Point Blank – November 25
What a “Bettor Better Know” – NFL #12
The NFL Week that Was, and some key factors that you can incorporate into your own handicapping processes, to find edges in the games ahead…
Item: How the Patriots keep beating the market expectations
The Patriots have been topics here multiple times this season, largely because they way that they go about winning touches upon do many various handicapping aspects. So naturally, a week after loading up with six OL to dominate the Colts (“Classic Bill Belichick, and why you should be careful with those Jonas Gray/Cameron Fleming takeaways” - /pregame-forums/f/14/t/1093117.aspx), it was an entirely different approach against Detroit. Tom Brady had the ball in the air on 52 of the first 65 snaps; Cameron Fleming was not even active; and one can only speculate as to whether Gray’s absence from the playing field was all because showing up late for a Friday practice, or if he is simply relegated to playing behind LeGarrette Blount going forward.
There is another direction to take this week, and it comes from a Monday discussion on the “Pregame First Preview” radio show, on a call-in to join R.J. Bell and Dave Cokin in the studio. The question was on how do one of the best HC/QB combinations in NFL history continue to keep beating pointspreads, when a proper marketplace would fully recognize their abilities and perhaps even over-adjust. The answer is a simple one, but meaningful. Many of the true “sharp” groups out there rely on strong long-term statistical models, and the Patriots continue to confound those models in one key category – the turnover ratio.
Turnovers in the NFL have a certain degree of randomness to them, particularly fumbles. So when extremes happen in the early part of any season, there is long-term research that shows that they are more likely to correct than continue, and some groups have won serious money with that as a part of their arsenal. The problem is that New England simply does not adhere to those models. Let’s look at the last five seasons -
Give Take Net
2014 9 20 11
2013 20 29 9
2012 16 41 25
2011 17 34 17
2010 10 38 28
Total 72 162 90
To go +90 in turnover ratio over 75 regular-season games is astonishing. Part of that stems from Brady running an offense that is extremely careful with the ball, including a lot of throwing to spots that receivers are going to be moving to (which obviously means that the defenders are moving as well, and less likely to be in position for INTs). And on defense that flexibility to game plan for specific opponents helps to create sophisticated wrinkles, which cause confusion, and hence mistakes, by those offenses. It is not a run of luck that has created this, but rather execution of designs that you have to be really good to pull off. They have been that good.
Make sure that you incorporate this into your thinking about the Patriots. But also be aware that you have not found a new tool that will help you this week. The closest mirror to those New England models come from Green Bay, where Aaron Rodgers brings many of those Brady attributes, and Dom Capers dials up some complex defensive schemes. Since Rodgers took over as the starting QB in 2008 the Packers are a net +81 in turnover differential, and lead the league this season at +15.
Item: The Lions haven’t had a sack in 128 game minutes (104 passes)
Part of what made the early New England game plan intriguing on Sunday was the apparent daring to take on that Detroit pass rush. It wasn’t too long ago that the Lion defensive front was playing as well as any in the game, helping to generate seven wins through the first nine games. But now it has been back-to-back Sunday’s without a sack, despite Brady and Drew Stanton putting it up 95 times, and an opposing QB has not been taken down since they got to Ryan Tannehill midway through the fourth quarter at home three weeks ago. Which begs the question, as a short turnaround approaches before hosting the Bears on Thursday – has this group worn down?
There is a common denominator to the recent lack of pass rush success – this has also been the stretch of games without Nick Fairley. Fairley is not a “numbers” guy, but instead a “presence” guy, someone that opposing offenses have to account for. He has not been replaced well, which has made it more difficult for the others. As good as Ndamukong Suh is, he has been on the field for 520 snaps, 81.3 percent of all Detroit defensive plays, with only Dontari Poe (Chiefs) and Sheldon Richardson (Jets) having been on the field more among interior DL. Even in a one-sided loss on Sunday, Suh was out there for 56 plays.
The Lions do get the benefit of returning home, where their defense has simply been superb this season, especially in the fourth quarter of games. But how much impact did Fairley have on those performances? Be prepared to adjust, because part of the build-up to that matchup vs. the Bears will be the usual Sports Mediaverse talk of the Detroit defense being “#3 in the NFL”, since they rely on the arcane metric of total yards allowed. This indeed has been a good defense this season, very good through much of it. The issue on Thursday is how good they are right now. But it is not just a defensive issue facing them; over that same 128 minutes in which they have gone without a sack, the offense has only managed one TD, and now they have to work through injuries in the trenches on that side of the ball as well.
Item: The Atlanta defense is worse than you think (and that is pretty f’ing bad…)
There was a feature topic on Friday dealing with the Cleveland-Atlanta Total, indicating an Over preference despite the fact that the Browns had played six straight Unders, and the Falcons had gone 0-5-1 to the Under in that same stretch (“Taking Advantage of NFL Pendulums” - /pregame-forums/f/14/t/1096112.aspx). There was a focus on the return of Josh Gordon for the Browns, and how that would open up the field for an offense that badly needed such a weapon, but also on how the Atlanta defense was ripe to be exploited. And while the 26-24 Cleveland scoreboard will not raise a lot of eyebrows, it is time to take a look at a bad defense that just happens to bring even less than the dismal numbers will show. Can you be worse than dead last in total yards allowed, and tied for #31 in yards per play? Yes, you can.
