Welcome to Throw The Dam(n) 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.
This week we cover: Understanding risk & sitting out, team tends, bets, and my DFS lineup breakdown. Skip to those headers as your hearts desire!
Macro Thoughts:
This week was a pretty strange week for me. As you can see above, I was basically aligned with the market on all but 2 games. On weeks like this, I prefer to sit out-- understanding that I don’t think I have much of an edge or handicap on the games. As a result, I only placed 2 bets and I scaled back my DFS bankroll. (This would’ve been the perfect week to focus on the prop market though that was, unfortunately, not an option for me this week). Regardless, this is not only a word of introduction that this reflection will be shorter than usual, but I also think it raises a larger discussion about “sitting out. “
I think sitting out is one the most underrated elements to improving as a successful football profiter. Forcing bets because you feel the need to “get bets in” is a recipe for disaster. For those that invest in financial assets (I prefer sports, of course) diversifying your portfolio and investing in different assets is a way to reduce risk. But bets on any given football week are not correlated at all. You are not diversifying risk, but are instead taking on additional risk because the games are each happening in a vacuum. And with little conviction or playable angles, you’re spreading out risk in spots most likely to lose. This is a losing recipe.
Sometimes sitting out, not spreading risk and just soaking in the new information--and heck enjoying the blessed game of football for what it is-- is the best and most “profitable” approach on a given week.
I think its now 3 weeks in a row I've mentioned the good guys at Sportfoliokings and their identifying that favorites began the season winning at an unsustainable rate. Hello BAL, TB & AZ!
This animation below perfectly captures this trend we’ve been identifying for weeks.
What I think this trend points to is not that “we don’t know which teams are good” but rather there are no consistently dominant teams. Football is weird, variance happens and we should not simply expect certain teams to win every week like the Chiefs circa the last 2 years. It is a good reminder that probability is the name of the game, and all anyone can really do is try and align themselves on the right side of chance—understanding that chance and variance define the game. And hey, that variance and chance is what makes this game so beautiful.
Team Trends:
LAR:
We noted all the way back in week 4 that the Rams offense is likely to live and die by their deep ball success. On deep throws in weeks 1-8, Stafford averaged 22.1 Yards per attempt(YPA), with the 5th best PFF deep grade at 94.4. And the last 2 weeks Stafford is 0-7 on such attempts with a second worst 26.7 PFF deep grade during that span. Exactly, it’s a small sample. I wouldn’t panic just because they lost 2 games in primetime…..
So who is last in deep grade the past 2 weeks?
LV:
Derek Carr is your answer at 26.2! Also of note, over the past 2 weeks he has only thrown deep passes on 8.6% of his passes.
I posted the chart on TL after week 7, and wrote: “Derek Carr has always thrown a wonderful deep ball(ADOT of 20+), but only over the last couple of years — and especially this year — have the Raiders let him unleash it. (see below!) And quietly, the Raiders have emerged as one of the league’s best and most explosive offenses, 10th in yds/play and 2nd in explosive plays. “
And sure I think Carr will improve from this extremely noisy 2 week sample, but without Ruggs, I would be most worried if the scheme has changed and the deep att % remains this low. It was this embrace of the deep ball which allowed LV its early season success. They are trending towards “bad” in the EPA tiers.
NE:
I’ve been beating the drum every week now, but look at NE making their way firmly into the “Good” category! What a sight! They are a real contender. (AFC East +450 anyone?).
KC:
I don’t want to victory lap just yet(though I hope I can in the future) but KC was never dead. They are still #1.
BUF:
We noted last week when going through AFC contenders, that the Bills were just average on offense. But something changed this past week. Per PFF, Josh Allen used play action on 58% of his dropbacks (well above league avg), and he had his best game of the season as a result. Allen had 13.1 YPA, a 93 PFF grade, and added nearly .5 EPA per dropack. Perhaps play action will be the key to unlocking this Bills offense, and it is something I will be monitoring going forward.
