Week 2 Reflections
ICYM last week’s article, this is the loose outline for my goals in this series of reflection pieces.
I want to take this space every week to write down my process and reflections for what I call: "Football Profit Process" aka everything I’ve tried to predict and profit from the week prior. But given that I bet futures, spreads, props, and play DFS, I “bet” taking into consideration the prices from all these different markets. And unlike most “reviews” or “reflections” articles that stick to their one aisle, I want to take this space to articulate how my theses and convictions on teams and players manifest in different markets. I hope this will allow me to share my ideas and process so we can all improve our process and better set ourselves up for profit in the long run.
I am still working through the style and I hope this weekly piece both holds me accountable and vastly improves as the season moves along. For now, it is basically a string of my thoughts outlined loosely as follows:
Some ideas might only be a bullet point or small paragraph, others might develop into full length articles-- we shall see
General Thoughts:
I think the Steelers are a bottom 5 offense this year. The O-Line is brutal, and Big Ben is bad at this stage in his career(PFF grades 25/38 in 2020, 32/34 so far in 2021). Running Najee Harris for 3.2 yds a carry is not helping their cause either. I thought the Steelers D line would overwhelm the Raiders, but Carr and Gruden have done a great job mitigating pressure via 2 and 3 TE formations, so credit to them.
I think the market is way overreacting to Kyler and the Cards. For starters, the narrative would be vastly different had the Vikings hit that FG to win. But I think, more importantly, Kyler is hitting on 75% of his deep passes(20+yds) so far this season. Nobody can possibly sustain that rate of deep success, an element so critical to AZ’s offense. I think the main takeaway from this game should be that this Cardinals defense is extremely beatable and last week’s dominant showing vs the Titans was noise(and likely reflects more on the Titans). I will be buying some Jaguars shares this week vs AZ.
Daniel Jones is quietly off to a great start, and should his development continue, I think this Giants offense can continue to sustain the success they had this week. He really throws a beautiful deep ball. I’m excited to see what the Giants will do over the next few weeks as we learn more about Jones and the Giants.
The Broncos(and I think this will be the next article so I will keep this short) are running the same offense as last year, launching the ball downfield. Teddy Two Gloves is much better than Drew Lock and it shows.
Betting:
Prop Bets:
General Note:
I think I’m going to be shifting some attention into prop betting this year, especially adjacent to DFS. I found that only a small handful of lineups best suits my DFS style, but I run into issues when I “want exposure to certain games.” This I’ve found, often warps my process of building my best lineup. With props, though, I can now obtain “exposure” via prop bets and even build a sort of GPP lineup through a parlay of player props(I have yet to dabble). This has made me a better DFS player and allowed me to better capitalize on the best values in different markets.
Aaron Rodgers O 2.5 Td’s + Davante Adams O 7.5 Receptions +115
I thought the Packers would blow the doors off the Lions and the offense would flow through these two as it always does. If we projected 30-35 pass attempts and about a 30% target share for Adams (as has long been the case in this O), 10+targets seemed likely. I assumed the Packers would score at least 4 TD’s and In that scenario, I think Rodgers throws for 3 TD’s most of the time. (After all, he did account for 67% of the team's offensive TD’s last year.) At +115 I will take this bet every time.
Patrick Mahomes O 2.5 TD passes. +125
We knew the Chiefs would score points. We know how good Mahomes is and how often the Chiefs throw. I like betting Mahomes at + money more often than not betting Mahomes.
The Parlay:
General notes:
I had a Risk-Free bet from Caesars up to 5k. Betting parlays like this is very unlike me, but I figured this was a one time shot to really establish a solid bankroll as I begin my serious betting journey( career?🙏). I thought I was getting really good prices and, with the insurance, this was a one time risk I had to take.
