Point Blank – September 16
What a “Bettor Better Now” – NFL #2
The NFL Week that Was, and things you can incorporate into your own thought processes as the season unfolds…
Item: “What the Hell’s going on out there?”
Through the wonders of NFL films and their archives, you have likely seen where the above reference comes from many times – a frustrated Vince Lombardi, yelling out to no one in particular. And that is the way that a lot of folks in the betting markets may be feeling right now. The first two weeks of the NFL have been filled with many unexpected outcomes, to the point at which the average margin between the pointspread and the final score has been 11.4 points, more than 40 percent above the historical norm. There have been more underdogs covering and winning outright than past ratios, and games falling outside of the Teaser boundaries are also up. It has added up in a way that has been awfully good for The House, with a unanimous sentiment that the opening two weeks have been the best such cycle ever for Nevada Sports Books.
To put this into perspective it was time to contact Jay Kornegay, long-time head honcho of the Westgate Superbook (the new name is still not rolling off the tongue, or the keyboard, yet), who is keeping his usual steady demeanor – “The bettors will have their winning days. The question is when.” More from Jay to come, particularly in tomorrow’s column, a case study of New England/Minnesota, and some emerging 2014 market patterns.
Then off to track down Bob “But tomorrow may rain, so I’ll follow the sun” Scucci, Sports Book Director for Boyd Gaming. It took a little longer to get Scooch on the line, with the supervisor that answered the phone in his office saying something about him “speaking to a Venetian” on his cell. I thought perhaps he was making restaurant reservations at Cut or Delmonico, something certainly affordable for a Las Vegas bookmaker these days, so I told the supervisor to just set the phone down, and I would wait.
It was difficult to figure out what was going on at first until I realized that Bob was speaking in Italian, and apparently not to someone on the Strip, but to someone actually in Venice. My Italian is not very good, but I still tried to get the gist, and it sounded like Scooch was ordering some intricate hand-made tile to be created for his master bath suite. And I did jot down the last sentence word-for-word, which a friend translated for me later in the day, roughly along the lines of - “One more Sunday like this, and you can fly a crew over and do a whole mosaic on my patio, maybe something early-Roman”. That is how good it has been for The House.
Once his remodeling plans were out of the way it was time to talk football again, and we got into the particulars of how meandering results do cause for some reflection; does it become more difficult to anticipate public action when the bettors may be a little confused? From Scucci – “I think it is definitely a little harder setting the lines, especially when big popular favorites like the Saints and Seahawks lose outright. The worst thing we could do as Vegas bookmakers now is over-adjust our pre-season rating … I know that the bettors will have a great week when everything goes their way. These kind of hold percentages can not hold up.” And Kornegay was also adamant about not over-adjusting – “I think it will all level out by the time it’s all said and done."
There will be more from each of them tomorrow, but for now let’s turn the focus to what we can do, and find opportunities inside of those lines -
Item: Rob Ryan, and the Saints defense, under pressure
Though the reputation remained offense-first, the Saints were a good defense in 2013, #9 overall on the Football Outsiders weighted charts. Much of that credit went to Rob Ryan, despite the fact that the improvements did not necessarily come the way he drew it up on the board – those more aggressive schemes only came up with 19 takeaways. But given that decent showing, and with Drew Brees and the offense more than capable of winning a game in February, there was a lot of optimism heading into 2014.
The Saints have opened the season with the offense playing well, if not great. In week #1 at Atlanta, Brees led a 71-yard drive for a TD to take a 34-31 lead with 1:20 remaining. The defense could not hold it, with Atlanta driving 47 yards to set up a FG that tied the game, which the Falcons went on to win in OT. On Sunday the defense again took the field with a chance to win the game on the final possession, with a 24-23 lead and the Browns pinned at their own 4-yard line with 2:46 remaining. But 14 plays and 85 yards later it was Billy Cundiff lining up for a FG, which he made to give Cleveland the win. Here are the Browns that touched the ball on the final drive, in order: Brian Hoyer, Terrance West, Miles Austin, Taylor Gabriel, Gary Barnidge, and Andrew Hawkins. Those six players combined for all of eight NFL starts in 2013, and West, Gabriel and Hawkins are all rookies. But march down the field they did.
After the Browns converted on a third-down play for the initial first down of the drive, Sean Payton and Ryan could be seen arguing on the sidelines, although Payton later discounted that it was anything out of the ordinary. But when asked about the breakdown on what was the biggest play of the drive, a 28-yard completion from Hoyer to a wide-open Hawkins, Payton was rather succinct - “You gotta be able to handle bunch. You gotta be able to handle receiver motion. I mean, shoot, when you play man-to-man like we do, you’re gonna get that … We ended up with a holding call on the play that they declined, but again, it's little things like that that are troubling." The defense screwed up twice on that play, leaving one receiver wide open, and holding another. Ryan was even more blunt - "These communication errors can't keep happening. Or we're just killing the team right now. We know we're solely responsible for the two losses that we have.”
