Week 4 Reflections: Profiting and Macro Views

Week 4!!

General Thoughts and Trends:

One of my main goals in writing this blog as I outlined in the introduction piece of this series(and I'd recommend reading that first if this is your first visit to the blog) is to maximize football profit by learning how best to apply a given thesis in different markets(Betting, props, DFS etc). And I like to use @leesharpe’s NFL prediction game as a way of gaging how well I predicted games relative to the market. For the past 3 week my profit was in line with my performance in the prediction game. But this week I was slightly under despite it being by far my best week on the prediction game. While it is not a perfect carry over, it still leaves me thinking I need to improve my process and better learn how to maximize profits in each market. 

• DAL

  • While DAL threw the ball 85% of neutral situations in week 1, they were last in this category in weeks 2-4 throwing only 40% of the time. I’m curious if this is an opponent adjusted gameplan or a philosophy change on offense. I lean the former but it is definitely something I am monitoring. 

• NYG: 

  • We spoke about this briefly in week 2, but Daniel Jones balled out against a tough Saints secondary and without some of his key weapons. He is quietly 2nd in PFF passing grade(and somehow 14/18 running grade?) and for the first time in his career is elevating his team and the players around him. This team could very easily be 3-1 but the market is pricing them as a bottom tier team. I will be buying going forward. 

• NYJ:

  • I was wrong about the JAX vs AZ game last week, but I thought this was another classic case of a team never being as bad as people say. And the Titans, especially without their WR’s, are just bad. Plain and simple they are bad.  

  • Zach Wilson can really make big time throws(tied for 2nd in PFF Big Time Throws) and I think we will see some more magic as he gets more comfortable adjusting to NFL defenses. 

  • Reflection note: After 4 weeks of playing the prediction game, I’m starting to think I should have more conviction betting underdog ML bets when I think pricing is off. I’ve liked some pretty heavy underdogs who have won each week, and with the exception of #our Brandon Staley’s Chargers, I’ve laid off these bets thinking I was missing something, but I think its time to start betting them more regularly. Maybe this will create a convergence of the prediction game and my profit.

• AZ vs LAR: 

  • Kyler Murray is really running hot right now, especially deep. He is 13/18 on throws 20+yds downfield for close to 25 YPA. No wonder the Cards are having so much success so far this year! But by the same token, this number is bound to regress as even the best deep QB’s can’t sustain a higher than 55% completion percentage. How the offense adjusts to the inevitable regression is something I will be watching closely. 

  • I was certainly not expecting the outcome of this game and it might be time to adjust my priors. The Cards might actually be good, though I don’t think they’re 4-0 good just yet. 

  • I think this game reminds us not to overreact to a one game sample. Yes, LAR beat TB handily, but did they take over that mantle of #1 team in the NFC just yet? I don’t think so. Would LAR be favored vs TB on a neutral field? I doubt it! I don’t even think AZ would be favored vs LAR on a neutral field and nor should they be!

  • After excelling on deep throws(20yds) in weeks 1-3 (7/11 for 29 YPA), Stafford really struggled deep this week. Given the way this offense is schemed, I think the takeaway here is that this team is going to live and die by the deep ball. 

• KC: 

  • This defense is absolute trash like the good ol days when Mahomes first came into the league. My takeaway: With a bad defense, Mahomes might just break statistical records just because of how often this team will need to throw the ball(+650 MVP anyone?) And as always, the Mahomes+Kelce+Hill stacks will be in full play all season in DFS. 

• SF: 

  • I think I will write an article about this shortly so I will keep my rant mild, but I don’t think Kyle Shanahan is a good coach. Yes he can draw up a wicked run game, but his 4th down and FG management are horrific, and his teams just haven’t been good aside from the SB run(which I think was a product of a wicked defense and crazy easy road in the playoffs). The dude is 31-37 as a HC but he is still held in such high regard and markets are still obsessed with the 49ers.  

