Has been a journey of a week losing one of the most formative figures in my life, but alas I am happy that we got this out before I go offline tonight. I really don’t have much time to edit at all, so apologies for typos (and hey, at least you know I don’t write w/ chat GPT). We have a full tails write-up, some matchup angles, and SGPs. Of course, tails angles to come on Sat night/Sunday and perhaps some more SGPs when more markets open.
Leveraging Tails:
Bets: IND -5.5 +310 on FD / Jones 300 + 32 Attempts + IND -4.5 60:1 on DK
Let us start, as always, by looking to the team fundamentals to source ourselves relative to the market. And here we have PFF’s Timo Riske’s chart with team tiers of offensive and defensive strength.
Whether it is this chart from Timo, Drive Quality, EPA/Play, whatever your source and it will reveal a story of the Colts as an elite offense– one that leads the NFL with an absurd 80% series conversion rate and is atop the league in virtually any meaningful category.
The defense has been about average, though they have not been faced with the toughest of tests in playing the Dolphins, Broncos, and Titans. On the flipside, the Rams have been a solid offense and defense, though in a clear tier behind the Colts offensively.
The Rams are still 3.5 point favorites despite the production on field so far. Of course, this makes sense given that we shouldn’t assume 3 on field games should be determinative of future success, nor should we ignore team priors in predicting in future outcomes. And the Rams have a long history of success with Stafford while Daniel Jones has been a mostly bad QB in NY and is having unpredictable success so far in IND.
But by the same token there is perhaps value if IND is as good as their on-field performance has been. If we re-played this game in 8 weeks and the Colts are as good as they’ve been so far this season this game would surely not see the Colts as 3.5 point underdogs. And this is one of the main angles we are going to lean into here on the fundamentals– believing this is a Colts that is for real and has a legitimate chance to be one of the best teams in the NFL.
Of course, all of the production metrics are going to look good through 3 weeks, and charts of the sort only have so much value this early in the season. But part of the reason to be bullish on this Colts team in my view is the relative health of this offense and the weapons and how good Jones has been in this system. Through 3 weeks the Colts are 2nd in PFF pass block grade and forced coverage mistakes at a top 5 rate. And this is a team basically fully healthy heading into this matchup. (AD Mitchell is quite the fill-in for Alec Pierce IMO).
And as a result, Jones has been cooking while in a system with the 2nd highest EPA per play on plays in system and with one of the very best PFF grades to go with it as well, suggesting it is no fluke. Jones has always been decent in structure and struggled mightily against pressure and when plays broke down. But with the surroundings seemingly right in Indianapolis and Jones’s production is far surpassing anything from earlier in his career both in the production and quantity of plays from within structure.
And while the matchup with the Rams is likely the toughest test so far, there is an area where the Rams have struggled and where Jones is poised to take advantage.
The Rams have struggled in their inability to create Perfect Coverage, where they are last in the NFL through 3 weeks, despite facing no offenses at the top of the league in forcing coverage mistakes. Now they get a Colts team top 5 in forcing mistakes and in this area where Jones has been dominant so far this season.
Jones has the 4th highest EPA per play on plays with a coverage mistake. On the flipside, Stafford has been on the right side of perfect coverage, as the Rams have forced coverage mistakes at the 3rd highest rate in the NFL. But the Colts are #1 in perfect coverage rate which might halt production a bit for Stafford.
While the sample is small, against perfect coverage Stafford is last in the NFL so far this season in EPA. If the Colts are able to move that base rate of perfect coverage from 33% a bit closer to the 51% they’ve generated so far this season, it will go a long way in slowing down this Rams offense relative to their base rates of success.
And while the Rams defense, as we discussed, has been one of the better units so far this season, they have not been tested quite like what this Colts offense presents having only played the Texans, Titans, and Eagles (who dominated them in the 2nd half of last week). In this interaction, certainly if the Colts are as good as they’ve been, this is a matchup I anticipate the Colts winning, mitigating to some degree the market value of the Rams.
Bottom line:
I’m cautiously optimistic about this Colts offense so long as they are healthy and this matchup is mispriced if the Colts are as good as their on field production. Against a defense I think overvalued *in this matchup* and I have some interest playing the tails, where conditional on the thesis being right, should be a team that can win easily with margin and do so through the passing game.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Throwthedamball to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.