Point Blank – December 4
The Weekender – Why the short supply of NFL OL matters…Aaron Rodgers goes from 79.7 to 96.2 with no time on the clock (and why Megatron wasn’t there)…Will Oregon feel more at “home” than UNLV tonight?...DeShaun Watson will have the North Carolina defenders on their Heels (again)…The Sunday morning markets deal some favorable Cards, and ask for too much from Austin Davis...
There was a focus in the Tuesday NFL recap on just how depleted the St. Louis OL is, and the recent Ram results certainly show it. A similar focus could have been put on the Giants and their battered OL (RT Marshall Newhouse is the only one that has started in every game), which led to only 33 rushing yards and three sacks in that ugly loss at Washington. Or I could go on about how San Diego’s season got de-railed when the OL injuries began piling up, with D. J. Fluker, King Dunlap and Chris Hairston remaining question marks this week. It leads to what may become an annual late-season issue – there just are not enough NFL-quality offensive linemen available to fill the positions as the inevitable injuries have them become open.
I began to notice quotes running along a theme in recent years, coaches bemoaning how young linemen were coming out of college ill-prepared. The same logic was being repeated, and it made sense – the spread offenses that are becoming the vogue on the NCAA gridirons are not a good training ground for OL that want to play on Sundays. Now this is beginning to show on the field, not only as teams struggle to put a good blocking corps together from the start of the season, but as injuries pile up the replacements simply are not there.
This summer I filed some comments away from Seattle OL coach Tom Cable, who was trying to cobble together an OL that had a couple of candidates, J. R. Sweezy and Kristjan Sokoli, who had played defense in college. In speaking on a radio show in Seattle his take was “I’m not wanting to offend anybody, but college football offensively has gotten to be really, really bad fundamentals. Unfortunately I think we’re doing a huge disservice to offensive football players, other than a receiver, that come out of these spread systems.”
And when cable was asked about the possible difficulties of having to work with rookies that had played defense in college he offered – “I can go get a guy who runs a little faster, jumps a little higher and has an aggressive streak on defense and start with him. I’m going to have to retrain an offensive lineman out of college anyway.”
It makes a lot of sense, so I began adding to the files. How about this from Denver OC Rick Dennison - "I don't know whether the cupboard is bare, they're all playing defense or what. It just seems like you get talented players, but you end up not having as many around that really know what they're doing. And I'm not faulting anybody. They've got to do what they think they've got to do best to win, right? Offensive linemen, they're always in a two-point, rarely are they in a three-point. Centers, oftentimes all they do is shotgun snap. We have to put them under center. But that's just what it is. If that's what the trend is, that's what the trend is and we've got to just coach and teach more when they get here."
And more on the theme from Jon Gruden - "You're getting a lot young offensive linemen out of college these days that have never been in a three-point stance, have never been in a huddle. They don't have a real good background in how to get (in) the stance and get out of a stance and pass protect let alone pick up stunts, blitzes, handle audibles."
This is some intriguing stuff, and sorting through the OL injuries, both in terms of projecting future outcomes, and grading the games that have been played, becomes a more important part of the process than it has been in the past, especially at this time of the season.
About Last Night…
Green Bay/Detroit will be a difficult one to erase from the memory banks, not just because of how remarkable the ending was, but that it cost money to watch it, a decent Under ticket getting turned inside-out. There was a question from the Thursday thread that asked about dealing with such frustrations, which is one of the major keys for anyone that has the aspiration of winning long-term, but also of importance is sorting through that result to get the bets understanding of each of the teams going forward. So let’s get to it.
The answer to dealing with such outcomes is a simple one, though one that is not necessarily easy to make a part of your consciousness through anything other than time – you accept those bounces before the game begins. Call it an “Occupational Privilege Tax”, and accept that in every wager you make there are all sorts of shenanigans that exist under the vast circus tent of sport. Is a face-mask penalty that turns around a game outcome a once-in-a-lifetime event from a funhouse mirror? Hell, it has happened three times just over the past couple of weeks (Packers/Lions and Jaguars/Ravens for certain, and in all likelihood Stanford does not beat Notre Dame without getting one with 0:20 remaining last Saturday night).
You accept that these outcomes exist, and will be a part of your net worth, while also realizing that even when your own bankroll is not involved, there are many games that generate fluky results that you also need to be able to grade properly. In terms of proper football charting, there is work to be done.
One of the reasons why I continually caution against team trends is that so many individual results lack an integrity, and last night’s game was a prime example – it will be graded forever as Favorite and Over, despite the fact that there is not a proper merit behind either of those outcomes. And consider what happens statistically – by getting that face-mask penalty, and then the chance to heave the ball to the end zone, the Aaron Rodgers passer rating for the game went from 79.7 to 96.2. That is a substantial upgrade for a sequence that had far more to do with good fortune than good football.
