WC Weekend Gameplan
Tails Angles, Leveraging Tails, & SGP's
Welcome (back) to Throwthedamball!
I was hoping to do a more robust playoff preview, but alas life and work get in the way that I didn’t have the necessary time. Nonetheless, we still had time to dive into these WC games and we have some bets for this weekend. As usual we have tails angles, favorite alt line play of the weekend, and some juicy SGP’s.
Angles to Consider:
MIA: Skylar Thompson has been bad in his extended game action so far, but I’d keep in mind that basically all of his game action has come against the top pass defenses in the league. The Bills over the second half of the season—as injuries on the D-line have piled up— are just 20th in Pass D’ EPA.
This is to say: we have no real sample of how Thompson will play against middling matchups— and QB’s of his caliber are generally more sensitive to matchups. Thompson’s props are as low as could be (185), but McDaniel won’t turn to a run only gameplan and with Hill and Waddle at WR, any 7 yard route can be taken 80 yards to the house. I’m looking to bet Thompson O Pass yds/alt passing yards parlayed with Dolphins +10.5 & Dolphins +7.5.
NYG: See SGP below, but I like building SGP’s of all sizes around Barkley and Jones. This is an extremely concentrated Giants offense— the offense will flow through those two—and MIN allows 390 total yards per game.
CIN: Since trading for Roquan Smith, the Ravens have been the 4th biggest pass funnel, meaning that they are far easier to attack via the air ( average pass defense) than the ground (Top 5 run defense).
And we know how the Bengals are going to attack, as they’ve consistently passed way above expectation especially since their Week 10 bye. Joe Burrow is good and I have high confidence they will pass often— if they are going to win it will likely be on the back of a good Burrow day. I’m starting with Burrow 280+ Bengals -5.5 (+230) and working my way up.
Leveraging Tails
BET: QB DAK PRESCOTT OVER 250 PASSING YARDS AND DALLAS COWBOYS (-5.5, +425 — DRAFTKINGS)
Fundamentals:
It is certainly true that Prescott and the Cowboys put forth their worst effort of the season in their Week 18 loss against the Washington Commanders. But we should not let the recency of this performance distract from the larger sample of how these teams have played over the course of the season. If anything, we should take advantage of markets moving off the initial line in favor of Tampa Bay. Why?
Since Prescott returned from injury back in Week 7, the Cowboys have been the NFL’s best offense by “Drive Quality,” which essentially measures how well the offense moves the ball. It is no confidence that in the same time span they lead the NFL in percentage of drives ending in a touchdown and rank sixth in expected points added per play. Choose your efficiency metric, and Dallas will be among the very best offensively.
And the defense, as we’ve been accustomed to seeing in these past couple of years, has been among the league's best. Tampa Bay, by contrast, is average on defense and fielded one of the league's worst offenses throughout the season. From a larger sample, then, the fundamentals clearly suggest that the Cowboys are the far superior team despite the market pricing suggesting otherwise.
Matchup Angles:
But aside from the mismatch from a fundamentals perspective, there are further reasons to be bullish on Dallas in this matchup.
Whereas Tom Brady has been average from a clean pocket, he is among the league's worst when facing pressure. Dallas leads the NFL (by far) with a 43% pressure rate.
Now, it would be fair to say that Brady will be able to mitigate the pressure by getting rid of the ball quickly. But the Cowboys are the NFL’s best defense at defending quick passes, allowing -0.10 EPA per play on those plays. Either the Buccaneers will need to execute a quick offense playing right into Dallas' strengths, or they will need to run longer developing routes — which they’ve been unsuccessful with all year and which would leave them exposed to the Cowboys' pass rush.
To this point, we’ve explored reasons for liking the alternate spread on the Cowboys, but we have yet to explore why we are including Prescott's passing yards, as well. Here are a few angles to consider:
Over the second half of the season, Tampa Bay was among the biggest pass funnels on defense, meaning that they are far better at defending the run than they the pass. The Buccaneers' defense has the seventh-worst EPA per dropback (0.066), and the eighth-best rush EPA (-0.158). This is likely why teams pass over expected against Tampa Bay at the eighth-highest rate in the NFL, and Prescott and the Cowboys will likely be no exception. And against a poor pass defense, they should have no trouble moving the ball through the air.
Further bolstering the case for yards — a volume stat — is that this game should feature plenty of plays. The Buccaneers and Cowboys are the Nos. 1 and 2 teams at playing at the fastest pace in neutral game scripts.
Lastly, whereas sportsbooks generally price passing yards and big leads inversely, the relationship doesn’t hold up so well with the Cowboys. They pass over expected nearly 3% of the time when winning by more than a score, and they play at the fastest pace in the NFL in those situations. If the game goes according to the script outlined above, Prescott will still be throwing and the Cowboys will be running plenty of plays deep into this game, allowing Dak to still rack up the yards and tripling our payout in the process.
SGP’s
MIN vs NYG
Story: Giants run lots of plays and rely on Daniel Jones legs en route to victory
As our friends on Take The Points noted, MIN has allowed the most QB scrambles in the NFL this season. Of course, Daniel Jones is one of the NFL’s best scramblers in the league and is only behind Lamar Jackson with the highest Rush Yards Over Expected in the NFL.
Now generally betting on a QB’s over rush yards would mean that we wouldn’t also want to be taking his over passing yards, because every rush is one less potential attempt. But MIN has allowed teams to run the most plays against them.
The team is average by EPA standards against both the run and pass, but they have allowed 7.3 Yards per attempt, the 3rd worst mark in the NFL. The result is that this team has allowed 390 yards a game, 2nd worst in the NFL. And against basically every formidable offense they’ve played, their opponents have generated right around 450+ yards of offense.
FD Build: +5161
Daniel Jones 80+ Yards Rushing
Daniel Jones Over 240.5 Passing
New York Giants (-2.5)
DAL vs TB
Story: Cowboys passing game explodes
We spoke in leveraging tails this week about reasons to be bullish on the Cowboys and their passing offense and this SGP will represent a more narrow angle of that view. (I recommend reading that first for more context for this SGP).
TB’s coverage has been weakest down the middle where their linebackers and safeties have struggled a bit in coverage and their slot corners had the 27th best PFF grade this season.
Naturally that leads us to betting on Ceedee Lamb who has operated out of the slot on more than on 54% of his routes and by any efficiency metric has been an elite WR this year.
But the matchup for Dalton Schultz also lends itself to success given TB’s weakness and given that they are among the league's most zone heavy teams. When facing Zone coverage, Schultz and Lamb are tied with a 23% share, so the targets should be abundant for Schultz as well.
FD Build: +5837
Dalton Schultz 60+ Yards Receiving
CeeDee Lamb 100+ Yards Receiving
Dak Prescott 300+ Yards Passing
Dallas Cowboys (-5.5)
Story: Jags lean on Kirk in the passing game
The Chargers have played man coverage at the 8th highest rate in the NFL so far this season.
And it is against man coverage that Kirk has truly established himself as the alpha in this offense with a robust 26% target share, and top 10 efficiency league wide in terms of PFF grades and Yards Per Route Run (YPRR) when facing man coverage.
Adding to the case for Kirk is that the Chargers have allowed the 3rd highest rate of explosive pass plays this season and Kirk is 12th in the NFL in explosive catches. He leads the Jaguars in all categories against deep throws as well.
In an up-tempo close game, look for Lawrence to find Kirk early and often, mixing in some deep shots to get them both to blow past their yardage props.
FD Build: + 2018
Lawrence 275+ Yards Passing
Kirk 110+ Receiving Yards
Kirk Anytime TD