Week 14 Reflections
Certaintiy
Welcome to Throw The Dam(n) Ball!
If this is your first time reflecting, I'd recommend first reading the inaugural piece of this Reflections series to get a sense of what I'm trying to do in this space.
This week we cover: Macro Thoughts on certainty and profiting during the end of season, and my process for Bets, and DFS breakdown. Skip to those parts per your hearts desire!
Macro Observations & Thoughts:
We find ourselves at the point in season where we have enough of a sample to know which teams are real and which noisy. As a result, and as I’m sure you’ve noticed, in recent weeks, my analysis has been relying more on efficiency metrics such as EPA and SR. And while these metrics are not absolute, the reason for this reliance is that as the season wears on these numbers have a little more stability— they reflect the different game types and ranges of outcomes within a season and thereby present a fairly reliable sample.
This same sentiment means it is also a good time to bet playoff futures, having a reliable sample of these teams and their ranges of outcomes. And with seeding still not locked up, we can gain an edge with the few remaining games which, of course, could drastically shake up seeding and subsequent futures odds.
But we should also be careful to see if teams are making qualitative changes(refresher on what I mean by understanding change: here and here) and if those changes tell a different story than the season long averages. For example, last year I was onto the Bucs SB odds, seeing how this offense changed its philosophy in the 2nd half of the season, suggesting this offense was peaking just in time for the playoffs. This is all to say while season long averages’s are extremely useful and reliable, we need to pay attention to the exceptional teams peaking late and making qualitative changes so we could profit as a result.
With 14 weeks down, we can also draw some important takeaways about the NFL season generally and compare it to last year. Consider the scales of the Drive EPA charts right below from 2020 and so far in 2021:
Offense is down. The best 5 offenses from last year are all better than this year’s best.
There's been a bunch of talk about how offense is down this year from last. An illustrative example: The 2020 NO team with noodle-arm Brees at QB, had a Drive EPA of .7 (11th) That number would rank 3rd this year behind only AZ (1.11) & TB(1.10)The mean Drive EPA in 2020 was .36, this year it is .07. And the mean is really being dragged down by the lack of elite offensive teams this year.
And while sure this is interesting, it also presents an interesting case about certainty and how we can profit in the futures market.
With 3 weeks left in 2020: KC was a heavy favorite at +175, GB +600, NO+ 800 and then spots 4-8 had +1200 odds. This year?
With the exception of KC, these odds look awfully similar in the Top 8. The market is pricing these 2 years similarly despite last year having 5 dominant teams (see EPA chart above), and this year… well, there are no clearly dominant teams(maybe TB?) and certainly not to the degree we saw last year. The gap between the “best” and “rest” just isn’t that large this year and is minuscule compared to last year. But the market is pricing in its usual certainty for the top 8 even if that isn’t conforming to the reality of the NFL this year. So how will I be approaching?
If the market is unduly pricing certainty, I will embrace uncertainty and bet on some real longshots with paths towards upside. And if these teams are not winning the SB, we can at least get the price down to hedge and secure profits.
Perhaps I should write this as a full article later in the week, but to sneak a few of my favorites.
LAC: 25:1. I’ve been beating the drum a while now: Elite QB play gives an offense elite upside to win any game.
CIN: 50:1. I think the CIN profile would look awfully similar to LAC’s if CIN didn’t pass 2% under expectation. If this team throws, this offense with Burrow and those WR’s has elite ceiling.
TEN 20:1 legit shot at #1 seed, and should have full cast back for playoffs. Are we so sure the NE team with the same record as TEN and a harder schedule over next few weeks is 66% more likely to win SB? Seems uncertain to me.
Team Trends:
AZ + LAR:
I think this game says more about understanding built-in change(refresher on what I mean by understanding change: here and here)
In Week 4 and Week 10 we spoke how LAR is reliant on the big plays— and that they’ll look dominant when those hit, and mediocre when the big plays don’t hit. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of LAR, but this game reflects "good Stafford deep”— he went 3/4 for 30 YPA on those deep shots.
AZ is still legit good and, I think, one of the most complete teams in the NFL. This game and narrative looks verrrry different if variant plays were equal and didn’t skew heavily against AZ. I’m referring to Kyler’s uncharacteristic red zone turnover and AZ going 1/3 on those 4th and shorts. I won’t overreact to wins and loses when all the info it already built in.
DAL:
Since the bye in Week 7, the DAL offense has been straight bad: 30th in SR, 24th in Drive EPA. And despite running 60 plays(!!) with a win probability above 70% this week, this team is 14th in the NFL in plays run while leading comfortably.
But in that same span, the DAL defense has emerged as they’ve gotten healthy on the D-line. They are:
3rd in Drive EPA allowed,
2nd in SR allowed,
But they have still been beaten by the big plays, allowing the 7th highest rate of explosive plays.
But we know not to overreact too much to a small sample either way. I think the offensive struggles are more noise than anything else, reflective of the ebb and flow of the NFL season. This team is far too talented and their PFF offensive profile has remained largely the same despite the efficiency downturn. On defense, though, I think it is a bit more sustainable, as they have returned Randy Gregory and Demarcus Lawrence to the D-line both top 10 players according to PFF. Top 5? not so sure, but on the good side as far as defenses go and creeping up in that handy Drive EPA graph.