NO:
More conjecture than data-driven analysis, so bear with me, sorry. The NO defense has graded well by EPA metrics, but I think this is mostly a product of an incredibly weak offensive schedule faced. With matchups against PHI, KC, and BUF upcoming, I’d expect NO to enter closer to the “bad” tier in a few weeks time.
Bets:
Seahawks ML @ GB +140
This was more a bet selling GB than anything else. I think this GB team is closer to the fraudulent 2019 team than the dominant 2020 team. Why? Entering week 10 GB was….
17th in yds/play
11th in Early Down Success Rate
16th Explosive Play rate
9th in drive EPA
15th in Team DVOA
And I can raise many more statistics that paint the picture of this being a pretty average offense and team.
With regard to injuries: without explicit reports to the contrary, I think that if players are playing you have to assume they are at full roles and full strength. I was (and am) assuming Russ is at full strength.
Before Russ went down, here is where SEA ranked in these same categories.
5th yds/play
17th Early Down Success Rate
3rd Explosive Play rate
8th Drive EPA
10th in Team DVOA
With Russ at the helm, I think SEA is the better team and the numbers bear that out. Russ was plain old bad in this spot— it happens.
General note: That was the only bet of the week! I was on the fence about on CAR + 7 spread and DEN -1.5 spread, but the QB play for CAR was questionable, and buying DEN off a huge win @ DAL +my thoughts that PHI is quietly emerging had me sit out. (I thought I changed the prediction score in Lee Sharpe’s game to 50-50—it was a crazy week on my end) Anyway, not worth the risk. Sit out when you don’t have conviction.
DFS Breakdown:
The LAC side of the MIN @ LAC was the spot I most wanted to target. MIN was decimated by injury on the defensive side with both starting CB’s out, 2 key lineman and standout safety Harrison Smith all out. LAC throws above expectation at the 6th highest rate in the NFL, and puts up points week in and week out. And we know the targets are going to filter to Allen, Williams and Ekeler. MIN is 20th in yds/play allowed, 22nd in EDSR allowed, and their scheme invites explosive attempts against at the 6th highest rate. So we have a concentrated (and good) offense against a bad D missing most of their best players.
We’ve been through this before: Ekeler’s floor and ceiling are so high each week given his huge red-zone and receiving role in addition to his regular rushing floor. If LAC scores points, it is sure to flow through Ekeler.
The question then boiled down to which of Williams or Allen I would pair Herbert with. Both are great in spots, but I could not afford both given salary constraints. Ultimately, I sided with Williams as the preferred downfield target(11.7 vs 8.6 Avg depth of target), against a defense often attacked downfield. Williams is most often designed the 1st read in the red-zone giving him an edge in TD expectations as well.
Cook was the obvious bring back against an LAC team allowing most YPC, and forcing teams to run above expectation at the highest rate in the league. And MIN is not afraid to run, 7th highest above expectation. Cook has an elite red-zone role, always get some targets and was in the best spot he’d see all year. I was buying low.
Kyle Pitts basically breaks Ben Brown’s awesome Blowup model. He is seeing elite “WR like” usage, facing a team filtering targets to the middle of the field, in a spot ATL would have to pass the ball.
Not overthinking D Johnson: elite usage, good player, good spot at an extremely cheap price point.
Washington and Gallup were pretty thin salary-saving plays and I knew it coming in to the slate. Washington was going to see the field a bunch and he has been explosive whenever given the opportunity. But he’s just one option in a spread-out-offense with Mason Rudolph playing QB. It’s thin. Gallup is a talented player for sure, but he was likely going to be eased into his role, and is also a part of a very spread-out-offense. There was just no real angle to say this would be a Gallup week, and I was mostly hoping to get lucky. That’s weak. Bad process, indeed.
Reflection:
Though not my first loss in DFS this year, this was easily my weakest lineup. The upside in this spot for my expensive players did not make up for the thin salary savers in Gallup and Washington.
Last week was my best week, this week my worst—but I’m happy I did not spread my risk too much. We move on to next week.
Thanks for reading my adventurous thoughts and I look forward to being back in this space later this week(stay tuned!)
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