As you see, I bet 2 team overs in this parlay and this team over bet is quickly emerging as a favorite. The reason for this, is that I think it reduces variance especially as it relates to game totals. For team totals, I’m really betting on one side in a particular game environment as opposed to needing both sides of that game to hit. I think of this from 2 angles:
1st, we need to acknowledge that football has so much baked in variance that can drastically alter game script, from penalties to turnovers to weird broken plays. As I see it, betting on a game total is basically betting on “double or nothing,” or 2x the variance. This is because you are banking on both sides of the game and more total points. For example, when a team takes a long drive and throws a red zone pick on the other team's 10, not only now, does the scoring expectation obviously lower for the team throwing the INT, but the other team now has far longer field position than usual and is less likely to score themselves. If you’re betting a game total over, the scoring expectations for the game just got varianced twice over. Of course, this works both ways and can often help depending on if you are on the over/under and what type of variant play happens. And this is not to say that betting game totals is always wrong, but as I see it you’re introducing more variance, relative to team totals which is exactly what I am trying to avoid.
For the 2nd angle, I’ll use the Bills from this week as an example of why I prefer the team total bet. I really had no sense of how the Dolphins offense would respond, though I had a strong conviction(as I’ll go into detail shortly) in the Bills putting up 4+td’s. The general logic holds that you bet a game total since if the Bills are scoring 28+points the Dolphins will likely be in catch up mode and between both teams, the over is more likely to hit since the 2 teams combined introduce more possibility of points scored. I think this is backwards. I think the 2 teams introduce more variance. I had conviction on the Bills and didn’t really envision a scenario in which they aren’t able to score points. If MIA jumped out to a lead, certainly the Bills would be able to score. And with the lead, I expected them to keep their foot on the gas and score easily. No matter the game scenario, the Bills were going to score. In contrast, MIA was a total wildcard on how the offense would play. Their range of scenarios is quite uncertain-- we don’t have much data on Tua, and they’ve played in slugfests and shootouts alike. Betting on them to do part of the job in getting over the game total would introduce more variance and be more of a mistake.
Phew. I thought I was gonna write a few sentences on this, but alas. Let’s get into the actual parlay now.
Buf O:
The Bills are still good even if Allen regresses. They were an offensive juggernaut last year and their scheme and personnel have remained largely the same from last year. There’s no reason to think this offense won’t produce this year.
With this assumption, I think it was easy to say the Pittsburgh game was fluky. It was as noisy as noise can be. Per PFF, The Steelers only blitzed 7 times on Allens 56 dropbacks, but Allen still faced pressure on 41% of his dropbacks. The Steelers were dropping men in coverage but still winning their 4 man rushes. There was no way the Dolphins would be able to replicate that sort of gameplan, lacking that talent on the D-line to win 4 man rushes. Besides, the Dolphins play a heavy man scheme which is a far cry from the zones the Steelers ran the week before. It seemed very likely that in week 2, The Bills would be able to play a game more resembling the 2020 Bills.
The Dolphins defense was not good from a yards per play standpoint(8th worst in Yards per play allowed), and their defensive success was largely a result of turnovers which we know to be quite a variant. I will be selling the Dolphins defense so long as the narrative remains that they are among the leagues best.
Perhaps most importantly, when betting alternate totals, especially an over, explosive plays are likely a central determinant of the bets success. This is because explosive plays often correspond to quick scores which are central, of course, to piling up points. And in the graphs below, you can see just how dominant Buf was offensively in this department, and how the Dolphins struggled in this area last year. With good pace to the game, and a +130 price(bet independently from Parlay as well), it seemed like this was the exact and gave environment for the Bills to smash their over.
Cin ML:
I’ve been high on the Bengals all offseason. Shorthand, my thesis was that: with a healthy Burrow, they passed at the 4th highest rate in neutral situations, and I expected that trend to continue into this year with additions at WR and O-Line(RBSDM). I thought the Bengals would be far more explosive on offense with Jamar Chase at WR instead of AJ Green, as the chart below indicates just how bad Green was last season. The Joe Burrow can't throw deep narrative really seems like an AJ Green issue in disguise.
And sure enough, in week 1 the Bengals offense scored 27 points including a bomb to Jamar Chase. I did have some hesitations. The Bengals were extremely run heavy, and it took them 70 plays and a full OT period to score points.
I didn’t want to read into the high run rates from week 1, weighing last year's priors a beat more heavily. And should the Bengals choose to attack deep they would likely have their way with a bad Chicago defense that Stafford torched deep on multiple occasions the week prior.
As much as I liked the Bengals I was selling the Bears. Dalton is a bad QB, the game plan is uber conservative, and the defense just isn’t good. Add this up and I thought the Bengals would control the game throughout and win handily.