WFT:
WFT went on a little 4 game win streak, and I think this week was a good reminder they are not a playoff caliber team. During the 4 game streak, this team was unsustainably good on late down with a .386 EPA/play(2nd) and 62% SR(1st) on late downs. Late down EPA efficiency is critical of course to winning in an individual week but it can skew the results over a short sample if wins and loses are the frame of reference.
That is to say: the 4 game win streak stretch was largely due to outlier performances on late downs. This team’s season long efficiency on late downs more or less reflects their early down and total efficiency metrics: 15th in SR & 26th in EPA on late downs, 15th in SR and 21st on all downs and game situations. These metrics paint the more accurate picture, with this team as an average to slightly below average offense and not a playoff contender. Could they sneak in? Sure, weird things happen, but WFT is not good.
BAL: They’re not very good right now either…
19th Yds/play+ Drive EPA, 16th in D Drive EPA, 29th in yds/play allowed
10th in SR on Offense, 5th in SR allowed
14th in Explosive Play Rate, 32nd in Explosive Play Rate Allowed.
This team is getting crushed on defense by explosive plays. I like to bet on teams with good coaching and ceiling at QB, and with no angles for optimism besides blind hope, barring a sudden change, the Ravens are a tough buy and are a real threat to miss the playoffs.
Bets:
Bills ML+ 170 @ TB
I think TB is the better team, but there were angles for BUF to come out on top here and made the +170 price intriguing. While defense is often noisy and BUF hadn’t faced any real solid passing offenses, there was uncertainty whether or not BUF’s #1 pass D could at least slow down Brady(they held them below season avg up until OT). But Vegas was pricing in certainty and TB for their usual scoring output(28.5). I disagreed, and I thought there was a decent chance BUF would be able to at least slow them down. Vegas priced certainty I thought it was more uncertain— and though not enough for me to be the team under, it was enough that I though the ML price was a bit off. But this was not my only pull for this bet.
I sometimes look to different markets and metrics to see if there is a big gap between markets. And we had one in this case. Numerous Power Rankings, especially those based on point spread rankings had these teams as about even. For PFF, 538, ESPN’s FPI, this game should have been about a 1-2 point spread, not 3.5 with a juiced ML. This suggests value in the ML bet given the market discrepancy.
NO -6.5+105
I won’t bore you all explicating how this awful Jets team has been this year so I will just give the process behind the bet:
In 8/9 losses, NYJ lost by at least 7 points. Zach Wilson has shown nothing in the pro’s and was facing a real defense in NO. The Jets were going to struggle to score, and Jets D had no prayer to stop the Saints run game.
Teams beat the Jets handily, and I didn’t see any alternative game script than what I just outlined in 2nd bullet point.
CIN ML+115:
I will post what I wrote last week about CIN and why I am high on them relative to the market.
“CIN has been right about average offensively in terms of EPA but as you can see below have been heavily dragged down by turnovers. But what is most interesting about CIN is how many points per turnover they are losing. While the avg turnover costs a team 4.6 EPA lost, for CIN, that number is 5.56 EPA lost. Meaning, they are losing points in the highest leverage spots, something extremely random and also extremely costly. But it is not as if this team is prone to more turnovers either-- Burrow is right about league average in PFF’s turnover worth plays metric despite leading the league in INT’s. This is all to say that the Bengals are due for serious turnover regression, and the EPA profile will look far better as a result. “
I think CIN is the slightly better team and I made this bet under the assumption that SF’s best weapon Deebo Samuel would be out, further giving CIN the edge. Without any obvious game angles that create a particular game environment to capitalize on ie; IND vs BUF from a few weeks back , I will bet better teams whenever I can get them at + prices.
DFS Breakdown:
I didn’t love any of the game environments outside of BUF @ TB, and with pricing so high in that game, DFS was not the spot to find value. So I bet on what I thought was the most certain outcome: the NO run game beating up on the Jets. Betting on Hill and Kamara captured all of that upside at a decent price.
Lamb and Mclaurin represented a low-owned correlation play. Lamb has been Dak’s favorite target and Washington has been getting massacred by slot WR’s, where Lamb lines up. We know DAL gets beat deep on defense, and Mclaurin was the best bet to capitalize. It didn’t hurt that he was popping in Ben Brown’s awesome blowup model
With Drake down, Jacobs emerged as a workhorse with a huge receiving role. Knowing Gibson would be hugely owned (and that I was playing the WFT passing game), Jacobs was a solid pivot. He had the same—if not a better role— and I thought was also in a better matchup as KC filters targets to the middle of the field. Jacobs was the play everyone thought and wanted Gibson would be.
Hooper was the only healthy TE on the Browns. He was going to run a route on every dropback on a team that loves to throw to the TE facing a team getting decimated by TE’s this year. At 3.4k sign me up.
Treadwell was running the most routes on JAX, and has been T-Law’s favorite target since earning this role. Play feet ugly, and floor was zero, but there was upside seeing 8+ targets many of them deep. (And hey, peak above at our handy blowup model!)
Last, we had my fav one off in Chase who had been going through a cold stretch but was still seeing the same target-share he’d seen earlier in the season when he was dominating weekly. In what projected as a close game, Chase would see the opportunity in this spot, and as always, he has the upside to wreck the slate.
Recap:
DFS : Thought this was a solid lineup, but its tough to win when you lose your 7k WR to injury. Man I have been decimated by injury so far this year.
Betting: First losing week in a while with some tough OT losses for BUF and CIN. Happy with the process, but you can’t win every week! Up 20.5U on the year now.
Prediction game: Same tough loses as my bets, moving me down a few spots to 77/905.
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