Bets:

1. Browns -1/Browns -13.5(+410)

   1. Everything clicked for the Vikings in week 3 in a dismantling of the Seahawks. But we’ve seen this game before from the Vikings-- looking dominant at times and then falling back to the 7-9 team they’ve been for the last bunch of years. The Browns are in a different tier by most efficiency metrics.  And I could talk about how I thought the matchup was perfect for the Browns to slow the Vikings offense down, but that is not why I made these bets, and the goal of this reflection piece is to show and improve my process for making bets. 

   2. I made this bet because I thought I saw a massive disparity in the different football markets. The Browns were about 12-15:1 to win the SB depending on book, bu on most markets and vikings were about 60:1. (This is the #6 and #21 in odds) That’s a huge disparity! And yes these are not perfect corollaries because of many factors that go into SB futures not included in a regular game, but if anything that should help my case! Why?

   3. The road to the playoffs for the Browns is harder in a more difficult division and conference.  The futures markets seemed to indicate that there was a massive disparity between these two teams and given basically even money I was going to side with the futures market. 

   4. I included a sprinkle of the alt line because I saw this game most likely going 1 of 2 ways. 1) close game back and forth with a high total and either team coming out on top of the 31-27 type game. But I also saw  2) a lower scoring game where the Browns defense totally overwhelmed the Vikings, and with the Browns controlling the game and extending their lead running the ball-- something like a 27-10 type game.  And back to the -1 point spread now that we’ve outlined game scenarios, in a 3rd or 4th game scenario--and this is where futures markets inform me heavily-- I like the Browns to come out on top. The best teams win in more than a few game scenarios. Add it up and in most game scenarios I saw, the Browns were going to come out on top.

2. 3 Team Teaser(KC+TB+GB)

   1. If I were doing power rankings these 3 and Bills would be my top 4(and I think are in a clear tier the 4 of them) I don’t even want to spend much time on this bullet point. All of these lines were teaser friendly and each clearly outclassed their opponents. 

      1. KC: Bet on KC always. PHI had 2 wins over subpar teams and got destroyed by the Cowboys. They’re not in the same tier as the Chiefs, and the Chiefs don’t lose games to teams much worse than them. And coming off a loss, I expected Reid and Chiefs to come out throwing and I didn’t think the Eagles D had a shot at stopping them. We’ve talked before about Jalen Hurts, I think is a better QB playing from ahead than behind, and I thought this one had a real good shot at being a blowout so I bet the alternative spread Chiefs -13.5 as well. Backdoor was a tough way to lose on this bet, but oh well. 

   2. TB: 

      1. Same idea, NE led by a rookie QB is just so unlikely to beat TB and his fully healthy offense. The game was fluky with the rain and all, but even so, the best teams manage to come on top much more often than not.

   3. GB: 

      1. I’ve been betting GB since their week 1 loss and am still bullish on them until the markets adjust. Rodgers is still amazing, Lefleur calls an excellent offense, enough said. And of course, I have to mention once a week that Big Ben and the Steelers offense is plain old bad. And the defense is regressing too, especially on the back end.  If Teddy is healthy I might have to go back to the well on DEN next week. 

3. Den O 26 pts+200

   1. Oh my! How I loved this spot for the Broncos and their offense from both betting and DFS perspective. There were a bunch of narratives I thought were baked into pricing across the board this week not conforming to new realities.

   2. Narrative 1: Teddy is a conservative QB whose offenses don’t rack up points. 

      1. Maybe Teddy used to be a conservative QB but this is a new system and Teddy has been anything but conservative with the Broncos.  Through 3 weeks the team is 4th in the NFL in explosive attempts (AirYards+xyac>19). And this should come as no surprise since the Broncos were 3rd in the NFL in this category last year. Only Teddy Bridgewater is a more accurate deep thrower than Drew Lock, and Courtland Sutton is healthy this year and is one of the better deep WR’s in the NFL. The result is an aggressive offense that is in the top 10 in explosive plays, early down success rate, and 3rd in EPA! And for Teddy, the story is even better: ranking 5th in PFF grade, 2nd in dropback EPA, and 8th in PFF’s big time throws. In this system, Teddy 2 gloves is more than the checkdown artist everyone makes him out to be, but is a legit upper tier QB.

