Point Blank – January 17, 2017
What a Bettor Better Know – NFL Playoffs weekend…
It is now time to begin looking ahead to Sunday’s AFC/NFC Championship games by first looking back at the weekend that was, the focus here going on the winning teams as they advance, with plenty of off-season to put the final notes together on those that were eliminated.
There is going to be the usual Tuesday long read ahead so that means time to plug the jukebox in, and while there is the on-going attempt to avoid redundancy, the occasional twist on a theme can be dignified. With Dan Quinn’s ascendance in Atlanta leading to some natural references to a Bob Dylan classic I will go to the well again, but change-up the version, this time Phish, joined by Bob Weir, just a couple of months ago in Nashville –
Now before getting to the teams in general, a quick detour for an overall point that matters…
Item: On those notions of the NFL emerging to a new era
I’ll continue a bit with a theme laid out here two weeks ago – Defense wins championships? Not in NFL 2016. So what is the perspective we can use as the conference finals are being called to produce 110.5 points in the current trading, by far an all-time high? Evolving the rules to make it more difficult for the defenses is having an impact at the higher end; it just isn’t easy to stop the better QBs out there. Let’s look at some history:
Projected points in AFC/NFC Championship games
2016 110.5
2015 92
2014 97.5
2013 97.5
2012 97.5
2011 89.5
2010 80
2009 94
2008 82
2007 89
2006 89.5
A rather stunning jump for this season, and that will be part of the theme later in the week as we look ahead to the games. Now time to look back a bit first.
Item: The Falcons made playoff plays (and some of the most important may only seem like footnotes)
Atlanta had the reputation in recent seasons for being a “pretty” team, the kind that could make some big plays on offense, but didn’t do the little things to win. Some may still use that same mindset for this season’s edition, the Falcons getting to this spot with a historically good offense, and a defense that is improved, but still rates as a tick below average. But there is a difference with this bunch that is showing, the all-around quality control that Dan Quinn is bringing, along with the terrific offensive designs of Kyle Shanahan.
Ordinarily I would bring Shanahan to the lead here because his game plan vs. Seattle was so good – as noted in the weekend thread at halftime of that game, he had tactically taken the Seahawks blitz packages almost completely out of play. But I will save that for the Falcons/Packers breakdowns later in the week, and focus more here on what may be smaller items in the grand scheme, but were major on the field. In terms of stepping up to make playoff-type wining plays, the Falcons did in several key aspects of play. I’ll go to a game-turning sequence to lay it out.
Mario Alford might have made the biggest play of the game. That may sound overly dramatic, but I’ve watched a few football games through the years. Seattle opened with a strong offensive game plan, taking advantage of the one matchup edge available, to control the ball and the clock against an Atlanta defense that is vulnerable to such things (#26 in yards per drive allowed). With 4:39 left in the half the Seahawks were trailing 12-10 but hadn’t punted, and faced a third-and-3 at their own 37 with a ticking clock. Convert the first down, and there is the real prospect that they keep the ball the remainder of the half.
Darrell Bevell sent in a ball-control play, a short pass to Doug Baldwin to get the first down, and the offense executed it, Russell Wilson with an easy pitch-and-catch to Doug Baldwin, a pass that the defense can’t prevent from being completed, which leaves only one option – the CB has to stone the WR before he can get to the chains. Alford did that, with a clean open field tackle at the 39 that left a fourth-and-1.
Now for the context – the next time Wilson got his hands on the ball for a full possession, he trailed 26-10 (I don’t count the last two Seattle running plays before the half as being a possession). Think about how much that Alford tackle meant in terms of setting the direction for the game flow.
The punt following that play was a great one by Jon Ryan, pinning Atlanta at the 1-yard line, so the Seahawks still had the opportunity to get out of the half down only 12-10. Atlanta converted one first down, then faced a second-and-10 from the 14 in which Matt Ryan lofted a pass towards the left sidelines for Mohamed Sanu, who was well covered by Jeremy Lane. Sanu made a superb catch, bringing the ball to his body with one arm and then hanging on through the tackle. It was an effort that the broadcast crew did not focus on enough, largely because it took the game right to the 2:00 warning, and the commercial break.
What happens is Sanu does not make that catch? On third-and-10 from their own 14, the Falcons might have considered something conservative, a run or a short pass to keep the clock running, hoping to break it first a first down, but wanting to ensure that Seattle would burn a time out. Instead they went on to score, and then again on the opening drive of the second half, taking full command of the proceedings.