First, note that the defense was awful vs. the Browns, allowing 29 first downs and 475 yards. A previously struggling Cleveland ground game ran for 162 yards at 5.6, and it was also a net of 7.5 yards per pass. But despite only punting once, the Browns did not maximize. Maybe part of that is a credit to the defense, but some was also bad offense – Brian Hoyer’s fourth quarter interception on first-and-goal at the six-yard line is about as egregious of a mistake as a QB can make (you throw the ball away, and live for another down). That was a bonus the Falcon defense got from facing a below average QB, and it is that bonus that has kept the true colors of the Atlanta stop unit from showing.
Let’s take a look at the Passer Rating for the 32 teams, a good measurement of ability with 11 games in the books:
1. Green Bay 17. Arizona
2. Denver 18. Washington
3. Dallas 19. NYG
4. Pittsburgh 20. Carolina
5. New England 21. Tennessee
6. San Diego 22. Cincinnati
7. Indianapolis 23. Philadelphia
8. New Orleans 24. Houston
9. Seattle 25. St. Louis
10. Miami 26. Cleveland
11. Kansas City 27. Detroit
12. Baltimore 28. Tampa Bay
13. Chicago 29. Oakland
14. Atlanta 30. Jacksonville
15. San Francisco 31. Minnesota
16. Buffalo 32. NYJ
Now consider the teams in BOLD. Those have been the Atlanta opponents. They have not faced any of the top seven, but have had five games against the bottom seven (Buccaneers twice). They caught the Lions without either Calvin Johnson or Reggie Bush. Yet they have still allowed 111 more passing yards than any other team. And that does not even get to the aspect of rushing the passer, at which the Falcons rate #30, getting sacks only 3.4 percent of the time. And the same defensive front that can’t get pressure in the passing game is #24 in rushing yards allowed, including a league high of 15 overland TDs. But is that because they have taken on strong running attacks? How about this – they have only faced two of the top 12 teams in rushing yardage -
1. Seattle 8. New Orleans
2. Dallas 9. Miami
3. Houston 10. Pittsburgh
4. Kansas City 11. San Francisco
5. NYJ 12. Philadelphia
6. Baltimore 13. Minnesota
7. Cincinnati 14. Cleveland
Yet if the season were to end today, the Falcons would be in the playoffs. Largely because…
Item: The New Orleans defense is not much better than Atlanta’s
It is rather shocking to consider, but when the Falcons head to the Superdome to face the Saints in Week #15, it is entirely possible that the two teams could be sitting at 4-10 in the standings, and playing for first place in the inept NFC South. Atlanta will be an underdog in each of the three games between now and then; New Orleans a dog this week, before being favored at home vs. Carolina, and in a pick’em range at Chicago on a Monday night (not easy for a dome team to play in that setting in December). Hell, that home game vs. Carolina could well be 4-8 taking on 3-7-1 for first place.
It is not easy to be 4-7 when your offense leads the NFL in first downs, and is second in total yards. The defense has to be very, very bad for that to happen. And the Saints defense has been, coming out of Monday’s loss to Baltimore tied with the Falcons at #31 in yards per play allowed. That means time to head back to a storyline that was set up in the early stages of the season and continues to be missed by both the betting markets and the Sports Mediaverse – the mystery of how Rob Ryan continues to find employment as an NFL DC (“Rob Ryan, and the Saints defense, under pressure” - /pregame-forums/f/14/t/1040006.aspx).
Go through that take and read about the confusion that the Saints were having, particularly the quotes. Then add this from CB Keenan Lewis, after Monday’s poor showing - "I think every game we come off, it's something new. Sometimes we have problems with the pass, sometimes we have a problem with the run, sometimes we have a problem with both. So we gotta fix everything."
Not much is going to get fixed the remainder of this season. This is Ryan’s 11th campaign as an NFL DC, with four different teams. Only twice in that span did his defenses finish in the upper half of the league, according to the Football Outsiders best tables, and if the current New Orleans form holds, it will be the fourth time one of his defenses has rated #30 or worse. Through all of this he has somehow developed a reputation for being good at what he does, but you should be able to easily see through that as you power rate this group.
Item: Robert Griffin is getting worse
The Redskins had plenty of opportunities to beat the 49ers on Sunday. Alfred Morris took on a tough defensive front and ran for 125 yards at 6.0 per carry. The defense was solid, stuffing the San Francisco ground game, and holding up reasonably against the pass despite being without starting CB David Amerson for the entire game, and back-ups CBs E. J. Biggers and Tracy Porter being injured during the contest. SS Brandon Meriweather had to switch over to CB to fill in, and one more injury would have meant WR Santana Moss switching to defense. But they hang around. Given the talent available at WR and TE, all they needed was an adequate game from the QB position and they get the “W”.