3. Narrative 2: Ravens Defense is good 

   1. Sure the Ravens defense has been good for years, but that doesn’t mean they are (or will be) good this year. This team lost guys on the edge in Matthew Judon and Yannick Ngakoue, and lost Marcus Peters for the year in the pre-season. Those are 3 key guys to lose. And through 3 weeks the defense has really struggled. They were 24th in DVOA and YPA allowed, and 26th in dropback EPA allowed. And sure schedule plays a role in these stats and it is a small sample of 3 weeks, and a bunch of stats plucked out don’t always paint a full story. But what evidence is there that this defense is going to turn it around? The personnel just isn’t as good as it used to be, especially on the back-end and it is showing early in the year.

4. Narrative 3: Broncos only played bad teams

   1. Everyone discounted the Broncos as a fraud of a 3-0 team because they played weak opponents. But it's not as if they played those teams close. The Broncos absolutely dismantled their opponents as any good team should. And despite allowing 3 defensive Td’s(1 of which on the last play of garbage time) this team still put up point totals, scoring at least 26 in 2 of 3 games. What more could you ask?

5. Why Alt Total as choice of attack?  

   1. While I didn’t know just how well the Ravens would play, I figured they would at least present more offense than the Broncos previous opponents. My best guess would have been in the 17-24 pt range, and this would  allow the Broncos to remain aggressive and run their regular offense further into the game, thereby increasing their chances of hitting that 26+ mark(and of course, 26 is key number). And sure I thought the game total of 44 was far too low, but I loved the idea of pushing the Broncos total up a few points(rather than game total) and get the additional +110 odds(-110->+190) . This would minimize variance and allow me to bet on what I was most confident in: the Broncos offense was going to throw the ball efficiently and score points against an overrated secondary and defense. 

4. Recap: I was aggressive with the Alt spreads, but both came ohhhh so close to hitting. I will be returning to the well with these alt totals as I think these markets are untapped and less sharp than regular spreads. We will spend more time next week unpacking why I think alt spreads and points in some spots are good bets and capture upside other markets can’t offer. 

   1. Betting Profit: -.5U

DFS:

Lineup breakdown from the $9 Slant:

• The above contains most of why I was so high on the Broncos offense and I can confirm my conviction of my narrative seeing just how minuscule ownership came out to be for the Broncos players. I had to double down on my Broncos idea, I thought.

• But as we talk about every week, in DFS I’m also looking for a narrow distribution of touches. Even better is when a matchup is a pass-funnel, great against the run, poor against the pass. This often leads to more pass attempts which leads to more yards and fantasy goodness.  And with Jeudy and Hamler out this Broncos team all of a sudden had a narrow distribution of touches. This was a perfect storm.

• My block here needed about 83 points to 4x salary(with upside for more) and keep me on a pace for 200 points which would put me in the upper tier of tournaments. If Bridgewater threw for 300 yds and a couple scores and I thought this had a decent shot for reasons mentioned above, it was going to flow through these guys, and they would easily hit this 4x+(20-30 from TD's, 15-20 rec, 25+ from rec yards, 12+ from passing yds plus a likely 6 from bonuses). At minimal ownership I loved this spot that the field was wildly overlooking.  

• Montgomery and Hubbard were both underpriced playing 80% of the snaps in decent matchups. They were also both seeing receiving work which I thought would add at least 4-6 points to their floor. And there wasn’t too much above them I loved, so I was gonna take some floor here.

• Metcalf and Adams: stud WR’s with big roles and big red zone roles in spots I thought the offenses would score. Bet on good players in good spots with massive upside.

• Profit in DFS/slant: 1->$0

Lessons+recap:

• I loved this lineup and Broncos block and would play it the same way if I had to do it over again. Sure Teddy missed some throws in the 1st half, but I will be left wondering if he could have righted the ship in the 2nd half should he have been given the opportunity.

• I think the disparity between my prediction game and my week was likely because I was a bit too overexposed to the Broncos and I did not have enough conviction to pull the trigger on some underdogs ML bets. Good learning!

That's all for this week! Thanks for reading and I look forward to being back in this space next week!

As always you can find my football ideas on the TL @throwthedamball