In a manageable NFC South, the Saints can overcome an 0-2. But it is not too early to once again question the acumen of Ryan, who has had a fawning ride from the Sports Mediaverse. He spent nine seasons as a DC before coming to New Orleans, with the Raiders, Browns and Cowboys. Here were the finishes on the Football Outsiders adjusted defensive ratings: 29, 18, 8, 26, 19, 30, 22, 20 and 30. Now after 10 seasons as a DC his defense has only finished above the league average twice, and in three of those campaigns they were precariously close to the bottom. Could it possibly be that after the appearance of improvement in 2013, the Saints instead might have instead over-achieved a bit, and that Ryan simply is not what his reputation makes him appear to be?
Item: About being 0-2
As mentioned above, the NFC South is manageable for the Saints. As is the AFC South for the 0-2 Colts. But naturally on Tuesday morning we can all read the annual doomsday scenarios about what a bad start means in terms of the playoffs. This was taken from one of the highest traffic sites out there, regarding the Colts - "The statistics don’t favor the Colts (0-2) when it comes to making the playoffs. Only 12 percent of the teams that started 0-2 have made the playoffs under the current playoff format, which began in 1990".
That sort of notation gets absorbed through the mind quickly, largely because it seemingly has logic. But the thinking is flawed – it is not that being 0-2 is such a mountain to overcome, but that those columns are filled with teams that simply were not any good, and were not heading to the playoffs anyway. 0-2 can certainly mean that you stink; but if you are good it is actually only a mole hill. Both the Saints and Colts are just a couple of bounces from being 2-0, and if anything this could be a “buy low” week for Indianapolis, if you see some silly adjustments made in the Future’s Markets.
Item: Buffalo, and “Layering”
Want to have some fun with an exercise that can be an early eye-opener? Consider “Layering”, and piecing puzzles together that can show things in a different light. What the process involves is taking a team’s early results, and looking at all connections. It is certainly not fool-proof, and like most approaches is subject to pendulums that will swing back after they have gone too far. But it does provide some food for thought, particularly with the early showing from the Bills. So try these progressions:
Group A:
St. Louis 19 Tampa Bay 17
Minnesota 34 St. Louis 6
New England 30 Minnesota 3
Miami 33 New England 20
Buffalo 20 Miami 10
Group B:
Tennessee 26 Kansas City 10
Dallas 26 Tennessee 10
San Francisco 28 Dallas 17
Chicago 28 San Francisco 20
Buffalo 23 Chicago 20
Get it? Those first two Buffalo wins do require more than a surface glance. Yes, there are still holes in terms of being able to consistently mount drives (the Dolphins and Bears ran 28 more plays), and the offense in the red zone was ugly on Sunday. But the ground game can be decent; Sammy Watkins could be just what the doctor ordered for E.J. Manuel; and the defense has come up with six sacks and three INTs. There is genuine potential. The problem on the immediate horizon is that they are running into one heckuva coach…
Item: Appreciating Mike McCoy
Mike McCoy is really good. Learn to grasp that now. There are not many better offensive minds in the game, and what is perhaps the most important is that McCoy is not a “system” guy, but rather a “football” guy. He takes the pieces that are available, and does a superb job of bringing them together. Consider his handling of journeyman Kyle Orton in 2009 and 2010 - 7,455 passing yards with 41 TDs. Then look at 2011, when the Denver offense went through an overhaul and led the league in rushing, and McCoy managed to get a team with Tim Tebow at QB into the playoffs! The gears had to be shifted yet again in 2012, albeit shifting up instead of down this time, and the McCoy/Manning union was superb.
That was enough for other teams to come knocking, and after interviewing for five different HC jobs, McCoy ended up in San Diego. The Chargers were #24 in offensive efficiency in 2012, using the Football Outsiders tables, but McCoy took them all the way to #2 in his first season, building a ball control scheme that fit the available personnel like a glove. But ball control does not necessarily bring sex appeal, and the betting markets have been slow to catch on.
San Diego has only been favored in 14 of the 20 McCoy games, but take a look at those other 14 – as either pick’em or an underdog it has been a 10-3-1 ATS run. Half of those covers were also outright wins, and the Chargers are +80.5 ATS in the McCoy era, a pinch more than four full points per game. Over the past five regular season games they have beaten the Broncos and Seahawks, the two Super Bowl teams, outright.