Reflection: I think there is often a tendency among bettors to impose “how the team should attack” for how the “team will attack.” My goal in making bets is to predict what reality will be, not what it ought to be. Lesson learned. There was certainly some weird variance on both sides(I will forever have nightmares of Trey Hendrickson failing to Sack Fields on a critical 3rd and 9 late in the 4th), but ultimately, Zak Taylor was not coaching to win and did not put his team in a position to succeed. I have no doubt that had they come out throwing deep they would have won handily. But it appears Zak Taylor was listening too much to Sandra Bullock in the Blind Side and not enough to my twitter handle(@throwthedamball).
Either way, until the Bengals prove willing to throw and so more aggressively they are an offense I will be shying away from.(But thanks for the big week 1 DFS win!)
Vikings O:
The Vikings offense scored 27 points in 11/17 games last year.
I thought the Vikings were game-script independent, meaning that there was no real way the Vikes would fall flat and at least not approach the 20 pt totals. If the Vikings were controlling the game, they could run their offense: marching up the field and scoring points against a defense not slowing anyone down.(In this game script, the game total probably hits the under in something like a 27-20 game). Or if they were down, or in a neutral game, the Cards play with such pace that Min would run many plays that would enable them to score and get close to the 4 TD marker.
Overall: this was a game with good pace, bad defenses and good offensives, game script independent.
KC:
I only included the Chiefs at the last second because that nearly doubled the payout of the bet, and because they played SNF it allowed for a hedge opportunity should the first 3 hit. But while I was planning on hedging, I will always be happy to bet on the Chiefs winning outright should the pricing make sense. No need for further analysis. It's generally smart to bet on Mahomes and the Chiefs.
Yearly Betting PNL: +12U
DFS:
I actually thought the MIN vs ARZ was the best game scoring environment but didn’t think there were as many ways to capture DFS upside b/c of how expensive Kyler is(and that I could probably get the same salary based points from Herbert) and the general spread around attack of ARZ. I thought my best exposure to MIN was through the parlay, though I thought Jefferson carried upside should the Vikes tilt pass heavy
I loved the idea of being overweight this LAC vs DAL game because of cheap pricing and how relatively concentrated the attacks are on both of these teams. I knew I wanted Zeke+a cowboys Rec though between Ceedee and Amari it was anyone’s guess. I’ll take the small savings. We know that Brandon Staley leaves the box open for teams to run against them, and Zeke quietly had an 84% snap share in week 1. I thought that the Cowboys would not enjoy the same passing success as usual(the Chargers D is legit good and will be legit good all year) and they would lean more towards the run. With a good redzone role, some expected Rec’s and a shot at the bonus I liked Zeke’s chances to get past 4x his 6,200 salary. Given how concentrated the Cowboys passing attack is and that I thought Dak would still put up passing numbers I still thought at least one of Lamb/Cooper would have an excellent game, and with Lamb's YAC ability I gave him the slight edge over Cooper to get there.
On the LAC side, I expected the Chargers to throw often whether trailing or in the lead. In this event I assumed Hebrert would likely eclipse the passing bonus with a couple of TD’s at least, targets would pile up for Allen and he might have one of his 15-18 target games and easily beat price based expectations. The Guyton thesis was that he was seeing the field about 75% of the plays and with Tyron Johnson gone I assumed Guyton would take on more of the deep role so explosive last year. At 3.1K, all Guyton needed was to connect on a deep ball to really surpass his salary expectations.
For the rest: I liked Carson in a big role in a game I thought the Hawks would control, Highbee played 100% of week 1 snaps, and we have seen him put up real solid numbers as the #1 TE in that offense. At 4.1K with his role, I liked the play. The Steelers I thought would cause some havoc on the bad raiders O-line and sack Carr a bunch and maybe force some turnovers. Defense is kind of random and I wasn’t in need to move salary around so I wasn't thinking too much about the play to be honest.
Thanks for reading my adventurous thoughts and I look forward to next week! We’re so blessed to be able to watch and talk about football, aren’t we? You can follow my work: @throwthedamball. My DM’s are open-- I really love all kinds of suggestions, comments, criticism!