Sanu of course did catch a TD pass in the game, a nice view of that available below, but it wasn’t really as important in the grand scheme as that clutch grab before halftime.
Those were big-time plays by Alford and Sanu, players stepping up with the competitive mentality that it takes to win at playoff time. Hence the opening of Quinn’s post-game also resounded, leading to a different mindset regarding this team - “As we get started, I think it’s worth talking about for us, this game, was won during the week. The preparation the guys put in. I wish you could’ve seen that. The intensity of getting ready for one another, it was great all the way through the week. That type of strain and effort to get each other ready to play against a really good team was totally at hand.”
Keep in mind that while this is a new stage for almost all of the players, this is the third time in the last four seasons that Quinn has been to the NFC Championship, going back to his days with the Seahawks.
Item: The Patriots beat Brock Osweiler (again)
There was some fun with an industry insider (other side of the counter) while exchanging some In-Running thoughts on Texans/Patriots Saturday night, and you can have a little fun yourself with this question – “If Brock Osweiler and Tom Brady changed teams, who would have won the game?” I don’t believe that is just an exercise in frivolity.
One of the highlighted themes in breaking last weekend’s games down was that the New England defense has indeed allowed the fewest points in the NFL this season, but that in reality the unit only rates about average on my charts (to be precise, a pinch below). The key was the weak quality of opponents the Pats had faced, dead last according to the Football Outsiders charts. They certainly weren’t up against quality on Saturday, with only the presence of Ryan Fitzpatrick keeping Osweiler’s season from rating dead last in the NFL among QB qualifiers in passer rating.
Hence a key takeaway from Saturday – did we see the New England defense play well, or was it just Osweiler and the Texans being who they were? Most of the way it looked like the latter, and in fact there were a couple of potential big strikes down the field that did not happen because the Houston offense couldn’t finish the plays.
Now let’s set the perspective – Ben Roethlisberger finished #11 in passer rating, and now becomes the highest-rated QB on that chart that the Patriots will have faced this season. That’s right, they managed to go 17 games without facing anyone in the top 10. Of the qualifiers, as noted Fitzpatrick was last and Osweiler right above him, and that represented four of the games right there. But now take it a step further and note that they also had several outings against QBs that were arguably even worse than those two – Jared Goff, Landry Jones, and the lovely Cleveland duo of Cody Kessler/Charlie Whitehurst. Now we are up to a significant portion of the Patriot schedule having been against bottom-feeders at the position, while there were only two games against QBs in the upper half of the league in the category, Ryan Tannehill at #12 and Russell Wilson at #14.
The Texans only got one TD on the board Saturday night and turned the ball over three times, but it never really looked like it was sharp New England defense making that happen, just an average group taking advantage of what was handed to them (sometimes literally).
Item: On why the “recreational” bettors got it right with Aaron Rodgers
You have likely read a lot about just how dismal this weekend was for the folks on the other side of the counter, especially here in Nevada, and one of the prime contributors was the Green Bay upset of Dallas. While there were some sharps on the Cowboys, as it turns out the Packers were the team of choice across vast swaths of the marketplace, in particular when it came to the parlay sequences and money lines. In this case those that might be labeled as the “recreational” bettors got the better of their counterparts in the marketplace, and there may be a touch of genuine logic to that – the folks that spend more time watching the games than pouring over the stats may well have a better appreciation of what Rodgers is doing than the crunching of the numbers can show.
I made the Rodgers performance vs. the Giants a part of the dialog here, and also a focus on the NFL Podcast last week, because there was a fine line that mattered – if you go back and watch the video of that game you find a lot of plays that were successes not because the Packer offense was good or the Giant defense had failed, but instead so much on the ability of Rodgers himself. He turned several plays in which the original intent had been stopped into productive ones because of his ability to keep the play alive, and then find someone downfield.
That looks different to the eye than it does in Excel. Bettors focusing more on the eye test cannot help but be impressed with what they have seen, and that was particularly reflected in the Money Line distribution vs. the Cowboys – while there was not a major imbalance in the pointspread wagering, folks were seemingly backing Rodgers to win the game much like they would Clayton Kershaw on a summer day. When you see a QB playing at that high of a level, getting +200 brought a lot of appeal.
What is the handicapping takeaway? In truth it is a danger zone because these are fairly uncharted waters. When most QBs break the pocket the options become limited, instead of growing, because their accuracy and timing down the field suffers. For Rodgers there does not appear to be much of a loss, and if anything sometimes he can be even more effective – because of his arm strength and accuracy the field does not shrink at all when he leaves the pocket, but sometimes grows.
