Point Blank – October 14
What a “Bettor Better Know” – NFL #6
The NFL Week that Was, and some key items that you can incorporate into your own thought processes as the season unfolds…
Item: Correlations, Pick-Sixes, and Cursing
Ask any bookmaker the worst phrase that they know and it is unlikely to be a profanity, but instead the dreaded “correlation parlay”. It is that sequence when a sporting event brings a prohibitive favorite against an underdog that is offensively challenged, and creates a setting in which the house advantage on two-team parlays gets perilously close to being flat, perhaps even an overlay. When the Line and Total are in certain ranges, the tandems of Favorite & Over and Underdog & Under genuinely alter the odds.
The logic is easy to understand – if the pointspread is high, and a game is going to play Under the Total, it means that the chances of the underdog having covered are increased. If you like the Under, you can add in the dog as part of a parlay, knowing that a low-scoring game has reduced the favorite to a tight window. And even more popular is the notion that if a game goes Over, and the matchup involved an underdog without punch, it meant that the favorite did the scoring to break that Total.
Fortunately for most stores these days (and unfortunately for the player), those opportunities are reduced – the modern NFL is both more competitive, and higher-scoring, which limits those correlations. But the last two days were most unique, with three Pick-Sixes in the final seconds of play producing Favorite and Over pay-outs. Two of the three, Arizona and San Francisco, did not fit the “correlation” model, thought they still stung the House. But that was not the case when Denver traveled to the Meadowlands to face the struggling Jets on Sunday. Throughout the week the Broncos were mostly around -8, with the Total at 47 or 47.5, and naturally the line on the side crept up on game day. The game was clearly in the danger zone – Denver and Over had a lot of correlation attached. If the final score was going to reach 48 or higher, what were the odds of Geno Smith and the New York offense contributing 20 or more points to the proceedings?
I had wondered how much jeopardy was going to show for the sports books, but wanted to wait until the game was safely in, so that I would not catch anyone still sweating it out. So when the Jets were down to the final seconds trailing 24-17, it was time to catch up with Bob “should five percent appear too small, be thankful I don’t take it all” Scucci, Race & Sports Director for Boyd Gaming, to congratulate him on having those Denver tickets about to crash. It was going to be a good House result not only off of straight wagers, but huge for the parlay cards. I got through to him just as the Jets were getting ready for their final snap, and he told me to hang on for a second, since he still had something to do with his supervisors. Then I heard him, and a few other voices I can recognize, leading a cheer in their office that you have probably heard before from the Meadowlands (though rarely, in recent years) -
J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets!
J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets!
J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, sonofa$%#*&@!!!
The last part is not jumbled because it wasn’t discernible; it was jumbled because this is a proper forum. Smith threw his final pass to Aqib Talib, who chose not to genuflect, and it all came crashing down. Pay the Broncos. Pay the Over. And most important, pay the Broncos and Over two-teamers. The most popularly played correlation of the week, and one of the most popular of the early NFL season, had come in. And all Scooch could do, with a suddenly subdued and hoarse voice, was lament that there is not much that can be done about it – “The correlation parlay is a big headache. We limit parlays on games where there is a big spread and a low total. The hard part is educating the general public on why we don’t take big bets on those certain wagers.”
Across Las Vegas, there were seismic levels of cheers when that Pick-Six took place, with another property saying that the swing from that final play was well into the six figures. And at the time it also created a major sweat for the later kickoffs – with Denver capping a good early session for the favorites, there was dread as Seattle and San Diego took the field. But Seattle lost outright, turning many parlay cards into confetti, and also destroying teasers and money line parlays, while the Chargers also failed to cover. The “exotics” that could have piled up huge were extinguished, but in 2014 there is another aspect to those exotics in play…
Item: And Cards are not just for special occasions
There has been much written here about how unusual the 2014 Betting Markets have been, especially on NFL Sundays. Games run in a straight line without being turned back around, including crossing through key numbers. It means adjustments to traditional patterns have to be made, and one of those is from a most unlikely aspect for those really trying to beat the game – searching out parlay cards on Sunday’s.
