Point Blank – September 12
When Bill and Tom Lose…
The markets took an intriguing shift towards the Vikings early on Thursday, to the point at which New England can be found at -2.5 -120, or -3’s at even more or +. That provides us with an opportunity to make a general point about recognizing a tremendous professional sports run for exactly what it has been, and a specific point that you can study for your weekend portfolio.
The general take is to fully appreciate just how good Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have been in their years together in New England, with five Super Bowl appearances, including three wins, since 2002. To better accomplish that, let’s set up some parameters. What does it take to get three Super Bowl rings in a short cycle?
The Green Bay Packers of the 1960’s would have almost assuredly won more than two, had the game been created a few years earlier. Herb Adderly, Willie Davis, Forrest Gregg, Paul Hornung, Henry Jordan, Ray Nitschke, Dave Robinson, Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Willie Wood and Vince Lombardi made the Hall of Fame from that team.
The Pittsburgh Steelers earned four rings over a six-year period. Mel Blount, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Greene, Jack Ham, Franco Harris, Jack Lambert, John Stallworth, Lynn Swann, Mike Webster and Chuck Noll went on to the Hall of fame.
The Dallas Cowboys won three Super Bowls in four years in the mid-90’s. Troy Aikman, Larry Allen, Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith are in the Hall of Fame.
The San Francisco 49ers won three Super Bowls over a seven-year period, and four over 10. Ronnie Lott, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Steve Young and Bill Walsh are in the Hall of Fame.
But consider the Patriot success. Belichick and Brady will be Hall of Famers, but how many others? Think about that for a moment. This is a team that has rarely dominated anyone based on talent, but instead has played football at one of the highest intellectual levels that the sport has ever witnessed. They win by being smart, and making adjustments; it has not been overwhelming muscle or speed. They diagnose opposing weaknesses well, exploiting them more often than not, and they have been particularly dynamic at correcting their own mistakes.
Which leads us to this week. The Patriots did not just lose at Miami last week; they got dominated in the second half. It left a bad taste for a group that has a lot of pride, and Brady explained the mentality of the franchise so very well at a press conference on Wednesday - “We hate losing. It’s a terrible feeling around here. It’s a quality of life issue I think we all face when we lose.”
“Quality of life”. That is priceless, and it truly does speak volumes.
Which now brings us to the market opportunity at hand, because the tandem of Belichick and Brady off of a loss has been just about as good of an item for the bankroll as anything in professional sports over the last dozen years. The bottom line: Since 2002 the Patriots have lost 36 regular-season games, and here is how they responded after the first 35:
Straight-up: 31-4
ATS: 26-9
Margin vs. Spread: +314
Those are remarkable numbers against the sophistication of the modern pointspread. For all of the reputation that one of the best Coaches ever, and one of the best QBs ever, bring to the table, they still beat the market expectations by 9.0 per game in those settings.
The Betting Markets can adjust for a performance level of just about any team, given enough evidence. But they are often inefficient for isolated settings in which a team significantly rises above, or falls below, their norms. The ability of the Patriots to rebound from defeats in the Belichick/Brady era is such a setting.
In the Sights…
There has been plenty of money to South Alabama against Mississippi State, with the SEC favorite falling from -15.5 to as low as -13. Off of last Saturday’s results it is easy enough to understand – the Bulldogs allowed 34 points and 548 yards to UAB, a terrible defensive box score. But was it necessarily terrible defense?
The Blazers had 77 offensive snaps. 72 of them only generated 214 yards. The other five produced pass completions of 37, 53, 75, 81 and 88 yards. Was that a result of a flaw being exposed in the State defense. The markets say so, but that may not be the case.
UAB ran for 342 yards in a dominating opening win over Troy State, so the State defensive focus was to thwart that ground game. The Bulldogs did just that, allowing only 113 overland yards. From DC Geoff Collins “Going into the game we wanted to stop the run and get off the field on third down. We did that.” So was Collins crestfallen by what his defense did not do? “They took five shots. Most days they might hit two of them. They hit all five of them. Credit to them.”
It is important to note that the 37-yard completion was on an end-around pass, something that requires an *. But there is more – an 81-yard TD pass came later in the third quarter, when State led by 20 and many defensive starters were not on the field. And the final UAB home run was a 75-yard TD pass with 0:49 left, when there were no Bulldog starters left in the game. What has been viewed, and acted upon by the marketplace, as a terrible showing by State may not have been that at all, opening up some solid contrarian value.