Point Blank – January 24, 2017
What a Bettor Better Know – NFL Conference Championships…Perhaps the Northwestern researchers were bothered a bit by jet lag themselves…Tonight in South Bend Irish eyes may be smiling…
The anticipated high drama of the NFL conference championships never really unfolded, the only mystery left in the latter stages of each game was whether they would reach the posted Totals (to the chagrin of most of the world’s bookmakers, they did). It leaves us with a most compelling matchup for Super Bowl 51, a New England team that is no stranger to the stage, and once again has managed to elevate football wisdom and guile to a high level, vs. an Atlanta team that has made one of the greatest single-season elevations in the annals of the sport. If we use our friends at The Gold Sheet as a neutral observer, the current Falcon power rating is 10 full points above where they closed the 2015 season.
What can be learned from Sunday’s blowouts? I believe something for both the short-term, that being the only game left on the schedule, but also in getting back to something that was made a focus point when the playoffs started – while most of my betting lifetime has been spent thinking defense-first in the NFL post-season, we may truly be entering into a new era. The Sunday victors scored 80 points and gained 934 yards. Want some perspective? In 2011 all four teams in the conference championships combined to score 77 points in regulation, and it 2010 it was 78.
So let’s look back to Sunday both in terms of Super Bowl 51, and also altering strategies for what is becoming a changing sport. Since there is a lot to sort through I will plug in the jukebox for some background, the 2,500 word threshold having been passed, and if a key to the Tuesday portfolio will be getting Notre Dame home, let’s tie it in with an old classic, Van Morrison and The Band with a little Irish lullaby, from that epic night at Winterland that was the foundation for “The Last Waltz” –
Item: The Falcons offense made it look so damn easy
The Atlanta offensive production has been enough of a them over the latter part of the season that I don’t want not get too redundant here, but let’s at least bring the base counts back into play to set some perspective:
PPG YPP
Falcons 33.8 6.7
2016 NFL 22.8 5.5
To average 11 points per game more than an average team, and 1.2 yards per play, is substantial, yet that only tells part of the story – it absolutely must be factored in that Matt Ryan and company did that against the #2 rated slate of defenses. In particular was a schedule draw that had them on the road for non-conference games against three times that finished in the Top 10 according to Football Outsiders, led by a trip #1 Denver.
This is a combination of both outstanding talent and outstanding tactics, and the brilliance of those numbers does not include the fact that Julio Jones was not 100 percent for much of the regular season. He is sure as hell there now, with 15 catches for 247 yards and three TDs in the two playoff wins, helping Matt Ryan put together the rather sublime line of 53-75-730-7, with no interceptions.
There need not be much said about the Green Bay defense, which needs to upgrade personnel to be playing in late January of 2018, but now a real question to occupy the minds over the next little while – how good is the Atlanta defense at this stage? One of the focus points in breaking Packers/Falcons down last week was the youth of that unit, which starts five players that are in their first or second NFL season, and it becomes six when in their nickel packages.
Just how much has this group grown over the course of the season? Some food for thought here from Dan Quinn: “The more you play together and gain experience together, the faster you can play. We’re playing faster now than we did earlier in the season. Our speed hasn’t changed, we didn’t go lower our 40 times, but because of our communication, because of the style and attitude that we’re able to play with, we’re able to play faster.”
You know what this means, of course, and it is a topic here often – the full-season Atlanta defensive statistics won’t paint a proper portrait because a lot of those numbers are now stale. So much for having a “clean database” of 18 games to work with. Here is what does matter – you just aren’t going to beat the Patriots with a zone defense these days unless you have a superb pass rush. The Falcons don’t have a superb rush. There may not be any possible zone combination that Brady has not see through the years (more on that in a moment), and he will consistently audible into the a play that will exploit the holes. But the New England WR corps is only a good one, not a great one, so if an opponent dares to go man-to-man, there may be the opportunity to make an occasional stop.
Hence looking ahead to the game in Houston also means noting that the Falcons showed both zone and man-to-man vs. Green Bay. More from Quinn: “And the four underneath guys, when we play zone, that's good. We played a lot of man-to-man, too. So the guys outside knew they'd have to battle against these receivers. But we thought that would be the best way for us to play our best. We certainly challenge those guys and couldn't have been more proud of them."
The Football Outsiders rated this defense #22 on the full-season counting. They are better than that; the question between now and Super Bowl kickoff is how much better, because they have quite the matchup ahead…
Item: The Patriots offense made it look so damn easy
The box score for Patriots/Steelers certainly does not lie – Brady going 32-42 for 384 yards and three TDs, with no interceptions, was so very real. If anything the NE passing game might have been even better than the numbers can show, because so many of the completions were easy pitch-and-catch opportunities in which there was little chance of a sack or an INT.
This was not news, of course, with one of the highlighted notions in the weekend edition being Brady’s history against the Mike Tomlin defense. Let’s update those numbers, now across seven games –
Att 257
Comp 185
Yards 2,273
TD 22
Int 0
PR 127.5
How does this happen against what has been a quality defense leading up to most of those encounters? Some of it is the fact that Brady is so good against zones in general, and the Patriots working inside of a framework that has brought the prototype of various personnel to have an option for whatever openings there are. In this game it was Chris Hogan running shockingly free for some big plays (9-180-2), but that was made possible by the presence of Julian Edelman working those underneath routes (8-118-1), and there were also five completions to TE Martellus Bennett, plus a half dozen to the RBs. While some QBs would fear the Pittsburgh defensive packages of the Tomlin era, Brady relishes the particular matchup.
