I say it everytime, but I really feel it: we are so blessed to have full slate of football. What a sport. If you’re new here we’re going to discuss tails angles, matchups the market is (I think) not properly accounting for and some SGPs.
Of course, there are plenty of tails angles within the SGPs and matchups to be played separately, and the goal is as always to match the research presented without your own thoughts. My apologies for any typos…. let’s be real, they’re kinda funny and we’re not here to read beautiful english but to talk ball and tails.
Tails Angles
CAR:
Is Brad Izkik the truth? Young has absolutely lit up the Bears and Falcons defenses the first two weeks putting up back to back ~0.3 EPA Games. And in particular, his play and grading in system has been dominant in the 90th percentile in those categories through 2 weeks. Any metric and Young has been dominant (his passing yards also didn’t really come in garbage time Week 1, so I don’t like that counterargument)
Now there is of course some possibility this was a function of 2 bad defenses, but this is also a QB who is in a new offense and has been far more aggressive throwing (3.3% Pass Over Expected, 6th) and throwing downfield (3rd highest ADOT in NFL) where Young has been at his best in the last few years . I love the signal of the team going Pass Over Expected positive at 3.3%, that the offense will lean on him.
And even if Young’s performance was matchup driven, I’m not sure the Browns defense is any better here. They have started the season with the 3rd lowest disruption rate and a healthy 7.5 YPA allowed. The defense, meanwhile, also leads the NFL in Single High rate and plays heavy man which has encouraged teams to throw deep, playing right into the strengths of CAR offense so far this season ( I would also take Tet/Coker in their man matchup having advantage here).
On the other side of the ball, we have a huge sample of Watson being terrible, and I’m not buying one half of decent play against TB as being any signal (see below for bearish TB D takes). And CAR, while struggling on Run D, gets a CLE Run O that hasn’t had a good rushing game in nearly a year, and CAR has been solid in pass defense blitzing nearly 50% of the time leading to top 10 pressure, quick pressure and pressure disruption metrics. I love the Carolina alts here.