How will Atlanta cope with this? There is one aspect that is not all that bad – the main Falcon weakness comes from teams lining up and running power right at them, which Green Bay won’t do much of. But what about the patience and experience to stay with a coverage, and even improvise, after the intended play of a sequence has been aborted? Five of the seven starters in the Atlanta LB/DB groups are in their first or second season in the NFL, and how well they adapt against broken plays will be pivotal to the outcome; Rodgers is making big plays to various personnel (five different Packers had a catch for 25 yards or more at Dallas) because he only needs a small widow these days.
Item: Why was the Steelers red zone such a dead zone
The Pittsburgh/Kansas City scoreboard outcome could have been a thumping – the Steelers led 389-227 in total offense, 5.9 to 4.6 in yards per play, and had a +1 turnover advantage. Yet they were literally hanging on for their lives to the end because of an inability to maximize their opportunities – the first eight drives saw the ball get inside the Kansas City 30-yard line seven times, with only one punt, but there was not a TD scored. The Steelers made a lot of plays, but none of them finished in the end zone.
It was not difficult to see where the flaw was in the red zone – Ben Roethlisberger and the passing game were just 1-8, with a sack and an interception, across nine drop-backs. The question becomes whether this was a one-game issue, or something more genuine, because it is difficult to win in Foxborough when opportunities are not maximized.
I will attribute a big part of the failures to the play calls, and not to the execution. On the opening drive they faced a second-and-2 at the Kansas City 5-yard line, after three successive runs by Le’Veon Bell had produced 25 yards. Given that the weakest part of the Chiefs arsenal is their run defense, it was a strange move given the momentum of the drive, and the down-and-distance, to instead throw the ball. They ended up with a FG.
The next time the Steelers got the ball inside the KC 10 came with a 9-7 lead midway through the second quarter, and a first-and-goal at the 5-yard line. Bell had run twice on the drive for 13 yards, and the OL was continuing to control the scrum. But the ball was put in the air again, this time Roethlisberger’s pass getting tipped at the line of scrimmage, before Eric Berry caught it in the end zone for a touchback.
The Steelers were average at scoring TDs in the red zone this season, a 55.4 percent rate that pegged them #14. Given their personnel they should be better than that – with the running of Bell, and the size and talent of the players at WR/TE, the tools are there. Might there be a scheme issue holding them back? It is not easy to isolate the fault from Sunday night, because it is difficult to pin down whether the decisions belong to Todd Haley, or if Roethlisberger audibled to the failed plays at the line of scrimmage. But the Pittsburgh offense left a lot of points on the field and got away with it, something that is difficult to get away with at this level of competition.
In the Sights, Tuesday NCAA…
It isn’t a surprise to see the markets backing Michigan in the early Tuesday trading, John Beilein’s superb record taking double figures as an attraction, and it is a long-term pattern that has legit merit. But those markets have already been liking this year’s Wolverines too much, and the price point has now firmly dropped into the value category, which puts #740 Wisconsin (9:00 Eastern) into play, Pinny and a few other key precincts sitting at -9.5 this morning, and this one good to -10.
How far off are the markets on Michigan? In a current 0-6 ATS run the Wolverines have come up 59.5 points below the projections, and it isn’t just falling short when the total counting is done, but the fact that the Wolverines are now up to 173:17 of court time since they were last covering a spread for even a single moment. The problem is one of bodies – Beilein just doesn’t have size or depth up front, and as a result Michigan has been out-rebounded by a -41 count through five Big 10 games, rating dead last in the conference in offensive rebounding, and #12 in cleaning the defensive boards. That is the key matchup tonight – Wisconsin is #10 in the nation on the offensive glass, and #5 at clearing the defensive boards, and Nigel Hayes and Ethan Happ will have it all over their Michigan counterparts inside.
Here is the clincher, the words that Beilein used after his team ended a three-game losing streak by beating Nebraska on Saturday - “I’m just so happy for our guys. Some of you may have coached, but when you go through funks in your season, it’s incredibly hard in practice. Practices are hard and, after you lose, it’s even harder for everybody. …They just played as hard as they could today.” Now consider that it came after they allowed Nebraska to score 85 points on 56.2 percent shooting, and grab 55.4 percent of the available rebounds. If that is all there is when they played as hard as they could, then there isn’t enough to stay within single digits in Madison.
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