and player development, etc. And even beyond that, while certainly a data-point we don’t want to anchor too hard on one game that was in very different conditions (cough cough the health of Drake Maye’s shoulder).
Now at a 3.5 point spread and ~62% win probability, accounting for home field the market is suggesting a Seattle team roughly a couple of points better than the Patriots on a neutral.
But there are a few angles here worth thinking through in how this game could skew heavily towards the Patriots. As we spoke about in the AFC East Preview, Maye had a historical season throwing deep.
Maye’s production was by far the best in the NFL, but he was also the highest graded and 2nd most accurate deep passer, suggesting it was not only his WRs that contributed to his success. Now of course, Maye is unlikely to sustain that level of success seeing how much better he was than the rest of the NFL, but this is still a QB projected to be one of the best deep passers in the NFL while adding a premier deep threat in A.J Brown this offseason.
And this is an area of the Seahawks defense that might be particularly vulnerable in this spot, relative to a market pricing them as roughly best defense in the NFL. The Seahawks, number one in most categories on defense, were only 8th in explosive pass rate allowed. But beyond that number from last year, this is a defense that is likely to be without both two of its safeties in Nick Emmanwori and Ty Okada and the team lost cornerbacks Tariq Woolen and Shaq Griffin in the offseason. Replacing them is Nehemiah Pritchett and Josh Jobe both of whom had PFF grades in the the 50’s which is the bottom quartile of the NFL and they were both well below average in their ability to prevent separation and YPRR allowed.
The Seahawks defense generated so much of their value in being able to stop the run and create disruption (or plays in which no coverage player makes a mistake or where pressure arrives to disrupt a QB from his read). And Macdonald will surely be able to still scheme up some disruption even with weaker personnel.
The Seahawks were by far the best team in the NFL in Rush EPA and not far behind in their ability to generate disruption. But this has been an area where Maye has excelled.
Maye was the best QB in the NFL against disruption— and like we discussed in our preview, this is something likely sticky, given Maye’s ability to scramble around and his ability to fit balls into tight windows which are the primary two ways to defeat disruption. As such, Maye is well positioned to mitigate what the Seahawks do best— though of course if the Seahawks generate 55% disruption, and 30% pressure disruption the base case is not ideal for New England.
And on the flipside, we see this is a New England defense at the top of the NFL in their own ability to generate disruption and a QB in Sam Darnold who is in the top left quadrant of our graph as much more sensitive to disruption and doing most of his damage on the undisturbed plays. Certainly if New England can enter a positive game state where Darnold has traditionally struggled, the Patriots have a compounding path towards beating the Seahawks secondary and being able to create the conditions where Darnold has struggled.