There is more to see here than just a particular matchup; it is also the changing shape of the modern NFL. What made the Tomlin/Dick LeBeau/Keith Butler zone blitz schemes so effective in the past? There were two key dimensions. First was that by playing a zone, the pass rush buys an extra fraction of a second to get to the QB, the passer having to read the coverage instead of knowing that it was man-to-man. Second is that some of the supposed holes left in coverage could be negated by the defender making contact with the pass catcher and knocking the ball loose. The Patriots defeated the first element with timing, while the NFL has legislated the second out of the game.
Brady negated the pass rush with recognition and tempo. Only six of his 42 attempts went more than 15 yards down the field, the ball consistently getting out before the pass rush had a chance (although he did connect on five of those longer throws, for 139 yards). Let’s let the Steelers lay it out, first from LB Bud Dupree - “Brady started making a lot of good plays, started calling a lot of checks. He was quarterbacking the offense like he does, and we just didn't have an answer for it.”
And in terms of the pacing, let’s go to CB Artie Burns - “They were just able to get open. They tempo-ed us real good. Tom was able to get the ball out to his guys and they were able to catch the ball and run. And that's how they ended up getting us. Tom is who he is — he makes great plays, and he made great plays out there today.”
There is also something here that goes beyond Brady – that second aspect of the Pittsburgh scheme, and how relying on using contact to turn a completion into an incompletion is no longer a part of the modern NFL. The Steelers got flagged for personal foul penalties on hits vs. receivers in each of the last two playoff games, Sean Davis vs. Kansas City and Dupree at New England, both penalties helping to lead to scoring drives. Each would have likely been ruled a legal play a few years ago.
What was once a key part of the Pittsburgh defensive schemes is now something that Tomlin and his staff may need to transition away from. The Steelers did put up big defensive numbers down the stretch, but that was also a schedule cycle that was conducive to it, facing a series of bad QBs. For the full season there were only four games against QBs that finished in the Top 10 in Passer Rating, and those four compiled a 108.1 against them, with only four sacks in 147 drop-backs. For perspective, only two QBs finished with a season rate of better than 108.1, and they just happen to be the only two still playing.
And so much for that notion in terms of forward thinking. As for Super Bowl 51 the New England defense brings a conundrum much like Atlanta, but for different reasons. The sorting challenge is working through the numbers compiled and factoring them against a very weak schedule – after 18 games they have still not faced a QB that finished in the Top 10 in Passer Rating. The fundamentals are strong, but as for the abilities of the playmakers consider this – Ben Roethlisberger dropped back to pass 49 times on Sunday, and got hit once (no sacks).
There is a lot to see in the Super Bowl 51 matchup, so here is how I will play it – next Monday’s edition will focus in, and we can use that as the open thread right up to kickoff to bounce various ideas back and forth. For now the base price of New England -3 isn’t going anywhere, so it isn’t as though major opportunities in the marketplace will be missed between now and then.
Item: Some Hot Stove League banter
You are going to see a lot of headlines on the MLB front from researchers at the University of Northwestern that have brought forth a long-term study on jet-lag impacting player performances. That was brought up late in the Monday thread, and I will copy and paste that post into the first response block today to help sort through the hubbub. As is so often the case the headlines look for the sex appeal without actually digging into the study, and as it turns out there may not be much of anything there at all (some of the conclusions actually run counter to the headlines I am seeing this morning).
About Last Night, NBA…
There was also some back and forth late in the Monday thread about a most unique night on the NBA hardwoods, a setting in which eight of the nine underdogs won outright, and only one result finished within 11.5 points of the closing spread. It has produced one of the more interesting, and also likely futile, post-mortem sessions in many years, largely because some of the results were so far out of the ordinary. Instead of doing a lot of rehash here I will bring several of those particulars into the lead on Wednesday, with a 10-game NBA board allowing ample opportunity to discuss the eccentricities of the sport in general, and the 2016-17 season in particular.
In the Sights, Tuesday NCAA…
I don’t believe the markets are treating tonight’s ACC showdown in South Bend properly, and with +1 available across the board in the current trading there will be some #742 Notre Dame (8:00 Eastern) going into pocket. I believe the Fighting Irish are every bit as good as the Cavaliers, and may be targeting this game as much as any on their schedule this season, while bringing the savvy and poise to make such a focused effort hold up.
Mike Brey’s team has gone 0-4 SU and ATS vs. Virginia since joining the conference, and he is open about it - “We have a very focused upperclass group that has had their butts beat by Virginia a bunch. We’re playing a team that we’ve had no answers for.”
I believe the answers are there – Notre Dame is among the few teams that are not bothered tactically by the Virginia tempo, but in those past matchups the Cavaliers were simply more physical. That isn’t the case now. Keyed by some of those upperclassmen, Bonzie Colson and V. J. Beachem, the Fighting Irish have elevated from a soft #158 in defensive efficiency last season to the current #62, and are doing a much better job at clearing the boards. Colson has lost enough times to Virginia to understand what it takes for a turnaround - “That’s something that’s going to be the most important thing, for us to be locked in mentally and understand that if our offense doesn’t go well, we have to focus on our defense. We have to get kills, have to get rebounds and outlets. If we can get rebounds and outlets with one-and-dones, it’s hard for them to set up in their defense.”
I also see Virginia as bringing some vulnerabilities this season. The tempo and defense have not changed, but this time Tony Bennett does not have great end-game scorers to rely on, London Perrantes leading the team at just 11.6 ppg. And if it is indeed close late the major gap in FT shooting can matter, the Irish leading the nation at 82.1 percent, while the Cavaliers are a below average 69.4.
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