The cards used to be an afterthought. The lines tend to be conservative, with the books trying to paint them in the middle to avoid the risk of any particular games being keyed on, and the notion that enough value could be found on three or more teams on the same card to make it worthwhile found little support in practice. But that is changing, with a volatile Sunday marketplace on the live boards.
An hour to kickoff, Buffalo was -1 over New England, but you still could have had the Bills +3 on parlay cards. Green Bay was -1 at Miami, but there were cards that had the Dolphins at +3.5. And this has been happening with regularity, so much that those in Scucci’s position are dealing with something rarely seen in the past – “We have never had such big line movements in the NFL. There is a betting segment that is making a nice living off of parlay cards right now. They know that the cards are printed before the moves, and they know what the moves are going to be. So, they are getting 1-2 points better on every game, and keying them on parlay cards where they are getting long odds. There are huge overlays. Just think, if you are able to buy a point or two on every single game, and instead of having to lay -120, or -130, you are actually GETTING (his emphasis was pretty clear on that word) +110 and +120 on each game.”
If you are in Las Vegas on a football weekend, and you see the board jumping the way it has been, do not neglect the stale numbers that the cards provide – with the right edges, there will be times when you have an advantage at the payout odds. Getting those cards accepted has unfortunately become a contentious issue at some properties, but that will be its own topic when the time is right. Now back to the field of play…
Item: On Newton, and those Laws of Football Physics
While there were few moments this NFL season that caused the level of cheering as that Broncos/Jets finish, there was something much more earth-shaking on Sunday in terms of handicapping the remainder of the campaign – Cam Newton ran the ball 17 times, for 107 yards and a TD. Sometimes it is amazing how Newton gets lost in the shuffle when the budding young stars of the NFL are discussed. His senior year at Auburn may go into the annals as the best college season any player ever had, and when he is fully unleashed, he can also be as good as anyone at the NFL level (yes, as good as anyone). So both the level, and style, of his performance at Cincinnati on Sunday require a serious second look.
In four quarters and one OT possession the Panthers rang up 37 points, 29 first downs and 431 yards, on the road against a good defense. They did that with only Fozzy Whitaker and Darrin Reaves available at RB, those two managing only 2.4 per carry, and a WR corps that is near the league bottom. Yet Newton carried that limited supporting cast on his back to nearly pull off the upset.
Was it truly a Carolina offensive scheme shift to have him run less to protect against injury earlier in the season, or was it a reaction to the injury he already had? He only had 14 carries prior to Sunday. But not only was he running more against the Bengals, he was also running smart – the angles on a lot of the read-option looks enabled him to run towards a hole and then slide, avoiding contact when possible. OC Mike Shula had said during the week that more running wrinkles were being added to the game plan, now that he was back to health, and Ron Rivera summed it up this way afterwards – “He’s our franchise quarterback, And we waited, we took our time. He did everything he was asked to do in preparation for today. Today was as good a day as it could have been. I don’t want to declare him back because I’m not the doctor, but I think he’s pretty close.”
If there is going to be that willingness to have Newton carry the ball going forward, this offense goes under the microscope for some quick re-examination. And as the RB corps gets healthy, some of those early-season results should not carry much weight at all.
Item: Matt Forte got 27 touches
It would be easy to refer to Jay Cutler’s showing against Atlanta on Sunday as a redemption game for him, with the second-highest passing yardage total of his career, and no turnovers, after the Bears gave the ball away five times on nine possessions in the second half of their L2 games. And that, of course, will garner most of the headlines –
“Jay Cutler makes no mistakes, leads Bears to huge victory” (Chicago-Sun Times)
“Jay Cutler throws for team personal best; Bears flatten Falcons” (Sun-Times)
“Trestman: Cutler ‘played a complete game’” (Chicago Tribune)
“Going deep makes most of Cutler’s arm, offense” (Tribune)
But there may have been an underlying cause that was a more important – the fact that they rode Matt Forte. Forte had 17 carries from scrimmage for 80 yards, and also caught 10 passes for 77 more. On 27 of 69 snaps, he ended up with the ball. That kept the offense grounded, literally, slowing the pace (despite having the highest lined Total by far, the game tied San Diego/Oakland for the lowest play count of the week), creating better down-and-distance settings, and helping Cutler by limiting the number of decisions he had to make.
