Point Blank – September 23
Why don’t the Betting Markets respect Doug Martin (and Happy Birthday Boss)…For Notre Dame it will be urgency instead of lethargy (and a defense should not be giving up home runs to hitters that lack power)…
The reactions of the betting markets come front and center today, first heading to Tampa Bay and wondering why folks have not been treating an injury to Doug Martin all that seriously, and ending up in South Bend, where I have a disagreement with the way the money has been flowing against Notre Dame. There is a lot ahead of us this weekend, including the intensity of the Wild Card races across the MLB Diamonds, so time to get to work.
And properly goaded by Palmtree, let's get some background to the weekend going. It is birthday number 67 for Bruce Springsteen today, the band on a brief break from a rather brilliant 2016 tour before they resume down under in a couple of months. Can we tie The Boss into something involving Doug Martin and Tampa Bay? Of course we can -
Now let's indeed go down to Tampa...
Item: Doug Martin is good
Tampa Bay was going to be at the top of my NFL list this week. The Buccaneers/Rams bring one of those classic inside/out settings in which one team played about as poorly as they could, and the other about as well, and the setting calls for a regression towards the truer levels for each. In particular I believe the Los Angeles pass rush could wear down, with the Heat Index projected at 98 degrees even with the later kickoff time on Sunday.
The price was fair to open the week, my belief that the Bucs brought value as long as a ticket could be cashed if they won the game by six points or more. Then came the announcement that Martin would likely miss the next three games with a hamstring injury. That did not have to be the end of the notion – there became the hope that his absence would bring a correction of a -4, and maybe even a -3.5, which still might get Tampa Bay in play. Instead there were crickets.
Injuries have been a part of Martin’s career – he has only been able to play the full season in two of his four campaigns. But look at those two – in 2012 it was 1,454 rushing yards at 4.6 per attempt, along with 49 pass receptions, and last year it was 1,402 overland at 4.9, with 33 receptions. In both of those seasons Martin deservedly made the Pro Bowl.
Here is the gist - when we factor for an injury it goes across three elements. There is naturally the ability of the player that is out; then the ability of his back-up; and finally whether or not the team can stay inside of their usual playbook flow, or if they instead have to make adjustments.
These notions were front and center in the Tuesday edition, because of how many key injuries there are around the league. Yet Martin may be one of the most important given his ability, how much of the Buccaneer workload he accounts for, and also the fact that back-up Charles Sims is a different player in many ways. Martin is at his best between the tackles, and can get better as a game goes on and a defense wears down (he would have been an intriguing second half notion this week). He is also reliable in short yardage situations. Sims is better at getting to the perimeter, bouncing a lot of runs outside that were first designed to go between the tackles, and one of the reasons why Tampa Bay kept him around was the way that he could offer a contrast that provided a compliment to Martin in the offense. But Sims does not bring the physical tools to be getting 20+ carries, and behind him there is only Jacquizz Rodgers, who is best suited to a third-down role.
Yet the markets did not react, and instead the money was driving Tampa Bay up. Dirk Koetter was pretty open about the situation - "When you have an injury, whether it's Doug Martin or X, Y, Z, guys are stacked on a depth chart for some kind of reason. You know, Doug Martin is an elite player in this league. And the next guys up? They're not Doug Martin or they'd be paid like Doug Martin.”
And in terms of playbook impact, there is this from OC Todd Monken - "There's certainly things that Chuck does differently than Doug. Every back does. There's a few things we may have to do a little differently, but really, we have to do what we continue to believe in. He knows he needs to continue to work on getting his pad level down. So he's got to play well, and we've got to play well around him."
There may be further bad news for the Bucs this weekend, some shenanigans involving Austin Seferian-Jenkins, who apparently is still in jail at the time of this writing, being arrested for a DUI at 4 AM Friday morning. Seferian-Jenkins has only caught three passes so far this season and has yet to bring the consistency to put his physical talents into play. It does raise a key question – no matter how much upside a player might have, is there any room on an NFL roster for a guy that now has multiple DUI arrests, and somehow though being out at 4 AM two days before a game was a proper thing to do.
Will Tampa still end up on the ticket? Perhaps, if a -4 were to show, but the value equation does not work for me at anything higher.
Item: It’s only September, but time to check the weather
As the season progresses there will be a lot of weekend weather updates taking place, but September usually does not call for much. Tonight there may be some impact on USC/Utah in Salt Lake City.
USC Trojans vs. Utah Utes (Rice-Eccles Stadium)
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7:00 PM MDT on September 23, 2016
| 6:00 PM | 7:00 PM | 8:00 PM | 9:00 PM | 10:00 PM | 11:00 PM |
Wind |
6 mph WSW |
6 mph WSW |
6 mph WSW |
6 mph South |
5 mph South |
5 mph South |
Conditions |
Rain Showers |
Rain Showers |
Rain Showers |
Rain Showers |
Rain Showers |
Rain Showers |
Temperature |
49 °F |
48 °F |
46 °F |
45 °F |
47 °F |
50 °F |
Humidity |
89 % |
86 % |
82 % |
79 % |
74 % |
68 % |
Chance of Rain |
99 % |
99 % |
99 % |
93 % |
93 % |
93 % |
Ordinarily rain and a temperature in the 40’s does not have to be a big deal – some folks might even call that “football weather”. But it is a genuine handicapping consideration for this setting – the Trojans rarely practice in the rain, and almost never play in temperatures that dip into the 40’s.