There is also the matter of the Detroit strategy playing a part. Why wasn’t Calvin Johnson on the field, a prime part of the Lion “Hail Mary” defense package? Because the coaching staff took a gamble – with the ball being snapped at the 39-yard line, the expectation was that Rodgers would have to throw the ball at least 65 yards, and possibly 70, to reach the end zone. The Lions were concerned more with having Green Bay try a series of laterals, as the Packers had on the previous play, which meant that they wanted defenders more accustomed to making tackles, rather than someone like Johnson to bat the ball down (from Jim Caldwell afterwards - “Because in that situation, we have a couple different things that we do. That was one where you’re kind of looking for more of that pass-back-and-forth kind of thing because of the range.”)
The breakdown was that Detroit DE Jason Jones lost containment, going for the sack instead of maintaining his lane. It was when Rodgers broke the pocket to his right, and was able to move forward before launching the pass, that the rotations of many different worlds spun differently.
Courting Advantages (of a sort)
I am not likely going to have anything from the pocket laid out for Oregon/UNLV tonight, the number close to being dead-on, but it does offer another of those early-season anomalies in which subtle edges can be found based on the court. This one is at the MGM Grand Arena, not the Thomas and Mack Center, which means a different ticket distribution, different crowd flow, and in truth a rather unusual advantage for the visiting Ducks – they have a lot more experience on this court than the Rebels.
The Pac 12 plays their annual conference tourney at the MGM Grand, and because of that the current Oregon players have a combined 389 minutes dribbling on this court and shooting at these rims. For UNLV the count is only 101, and even that requires an * - 67 of the minutes were played by reserve Ben Carter, when he was wearing an Oregon uniform in his freshman and sophomore seasons. Patrick McCaw and Dwayne Morgan are the only Rebels who have played here wearing the home colors, that coming in a 59-46 loss to Utah last December.
In the Sights…
This one should not come as a major surprise, after the prelude was set in Monday’s take on the North Carolina defense, but the handicap is a simple one - I do not believe the Tar Heels have enough talent on that side of the ball yet to stay with Deshaun Watson and the explosiveness of #330 Clemson for a full 60 minutes. So with the markets having reduced the tariff on the Tigers to -4.5, it has become a low hurdle that does not require any leap for the favorite, just play a clean game and they can step over the bar.
The gap between the defenses is a vast one regardless of what measuring tool you choose to use, but one of the most effective can also be one of the most basic – these teams played five common opponents, and the Tigers allowed 53 fewer first downs, and 751 fewer yards. Carolina is indeed improved over 2014’s hapless unit, which was one of the nation’s worst, and allowed Watson and the Clemson offense to roll for 50 points and 528 yards, Watson throwing six TD passes and running for another, but there is a long way to go before the Tar Heels can hold back this class.
Clemson has five different players that have caught a pass for more than 50 yards, three that have had a run from scrimmage of more than 50, and seven have scored a TD on a play of 34 yards or more. The Tigers have not been held under 500 yards in a game since that rainy night vs. Notre Dame back in early October. This is a team that is not a stranger to big games, beating Ohio State in the Orange Bowl two years back, then taking Florida State to O.T. on the road and hammering Oklahoma 40-6 in a bowl last year, and they should handle this pressure well. The same cannot be said about Carolina, which has played a schedule devoid of step-up games this season, and brings no guarantee of handling the pressure of this setting.
In the Sights, Sunday "market basket" bonus…
A big surge towards the Rams this morning is making #365 Arizona available as low as -3, and with some reduced-vig -3.5 out there, and that means go-time against both that depleted Rams OL, which was noted in the Tuesday column, and also a defensive front that has not been the same without Robert Quinn. A key is the particular pride that the Cardinals bring to this setting, something that has been noted all week, and filed away in case it would matter. At the current price, it does. Here is the set-up, after Arizona lost a frustrating 24-22 home decision to St. Louis earlier, when the Cards outplayed the Rams but were done in by a -3 turnover ration –
Carson Palmer - “This is one that we’ve been thinking about since we walked off the field in Week 4.”
DC James Bettercher - “There’s probably no measure for the amount of disappointment we all had in that performance, But we’re very fortunate, we get a chance to go play again. I think our guys are very aware of what we need to do in this game.”
Patrick Peterson - “Honestly, we just couldn’t wait for this date, to get the opportunity to play those guys again.”
The Cardinals have played with poise and savvy to go 5-1 on the road this season, three of the wins by 14 points or more, so asking for them to win by four is more than fair value for this setting.
In the Sights, Sunday "market basket" bonus #2…
Just to show you how moves can be taken advantage of across various menu areas, money to both Cleveland and the Over this morning, Cincinnati down to -7.5 and the Total up to 44.5, has now made #354 Cleveland Team Total available at as high as 18, and with 17.5 common. This is Austin Davis on a short week with the NFL's worst RB corps behind him, and no particular rhythm with his WR corps. With 17 a clear “win” number, this brings solid value.
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