Point Blank – October 28, 2016
Jags/Titans won’t be a masterpiece tonight…On Halloween weekend, the Demons haunt the Black Knights again…
A running theme across the first stage of this NFL season has focused on how generally poor the quality of play has been, which is almost assuredly one of the drivers behind lower television ratings. So what does the league showcase in front of the national cameras tonight? Two struggling teams in what may be a historic coaching matchup, though historic for the wrong reasons.
There are some significant handicapping elements to make from Jaguars/Titans so that will be the lead today, in a game likely anything but a masterpiece. So as the on-going tribute to Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize continues, let’s use the jukebox to set up a graceful counter to that NFL affair, and there just aren’t many things in life that can bring more dignity than John Prine singing a Dylan song. Most appropriate today is When I Paint My Masterpiece, from a Levon Helm benefit at the Izod Center in East Rutherford in 2012, among many in the supporting cast the great Garth Hudson on accordion -
Item: Thursday night in Nashville, and a primer on the state of the NFL in 2016
I believe there is a lot that can be learned from the Thursday night showcase in terms of long-term handicapping, so why not bring those elements into play. One of the constant themes that gets hammered here is that there just is not a high degree of certainty that will ever come from sporting events, especially at the professional level, and that finding small edges and grinding away is what this endeavor is all about. That is Handicapping #101, and this game provides such a classic example.
Let’s begin with what I believe may be a historical coaching matchup between Gus Bradley and Mike Mularkey. Bradley is 14-40 at Jacksonville, Mularkey is 21-43 across stints with three different franchises, including a 2-14 with the Jaguars in 2012 that left the pantry rather bare for Bradley. I don’t have a proper way to look it up, but how many times in NFL history has their been a coaching head-to-head between two guys with at least 50 games under their belts, and both at a 33 percent or lower win percentage?
So we get to the first key – this game is expected to be close, and close games are often decided by which coach makes the best tactical adjustments. Can either of these guys be trusted? As for the teams…
Item: You don’t want Jacksonville because…
I won’t bother with the fact that the Jaguars lack a winning legacy in close games because that applies to the Titans as well, and would be a redundancy off of the coaching angle. But note that despite having the talent stock around him at RB, WR and TE all replenished the past two seasons, Blake Bortles shows no signs of progressing as an NFL QB, and a case can be made that he has taken a step backwards.
The Bortles passer rating has fallen from 88.2 in 2015 to the current 76.4, a rather precipitous decline, and it has been across the board – yards per attempt have fallen from 7.3 to 6.6; TD% from 5.8 to 3.8; and INT% has risen from 3.0 to 3.8. And it isn’t as though the quality of defenses faced has led to that – if we use the Football Outsiders pass defense tables the average opponent has been #17.3, or slightly below NFL average. Are their signs of progress? No. On Sunday the Jaguars faced Oakland, which is #28 in total defense at FO, and they needed 10 possessions before they scored their first TD.
The Jacksonville defense had been making some strides, but a key fundamental matchup tonight will be having to stop a Tennessee ground game that will attack between the tackles. The most important Jaguar against such tactics is NT Roy Miller, but he has been placed on IR, inexperienced Abry Jones having to step in.
So you have a short road dog with a QB that cannot be trusted to play well from behind, and a fundamental matchup problem against the strength of the opposition. That isn’t good.
Item: You don’t want Tennessee because…
Although his numbers have not fallen off as badly as Bortles, Marcus Mariota has shown a statistical decline, rather than improvement, in his second season. Yards per pass and passer rating are down a tick, but in particular turnovers have been an issue – Mariota is #5 in the NFL for most giveaways, including three that were returned directly for TDs. The concern for Mularkey is the way that those errors may be getting in the head of a player that needs to be aggressive in order to be successful - “I think that might be some of the case, yes, I do. I’ve talked to him about it. He doesn’t want to let anybody down, so he doesn’t want to make mistakes for his teammates, for this team, for this organization. I wouldn’t say (he does it) overly, but sometimes. If it’s gray to him right now, he doesn’t want to take the risk.”
But that is a lesser factor tonight because Miller is out, and the Titans can pound away inside, right? Not so fast. They will without starting LG Quinton Spain, with former center Brian Schwenke, who only played in five games in 2015, getting the start. Schwenke has only been on the field for 54 snaps this season, or 11.3 percent of the Tennessee plays. Remember that this is on top of Chance Warmack being lost a month ago, so Tennessee has taken two big hits in the interior of the OL.
They can still take advantage of Bortles, can’t they? That gets tricky as well because starting CB Perrish Cox will not play, forcing Antwon Blake into a starter’s role. Blake has only been on the field for 30 snaps all season.
Item: And of course when it comes to Totals…
You can see some of the muddled issues that go into the matchup, and naturally they carry over to the Totals. I can quickly say that You Don’t Want Under because a game that opened at 46 is now down to 43, the value for that direction having been taken away (FWIW 46 was a bad line, and I am inclined to use 45 as the proper opener in terms of tracking). And with Miller out for the Jaguars, and the Titans secondary short-handed, there are some tangible problems anyway. But can you trust either of two QBs that are shy in confidence right now to make an Over fit at the new lower tariff? It isn’t easy, especially since the pressure of this setting may have both coaches approaching it conservatively, hoping that the other side makes the first major mistake.
That pressure is indeed a factor here. In the Tuesday NFL Review there was a focus on how fragile the Jacksonville psyche may be right now, and team owner Shad Khan showing up for the Monday team meeting may only exacerbate matters.