This direction will be worth following in the weeks ahead, and also keep in mind that Sunday brings an * because of the Atlanta defense. Did you see how the Lions handled Teddy Bridgewater? Connect those dots, and the Falcon defensive grade continues to be rather ominous. But let’s still credit that Chicago offensive direction with Forte taking more of a lead; there is logic to that, and it will be worth following.
Item: The Cowboys may have played the best game anyone has all season
The odds of winning on the road in the NFL are extremely low when you are -1 in the turnover count, and allow a special teams TD. If you have to overcome those issues in Seattle, the odds of winning shrink to a microscopic level. But Dallas overcame that, and in doing so the Cowboys played some of the best football of the 2014 season. For as well as they had already been playing, this was a big step.
The final counts were 23-9 in first downs and 401-206 in total offense. Those are simply stunning numbers, against that opponent on that field. And once again there was a genuine key to make it happen – this time around Dallas has a plan, and sticks to it. This first came up after the Cowboys rallied to win at St. Louis in Week #3, when they stayed in focus and ran the ball despite falling down big early (“The Cowboys rode their Horse(s)” - /pregame-forums/f/14/t/1046377.aspx). On Sunday their composure was again put directly to the test, falling behind 10-0 midway through the first quarter, but they did not flinch – the first two plays of the ensuing drives were DeMarco Murray runs between the tackles, and five of the nine plays on an 80-yard TD march were handoffs to RBs.
For the game Dallas ran it 37 times for 162 yards, making life much easier for Tony Romo – of his 33 drop-backs, there was only one sack, and no INTs. It also led to 37:39 of possession time, which made life much easier for a defense that only had to take on 48 Seattle snaps. But do not sleep on that unit because of those low snap counts – they held the Seahawks, who had been averaging 6.0 per play entering the game, to just 4.3, and had Russell Wilson noticeably uncomfortable throughout. Was Monte Kiffin really that bad?
Item: When Cover 2, Covers None
Tomorrow there will be a discussion about a key handicapping principle – “The 800-Yard Field”, and Baltimore’s win over Tampa Bay is a good set-up for the topic. Sometimes it is truly difficult to measure how badly a defense was dominated in a game, because the goal line kept making tackles. That happened on Sunday.
No, the goal line does not actually trip up ball carriers. But it serves as the statistical 12th man, limiting just how much a defense can allow. And sometimes a group is simply so befuddled in a matchup that the performance of the goal line as a defender needs to be incorporated into your thought processes. The Ravens gained 283 yards and scored five TDs on their first 24 snaps, taking a 35-0 lead just 16:03 into the game. But it was only 283 because on five of the plays the rules of football forced the statisticians to stop counting. Joe Flacco opened 10-13-196 and five TDs, and half of those completions had their yardage counts limited.
It is pertinent to football handicapping in general, but it really matters to Tampa Bay in particular. The two worst first half performances by any defense this season were the Bucs vs. Atlanta and Matt Ryan, and vs. the Ravens and Flacco. Both of those final scores could have been much worse had the teams with the big leads not backed off. Why has it been so bad, with respected defensive minds like Lovie Smith and Leslie Frazier on board? First you can blame injuries, which took away CB Mike Jenkins and Adrian Clayborn for the season, and DT Gerald McCoy, DE Michael Johnson and MLB Mason Foster for multiple games. Then you can add the adjustments to the new Cover 2 schemes, and this is where it gets interesting.
