Week 17 Reflections
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 Thought on “Betting Seasons,” Quick Hitters and we recap my betting week. Skip to those parts per your hearts desire!
Macro Thought:
I think of the betting season in 3 parts. Part 1 is maybe the first 4-6 weeks where I find myself testing my offseason hypotheses. Part 2, The next (8?) weeks consist of learning about teams, soaking in new information and incorporating that new information with offseason priors. Part 3 is where we have found ourselves the past couple of weeks-- where we have a pretty good sense of the quality of teams. This part of the season is about filtering noise in favor of a larger sample of more reliable data. What makes a successful bettor in each of my made up 3 stages is perhaps a discussion for another time.
But this is all to say: we’re at the point in the season where we’re not learning much about teams. While there are exceptions, as teams do undergo qualitative changes and do peak, they are the exceptions that prove the rule. We will focus on some quick hitters instead of the usual trends.
Quick Hitters:
CAR vs NO:
Am I disappointed I didn’t bet the under in this game? Yes, very much so. Even more disappointed I didn't parlay NO ML and Under? Yes. While I generally like to avoid games with really bad teams(CAR), we knew this one would be boring and low scoring. CAR and NO occupy their spot in the top left of this graph for good reason. Missed opportunity.
KC & CIN:
While losing out on the #1 seed is certainly important for KC, it is encouraging for KC that Mahomes is stacking consistently good performances. Mahomes’s consistency—his never having a bad game—is what has most defined his elite start to his career.
As for CIN: we’ve spoken about this since Week 1: if they throw often and deep, this offense is dynamic. While they only generate 1st downs at a league average rate(see below), and while explosive plays are somewhat variant, their explosive play success with Burrow Chase and Higgins is more sustainable.
Bottom line: I don’t think CIN is in the KC/BUF tier, but should they sustain a high pass rate over expected (10+% past 2 weeks) and with deep variance breaking their way, they have the upside to win it all.
SF: Lance is no Jimmy G
We discussed Jimmy G in week 15, but for now,: Trey Lance is not producing like Jimmy G. Per RBSDM, Jimmy G is 4th in Adjusted EPA among QB’s with 100 snaps(0.222) and Jimmy G has a 75.1 PFF grade(17th). Meanwhile, Lance’s EPA/play (0.049) is slightly worse than Baker Mayfield and Lance has only a 59.1 PFF grade. Long term is another question and not our subject. Right now, the 49ers need Jimmy G back if they want to make another SB run.
Bets:
LV @ IND ML +285
First things first: IND is the better team no matter how you slice it. But that doesn’t speak to betting value nor for this individual matchup and possible angles for LV to win. Let’s dive in.
Readers are probably sick of me speaking about certainty at this point, but it played a central role in placing this bet. Why? we know nothing about IND in a negative game script.
To the credit of IND, they have been one of the best teams in the NFL at jumping out to leads.
And it is not just have they lead often, but they also have run the fewest plays in the league(123) with a Win Probability less than 30%.
All of this is to say: we don’t really have any sample and certainly have no certainty as to how IND plays in a negative game script. And while I did not think falling behind was the most likely scenario, I thought LV had an outside chance—more than market was pricing in— of jumping out to a lead and making this a closer game than 8.5 spread indicates. This is because LV is 2nd in the NFL in explosive plays, so a few strikes could lead to some fast points and a lead. I thought there was decent chance for LV to enjoy explosive success leaving them on the right side of variance and perhaps having them jump out to a lead.
This leads us to the second related angle: Derek Carr is the better QB. And if LV would be able to knock IND from their run heavy game plan it would turn more into a “QB game” whereby IND would need to abandon the run and have Wentz to bring them back and LV would, as usual, rely on Carr to extend the lead. Carr is the superior QB by most metrics. And not to mention, IND filters opposing targets to the middle of the field which is where LV is strongest--throwing to Renfrow, TE’s and the RB’s. I generally want to bet on underdog teams with better QB’s and more so when the matchup and game script favor the better QB.
Bottom line: Vegas priced in certainty in IND winning(77%), but there was an outside shot LV would force IND to abandon their preferred offense. In general—and especially in this possible game “QB” game script—I thought there was value siding with the better QB at +285.
AZ ML+230
This shouldn’t be a surprise. I’ve been writing for weeks that I’m not dropping AZ into a tier below the NFC contenders despite their bad losses. Here is what I wrote last week:
AZ: Don’t discount them just yet
It certainly feels apt to “downgrade” AZ at the moment. But I think our EPA graph consists of a decent sample and range of outcomes. Are they playing like the #1 team right now? No. Does Kliff have a history of 2nd half collapses? Also yes. Causes for concern, but not a death sentence and a relegation to Tier 3 of NFC teams as I have seen basically everywhere in analytics/betting world.
And there are reasons for optimism for AZ:
The 5.5 spread was an overreaction to recent losses. I’m as high on DAL as anyone, but AZ is still good. At +230 I thought this game was more a 55/45 type and not 70% market priced in. I was going to back AZ here.
CLE -5.5 +240
I added this play to my card on Monday afternoon as the lined moved from CLE -3.5 to PIT -2. Presumably this was because the Browns were eliminated and “lost motivation.” The motivation angle, if playing full time players, doesn’t really make much sense to me, and especially not in the Browns case. I don’t want to write more words about narratives rather than data. Players play at 100%, end of story.
Bottom line: I thought initial line of CLE -3.5 was pretty much right. I wasn’t going to bet it. But once it moved, I was fully fading the motivation narrative and thought CLE would run all over PIT. And, well, I don’t have faith in Big Ben at this point to do anything on offense. I was sticking with original line and soaking up the extra value. (I almost never bet -3.5, and instead favor moving the line to -5.5 as games rarely land in on 4 and 5)
No DFS this week:
Unfortunately, it is finals season for me and I had to really cram for a Sunday AM final. (WHO GIVES A FINAL ON SUNDAY MORNING!!!? Can’t wait to graduate in the spring. ) Point is: sometimes you need to sit out.
So that’s all!
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