Go back and look at the tape from Sunday and the game plan was superb, despite facing the best defense in the league, and with a short week of practice to prepare. The Chargers held the ball for 75 plays and 42:15, to just 40 and 17:45 for Seattle, with no turnovers and only three punts. But in particular look at the three TD passes from Philip Rivers to Antonio Gates – all three times they managed to get Gates isolated on a Seahawks LB. On a couple of them Rivers made big-time throws to finish the plays, but McCoy helped to get those pieces into the right place on the chess board to make it happen. The right coaching fit for a team that do that. Which leads us to an emerging situation in Cincinnati…
Item: Hue Jackson, Andy Dalton, and the Bengal Offense
The conversation on this topic began here back in the pre-season, when there was a projection that the Jackson playbook would be a far better fit for Dalton and the Bengal skill players than their previous designs. There was some promise on the field in August, and it is showing even more now that the games count for real.
The Bengals are loaded with weapons, and Dalton can be an upper tier NFL QB, even if falling short of the top shelf. The key is for an offense to rely on Dalton’s cerebral skills to get the ball more quickly out to the playmakers, and not necessarily his physical skills. So Cincinnati is playing faster, good decisions are being made, and better results are coming from those decisions.
It would be easy to use the bottom line – a 105.4 passer rating for Dalton (88.8 LY, after 87.4 and 80.4 his first two in the league), and 231 rushing yards from the emerging one-two RB combination of Giovani Bernard and Jeremy Hill. But perhaps we learn more from a different viewpoint - how about 472 yards at 6.8 per play vs. Atlanta, without A. J. Green ever touching the ball! Green was injured early in that game, but Jackson and the offense adjusted well.
It is one thing to theorize about what we believe we are seeing, but it is another matter when the players themselves feel it, and are buying into it. This post-game comment from Bernard is meaningful - "We have a lot of guys who can do a lot of great things, and Hue Jackson just puts us in the right positions.”
Item: Those flat Bronco 2nd Half showings
Here is why we are all supposed to like the Broncos at home – they have the depth of talent to go hard for four quarters, and by establishing early leads through the precision of that offense, they not only take opponents out of much of their playbooks, they can also wear them down at the Denver altitude.
And so much for that. The Broncos have been out-scored 24-10 in the second half of their first two games, and instead of putting away the opposition they were hanging on for dear life each time at the end. There have been failures on both sides of the ball. The only TD for the offense came on a 48-yard drive; the FG followed a KO return set them up at the Kansas City 46-yard line. Meanwhile the defense has allowed TD drives of 90, 80 and 45, and survived several others – the Colts and Chiefs combined for three first-and-goal settings that did not produce a point.
On Sunday Kansas City opened the second half with a 19-play drive that used up 10:00, but ended without points despite a first-and-goal at the 4-yard line. The next possession went 90 for a TD, and the third and final drive led to a first-and-goal at the 9-yard line that perished on fourth down. The Chiefs did not punt in the second half, despite being without Jamaal Charles, who was done for the day before 6:00 had elapsed. In the opener the Colts only punted once in the second half, did not score after reaching the 1-yard-line, and had two other drives into Denver territory end without points.
On paper, the Denver defense looked better entering this season. In reality, the Broncos have not been able to get off the field in the second half, despite having double-figure leads at intermission, and having opponents forced to play with a degree of desperation. If that happens at home with big leads, it raises questions as they head to the road for the first time, especially with Russell Wilson sporting a 114.7 passer rating, and the Seahawks averaging 6.3 yards per rush, through the first two games.
Vegas: Monday’s with the Review-Journal
The Las Vegas Review-Journal takes a lot of abuse, much of it deserved, and there is no particular need here to go through that laundry list (the Dead Sea Scrolls would be shorter). But how about this – on Monday’s in football season, there may not be a better newspaper anywhere if you want good NFL recaps. There are over five full pages devoted to coverage, all laid out well, including getting 12 box scores on the same page (with the remainder on the next facing page). It leads to a weekly ritual – after Saturdays and Sundays are spent in front of the screens, once the early markets have settled out on Monday morning it means time for a lunch break away from the desk, and to spread the RJ box-scores page out across a table and begin making notes.
This week was Nem Nuong Bistro (4631 Spring Mountain Road), a new player to the Las Vegas scene, from the respected folks of Brodard’s, a long-time standard in the “Little Saigon” area of Orange County, CA. And if you know Brodard’s, you know it is about spring rolls first and foremost (the literal translation of “Nem Nuong” is a spring roll). They do several different kinds, and there is a full menu of Vietnamese standards, but for a lunch sampler you can get a combination order of the grilled pork rolls (Nem Nuong Cuon) and the Shrimp spring rolls (Chao Tom Cuon), plus that wonderful sauce for dipping, and take a leisurely stroll through those box scores. And for afterwards, you are right across the street from Ronald’s Donuts, a place that has been around long enough to be genuinely labelled as iconic. Most of their products are vegan, but you would never know from the taste, and so many items in their glass case are the ideal finish after a spice-laden Asian lunch along that corridor (soy cream is a great way to cleanse the palate).