Week 6 Leveraging Tails & Matchups

Hi all, running very low on time on a week with holiday and with sundown getting earlier each week. Waiting on some SGP lines here so going to start with the Leveraging Tails & Matchup Angles tonight. As usual, want to get this out before going offline tonight so apologies for the inevitable typos and will be back with the rest in the next 36 hours.

Leveraging Tails

Bets: TB Alts

Let us begin, as usual, by looking at the team fundamentals and understanding how this is priced so we can set the tone for our analysis

Here we have a chart courtesy of PFF’s Timo Riske outlining team strengths where the Bucs have the slight overall edge from a fundamentals point of view on the backs of a better offense but where the teams are roughly even. EPA, EDP other metrics will reveal a similar story. And with Purdy certainly an upgrade over Jones, with some injury uncertainty as well and we can see how the market has arrived at the pricing for this game.

But even from a fundamentals point of view, there is room to bias the Buccaneers here. Inpredict, a source that uses totals and lookahead markets to derive team strengths, has this 49ers as the 9th best defense in the NFL.

But this is a defense that without Nick Bosa has struggled. Consider that not only are the 49ers losing Nick Bosa and his 86 PFF grade, but now by virtue of being the receipt of double teams, Bryce Huff on the other sides production tanks as well. The result is a 49ers defense with its lowest quick pressure rates of the season while allowing their opponents to a 0.2 and 0.31 EPA/Play marks. This is not a top defense given the injuries. Of course, our goal here is not to only backfill with past data but also project forward to beat markets to the information.