Take a look at the following quotes about the playbook, and note that they came before the Buccaneers took the field against the Ravens on Sunday. From LB Lamonte David – “It is a lot more intricate than people realize. Each guy has a different zone to protect, but certain passing routes change the way you fit up the zones … There’s a lot of little details, and there are still some kinks that we have to fix, particularly before the snap and things like that.” And from Pro Bowl CB Alterraun Verner – “This is a completely different type of Cover 2 scheme. They’re asking me to do some things here that I’ve never done before in my entire football career.”
Those comments were a prelude to what happened vs. Flacco and the Baltimore receivers. A team that is on pace to give up more points than any in the history of the NFL, badly needs a bye week, and that is what they have coming up. Will practice time be enough to fix the holes? Ordinarily a team on a break can be comfortably ignored during their practice week, but this is a situation worth following.
Item: The Lions have missed 10 Field Goals
There has been more good news than bad through the first six Detroit games, with the Lions showing a much better discipline and purpose under Jim Caldwell. Take particular note that in controlling the Vikings throughout there were only 40 penalty yards, the fourth time this season it has been 40 or fewer. And an offense that had to go without Calvin Johnson and Reggie Bush did what it needed to do – no turnovers, letting the defense dominate. But there is a continuing dark cloud, which makes a power rating a bit awkward. No matter who has attempted FGs in a Detroit uniform, they have missed far too often.
This week it was Matt Prater in the role, and while he made a 52-yarder, he also missed from 44 and 50. That makes it 5-15 on the season, and this is after no team missed 10 attempts in all of 2013. Now consider the impact – all other FG attempts this season have been made at an 86.8 percent clip. With a “league average” performance in that category, the Lions would have made 13-15, which represents 24 added points over their six games. Naturally there is also the impact that turning those misses into makes would have had on game flows (and of course they would likely have beaten Buffalo to be 5-1), but that is difficult to measure.
So how to adjust? Even after Sunday’s failures, Prater has an 80.8 percent career rate, which is not bad considering that 29 of his 177 attempts were beyond 50 yards (that happens, when you kick for Denver). In 2013 he set the Bronco all-time season record for scoring, going 25-26, but was dropped after failing the league’s substance abuse policy. Should he be expected to match the league average? Yes, especially with his home games in a dome. So to properly rate the Detroit offense, it would not be wrong to correct for some of those earlier misses. The inefficient FG success rate was an anomaly, not a genuine team weakness.
Item: Time for some injury adjustments
The Giants lost Victor Cruz. The Browns Alex Mack. The Patriots Jerod Mayo and Stevan Ridley, now only getting a short week to made their adjustments. There is some tweaking to be done in the power ratings, and that will be a key topic for Wednesday, so that the Tuesday practice sessions can be used as a base for further analysis.
Vegas…
Time to continue the series of “Monday’s with the Review-Journal”, with the usual proclamation up front that there may not be a better morning-after NFL review sports section to be found. So Monday lunch means time to back away from the desk, once the openers have settled down, and find a place to spread the box score page to do some post-mortem procedures. This week it was a return to a true favorite, Los Molcajetes, at 1553 North Eastern (the southwest corner of Eastern and Owens). You won’t hear much about the place from the tourist crowd because of the out-of-the-way location, but it is well-known by aficionado’s of genuine Mexican cuisine.
The namesake dish is a “molcajete”, a large stone bowl that many of the dishes are cooked, and then consumed, in. And that is what you will want. You will get a large portion of your chosen protein (chicken, beef, shrimp, or a combination of the three), in a fiery chile/tomato broth that also includes radishes, spring onions, jalapeños, avocado, fresh tomato, nopales, limes and cotija cheese. There will be a stack of tortillas along side, for combining the ingredients into a taco form to eat, and also to wipe out the bowl of every drop of the liquid. These are for days when you do not mind getting some food stains on those box scores, and for some friendly advice do not wear a good shirt or anything white – that sauce will not come out. Los Molcajetes is a gem far from the limelight of the Strip, having stood the test of time since opening back in the late 90’s, and with each step through the door it is hard to not fondly remember matriarch Odilia Arce Benitez, who passed away back in autumn of 2010. The kitchen and the service staff are doing her memory proud.