For a terrific side read that helps to keep sports in perspective, you will enjoy this from Zach Helfand in today’s Los Angeles Times. And from a purely football standpoint, one has to wonder if Tu’ikolovatu can provide some insights into the Utah defense schemes – I can’t recall the last time a player for one team was up against an opponent that he had played with in spring practice.
In the Sights, Saturday NCAA…
The markets are making a big anti-Notre Dame statement this week, with -18.5 at some of the leading shops this morning meaning that 21, 20 and 19 have all opened up as win numbers since the opening bell. I can understand where that is coming from, the notion that a team that was thinking Playoffs can lose some attention span and energy after suffering their second loss of the season. That happens, but there are also occasions in which a different path is taken, and I believe that will be the case with this particular group, so it will be #356 Notre Dame (3:30 Eastern) going into pocket. Consider this good to -20, especially since there are play-against elements with Duke for this setting.
Brian Kelly’s team is loaded with talent but has struggled with consistency. The talent remains so it is consistency that becomes the focus, and there was a word I kept reading all week when sorting through their mood – “urgency”.
Let’s go to Kelly’s own words - “We obviously compete unevenly, if you will, in a manner that I would probably characterize as we lack a sense of urgency in the way we play … So finding that sense of urgency (is important), that attention to detail that's absolutely crucial to being a really good football team. We can't be the kind of football team that we want to be unless we play with a sense of urgency for four quarters.”
In particular that focus on four quarters matters when backing chalk in this range – the notion of a coach using past letdowns or concentration lapses to keep his team on the pedal matters in this type of game. And the fact that Kelly is isolating this concept not just to the team overall, but to individual players, brings this home even more.
How about the DL? “Now, Jarron (Jones) did some good things (against Michigan State), but he lacks a sense of urgency. Isaac (Rochell)'s got to let it go. We're waiting for him in pass (rush) to get that quarterback. He's so close, we want to see him go. Andrew (Trumbetti) played really hard and really physical. I mean, we're close to getting to where I stand before you and go, ‘All four of those guys, or all five of those guys played their very best.’ We want to get to that point. We're not there yet, but we're getting closer.”
And Kelly’s take on QB DeShone Kizer - “He's got to play with more sense of urgency. He's one of those guys. We had seven plays in a row that were negative plays (against Michigan State) that are just unacceptable offensively. It's not just him, but he's running the offense, and there are plays that are out there to be made that we're not making. We come out in our first drive, and we look pretty good. We drop a ball and make a mistake, and we lose that urgency there for a while. We have to have that from the very beginning. That starts with the guy with keys in his hand who's driving the car, and he's got to have more of that.”
I think this is exactly the way that a coach should be challenging his team on a week like this – it isn’t just the focus to get out of the gate well, but to lean on them to keep playing hard for 60 minutes. That is more than Duke is capable of handling right now. The Blue Devils scheduled more aggressively this season than usual, playing back-to-back non-conference road games for the first time since 2009, but there are nine under-classmen starting, the DL is under-sized, and depth is an issue. So is giving up big plays.
I chart “home runs” as TD plays of 40 yards or more. The Duke defense has given up three of them over the past two games, a 55-yard run vs. Wake Forest, and TD passes of 58 and 44 yards at Northwestern last week. Here is the problem – those are two teams that lack explosiveness, and are among the least likely of Power Five conference members to make such plays. Now that defense will be without starting DE Dominic McDonald because of injury, and safety Deondre Singleton is suspended for the first half. This Saturday they go up against the best playmakers they will have seen all season at QB, RB and WR, and it will be difficult to work around those vulnerabilities.
In the Sights, Sunday NFL…
So we come full circle in this one, and “go down to Tampa” after all. As note din the lead this week there were a lot of actors that had me wanting to put he Bucs at the top of the list, but there needed to be a proper line compensation for the absence of Doug Martin. Now there has been, and with -3.5 commonly available, much of that at reduced vig, it is #480 Tampa Bay (4:05 Eastern) in play.
I don’t have to say much more about the limitations of the Rams offense that to note something remarkable, courtesy of the folks at Pro Football Focus – Todd Gurley has 101 yards after contact through the first two games, yet only 98 net rushing yards. That shows the limitations of Case Keenum and a weak set of receivers in stretching opposing defenses, which is not going to change any time soon. With Gurley neutralized it leaves L.A. with one strength, the pass rush, but that may not be in play for the full four quarters today – with a Heat Index of 98 projected at kickoff, the Tampa humidity can wear down a group accustomed to playing in much drier conditions.
One of the ways that Dirk Koetter can work around not having Martin is to pick up the pace and throw even more. Tampa is already snapping 1.3 seconds faster than 2015, and while Charles Sims and Jacquizz Rodgers do not have Martin’s punch between the tackles they are both good receivers. Look for an aggressive approach that can wear down that defense, and the pop-gun Ram passing game to lack a counter from behind.
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