But they lost. They lost because Robert Griffin was simply terrible, and that instead of imrpoving as he gets more reps in the offense, he actually shows signs of getting worse. Griffin dropped back to pass 25 times, and those plays netted only 106 yards. On five of them he was sacked, taking his count to an alarming 14.4 percent for the season. How bad is that? It is far more than double the NFL average, and of the 34 QBs with enough attempts to qualify, the bottom is Austin Davis at 9.3. Griffin is getting sacked 55 percent more often than anyone else. And this is from a guy that even after multiple injury still has some athleticism.
What Griffin does not have, or possesses but has not shown, are the abilities to read defenses and get the ball out, and lead a team. What has to be troublesome for Washington management is that there are not enough positive signs from either of those categories that he is entitled to much more “on the job” training. This is already a lost season on other fronts, but if the closing stretch is meant to be an audition for Griffin’s future, then they had better be prepared to move forward without him if it is labeled a failure. This could be problematic, for an organization with a history of bad personnel decisions.
Item: Do the Dolphins understand how good they are?
Since those back-to-back double-figure losses to Buffalo and Kansas City in weeks #2 and #3, Miami has been terrific. The Dolphins have out-scored their last eight opponents by 95 points, an average of nearly a full 12 points per game. You could go 8-0 doing that. You have a good shot at 7-1. Even a 6-2 is a fair distribution. And while 5-3 could be considered a disappointment, if those three losses are against two of the three best teams in the NFL (Broncos/Packers), and another on the road against a prime playoff contender (Lions), it should not be so bad, especially when they led all three of those games in the fourth quarter.
But part of the reason why those games got away is that the Dolphins do not have many players or coaches on their roster with a legacy of winning at this level. It would only have taken a couple of plays play for them to have gone unbeaten through the stretch, and given that earlier 13-point home win over the Patriots, they could claim to be as good as any team in the NFL. But they did not make those plays, and as such have not earned that status. The question now becomes whether their belief in themselves has been shaken so much through those close losses that one has to take their numbers with a grain of salt.
The first part of becoming good has been accomplished – there is not an offensive or defensive weakness to exploit. They are beating the opposition by 4.7 to 4.1 per rush, 6.6 to 6.2 per pass (passer rating of 92.9 vs. 83.1), and are recording sacks at a higher rate than they are allowing. That has led to six wins by 13 points or more, a mark only topped by the Patriots. The special teams do need a little work, but more than anything else is that moxie to step up and make plays when the game is on the line.
The question is whether or not they “get it”, and as such can be trusted to go to the next level, especially since they will be favored four times over the last five games. And it starts with post-game comments like this, from Brent Grimes “We took an L today. We’re not happy about it. We didn’t play our best game. When you’re playing a team like the Broncos … you have to play your best game. We didn’t do it.” When a key player openly admits that they did not play their best game (and why the hell didn’t they?), it is an example of that final piece to the puzzle that is missing. A piece that teams with veteran players and coaches have…
Item: Denver kept running the ball
…like the Broncos. Because in the end, Sunday’s 38-35 win was as much about poise and maturity as it was talent. They had it, and the Dolphins did not.
Denver was in a prime spot to lose composure. The Broncos had been routed in double figures twice in their previous three games, including a disaster at St. Louis when they essentially gave up on running the ball and became unbalanced on offense (10 runs in 66 snaps). So there was a commitment to get back to not just running the ball more, but being more physical in general. And in rallying from three separate 11-point deficits, they showed the patience that separates the elite from the rest – they kept running the ball.
Despite falling behind on the opening possession of the game, and never having the lead until there was 5:01 remaining, the Broncos stayed with their commitment. They snapped the ball 71 times, and on 33 of those plays Peyton Manning handed the ball to a RB (he also kneeled down twice). Those 33 runs produced 199 yards (the victory formation kneels by Manning make the box score read differently), including a 27-167 line from the emerging C. J. Anderson (one TD).
Staying with a game plan despite an unfavorable scoreboard is a mark of a team that is there, a place the Dolphins might be capable of reaching, but still have to achieve. And Fox was well aware that the Broncos had lost their way, which meant that he was not necessarily running to amount a comeback to win on Sunday, but instead to get his team back to where it is going to need to be come January - “When you’re able to have that balance, it helps everybody’s efforts … we got in a chuck-and-duck game a week ago. We needed to reel that back in."
Item: What’s next, for the Bills
That was a remarkably sharp performance from Buffalo on Monday night, with the Bills playing fresh and focused despite their practice routine being disrupted in an unprecedented way. But what if that was not the trouble spot for Doug Marrone and his team – what if this week is?
A big aid in terms of Monday’s blowout was taking on the Jets – not so much because of their incompetence at QB, but because they were a division team that was much easier to prepare for, and that they were also thrown out of their rhythm a bit by not knowing where and when the game was going to be played until Friday. But does there become a hangover effect for the Bills now? This will not be a return to normalcy in the practice routine, especially with possible flooding in the area during the week. Now they have to face an opponent they lack familiarity with (only one game film available of Hoyer throwing to Gordon), while having to work through a host of distractions. Monday night may not have been the trouble spot for this team; playing well this Sunday may be an even greater challenge, so while there will be those “feel good” stories about the way they banded together and played on Monday, be careful attaching too much meaning to that going forward.