Week 14 Early Week Thoughts
Links To Early Week Media & Team Trends
Welcome (back) to Throwthedamball!
We talk some team trends and provide links and commentary to my early week media appearances.
While I wished for this to come out on Thursday AM, sometimes life gets in the way. But alas, better late than never.
Before we dive in, I just want to state the obvious: football is glorious and we are so blessed to watch, study, and enjoy this game. I’m writing these words shortly after watching the Baker comeback—and just wow. Incredible(and nice to hit a bit of +1400 Rams ML :) )
Media:
Take The Points:
Arjun and I break down the Vikings-Lions, Browns-Bengals, and Chargers-Dolphins matchups and talk longshot bets and live betting process.
PFF Forecast: I talk through some live betting strategy and an alt-line play I like.
NFL Week 14 Betting Market Outlook
Live Betting Reflections:
At 6:10 here, we reflect on the live betting process—in what was the first poor live betting performance in weeks.
Of course, I encourage you to our full episode talking through our Drive Quality scoreboard, market power rankings, and a full game-by-game preview of Week 14.
General Outlook:
At this point in the season, we generally have a decent sample size and a good sense of team fundamentals and the real contenders and pretenders. But in understanding and predicting where teams are going, it is also important to weigh short term play in the context of the season—if there is change, is that change noisy? Is it a product of a marked change either in player development, scheme or something else sticky? These are all important questions that are difficult to answer, but allows for us to better learn about sourcing market pricing and where we might be able to find value value. Let’s take a look at the first and second half of the season(so far).
PIT:
While the Steelers offense was a bottom 3 unit out of the gate, the switch to Pickett has been fruitful. And it would make sense that as the year progresses the team’s offense would get better— rookie QB’s tend to improve as the seasons rolls along. On defensive side, perhaps no player means more to a defense than TJ Watt does to the Steelers D’ so it is no wonder they are improving as Watt has returned to the lineup.
MIN, GB, JAX D:
Per Drive Quality, these were all defenses who were above average to start off the season but have fallen to bottom 10 in recent weeks.
MIN: Danielle Hunter, who was so dominant early in the season, has slowed down in recent weeks and has posted PFF Grades in the 60’s in 4 out of 6 games since the week 7 bye. And the secondary lacks talent outside of Patrick Peterson who is having a terrific season as PFF’s 5th best corner. I’ll be selling the MIN Pass D’ and attacking them in DFS and through props and SGP’s.
GB: The team lost budding star Rashan Gary and the team has unable to generate pressure. Over the last 4 weeks, the Packers have generated a quick pressure rates of: 17%, 12%, 14%, and 22%. The average rate of quick pressure in the NFL 22%. What was once the main strength of the defense is now an area of weakness. No bueno for the Packers D’.
JAX: The defense lacks talent at basically all positions outside of EDGE. Their early season success seems to be noise rather than signal and a good reminder of the fragility of defense. This line of reasoning is similar to why I am not buying the Lions or Raiders D's despite their improvement over the second half of the season.
CIN:
Despite playing without Ja’marr Chase for most of this timeline, the CIN offense has taken a turn to become a great/elite offense. But has something changed?
I think so. I pounded the table in the offseason suggesting there is a good chance Joe Burrow would improve from year 2 to year 3. And I think we are beginning to see a change in his pocket presence and decision-making—his sack rate is plummeting (5 total sacks in last 4 weeks), he has only one “Turnover Worthy Play” since week 6, and his 91.9 PFF Grade while in rhythm is best in the NFL. He can win in multiple ways and has cut down stylistically on the negative plays that held back this offense in years prior.
Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that the Bengals O-line has drastically improved in pass protection as the season has progressed(see below). Considering the offseason turnover and the lack of continuity on the OL, it is not entirely surprising to see the unit improve as they’ve remained healthy and as they developed more chemistry.
That’s it for this update— be sure to check your inbox this weekend for some more content + bets. Of course, follow us on Twitch to watch us on “GameTrade” as we live trade the Sunday slate(honestly its just a fun/funny time)!