The bottom line is that this is what many NFL games look like going in. There are issues galore that are not easy to measure with precision, so projecting an outcome is not easy, and neither will be doing a post mortem on the results afterwards. But that is not meant to discourage; rather use it as a foundational issue in terms of setting a mindset. It is in finding small edges from such settings that one makes money, not from any heroic notions of nailing a prediction. So having said all that how does this one grade out? I would lay Tennessee -2.5 or take Jacksonville +4.5 if either number ever showed, yet at kickoff may actually take a slight comfort in the fact that they didn’t.
NFL Fantasy QB – ANDY DALTON
I am going to get a little ahead of the curve here and believe that the markets will be a step slow on adjusting to Andy Dalton now that Tyler Eifert is back. That seems to be the case on this week’s boards, with Dalton #9 at FanDuel and #10 at DraftKings.
Here’s the key – Dalton’s Passer Rating has fallen from 106.2 last year to 100.7 this time around, despite the exact same yards per attempt (8.4), and a decrease in INT%, from 1.8 to 0.8. So how does that happen? His TD% has fallen from 6.5 to 3.3, and I believe a great deal of that attaches to Eifert, the best Bengal threat in the red zone (13 TD receptions in 2015). His return can signal a major change in that area, and note that while he was only on the field for 15 plays last week he was a key part of the rotation – all of those plays were either third downs, or in the red zone. He is expected to play at full speed this week.
Having Eifert back opens up the full Cincinnati playbook, and that means the ability to take advantage of what may be a depleted Washington secondary. Josh Norman has not cleared concussion protocol yet, and Bashaud Breeland (ankle) and Dahasun Phillips (hamstring) are both question marks, which is on top of DeAngelo Hall and David Bruton already being sidelined.
In the Sights, Thursday NBA…
I don’t think the markets are reading this one the right way, perhaps too much influence from San Antonio’s dominating win over Golden State on Tuesday, so with +9 having become available now it is time to put #508 Sacramento (10:35 Eastern) into play, with +9 being the value point.
I believe the Kings could be as improved as any team in the NBA, a case of a deep and talented roster starting with a bad power rating from 2015-16 because so many nights they simply mailed it in. But Dave Joerger has not only tightened things on both ends of the court; he has gotten the players to buy in, after friction existed between so many of the players with George Karl.
Let’s go to some overall keys first, in the aftermath of what was a convincing 113-94 rout at Phoenix last night. First from Joeger – “Forty-eight minutes is a long game to be locked in and have that focus (on defense). So when you just keep banging away at it and banging away at it, it becomes who you are. Right now they’re exhausted mentally, physically exhausted and we play again (vs. San Antonio). But you get to that level of night in, night out that’s how we play every single night.”
And DeMarcus Cousins, on running the offense slower and with better structure - “It’s simplified things a lot more and just more efficient shots. Better shots for the team, not as many long rebounds, rebounds that help the opposite team get out and run. I think it’s just smarter shots, smarter basketball.”
That shows a lot about the mindset, and there is nothing like getting an easy win to have the players buy in. But as for Joerger talking about the Kings being exhausted I believe it will be anything but that – Ty Lawson (35:13) and Rudy Gay (33:11) were the only players that went more than 26:13, the big working margin leading to an ideal late-game rotation.
It is the setting that gets the energy where it needs to be – this is the sports opening of the Golden 1 Center (it was christened earlier by a Paul McCartney concert), and it is a major event for a city that was on the verge of losing the franchise. That creates a special environment for a hungry team, and I would not be surprised if the Kings were alive to win outright to the final possessions, with the added market value too good to pass up.
In the Sights, Saturday NCAA…
It is going to be a third appearance for Army on the opposite end of a ticket this season, but as long as the markets continue to over-rate the Black Knights there will be opportunity, and that leads to #132 Wake Forest (note the time change to 3:30 Eastern), with -6 available in the Thursday morning marketplace, and this one good up to -7. The game works from both team directions, so let’s get to it.
Army made a big splash with some early September results that made Jeff Monken’s team look much better than it really is, and in particular there was that trouncing of UTEP that was dealt with here. So Part I is that the Black Knights are over-rated. Part II is the conceptual notion that since the schedule has been scaled back at the Academy the pattern has been to focus on a couple of the key games, but largely go through the motions in others, which helps to explain outright losses as double-digit chalk to the like of Buffalo and North Texas. One of those key games comes next week, a home showdown vs. Air Force, with a better chance to compete for the Commander-in-Chief Trophy than in the recent past, which makes this trip of no special importance.
This game does matter to the Demon Deacons, who become bowl eligible with a win. In this third season Dave Clawson is now getting a lot of his own recruits on the field, and note that one thing that Clawson and DC Mike Elko have already shown is the tactical ability to handle the Army option. There was an early struggle – they fell behind 21-14 in the second quarter on this field two years ago, but after making the halftime adjustments shut the Black Knights out the rest of the way, and in a win at West Point last year they held them to 14 points and 240 yards of total offense. Note that one of the two Army TD drives in that one was just nine yards after a turnover, so the reality is that this defense has held that attack to one legitimate score over the last six quarters.
Now that defense comes in both physically fresh and tactically prepared off of a bye week, those extra days particularly valuable for this matchup. That means a defense that is only allowing 119.3 yards per game at 3.4 per carry, vs. a respectable schedule, will be well-set to put the clamps on the Army option package again, and that opens the door for this winning margin to extend into double figures.
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