Point Blank – December 2, 2016
Chris Petersen and the Residue of Design…If you want to bet against the Rockets get in line (and accept that when you do get to the window it may be late)…Catastrophes in the OL don’t make for efficient offense…
We’ve got action across all sporting fronts today, which means a grab bag of topics to sort through as a busy weekend begins, including the first of the major college basketball Saturdays. So let’s get to work –
Item: Chris Petersen coaches the full game, and now with more talented players
It hasn’t taken Petersen long to put his stamp on the Washington program, not just in terms of winning, but in how the Huskies are doing it. Part of what made Boise State so successful in the Petersen era was the element of quality control, the HC not just being a system guy on one side of the ball, like so many that get elevated over the course of their careers, but instead someone that went into great detail over all aspects of the sport. That brings something that we can put into full focus as Washington takes on Colorado for the Pac 12 Championship this evening.
The Huskies may appear to some that they have been a bit lucky this season, with big plays often attributed to that, especially when they come from special teams or defense. I don’t believe that is the case. Today it will be the phrase “home runs” being used, and also a baseball guy to details a most important topic, the legendary Brach Rickey. Here is the full quote for something that you would often only read the final sentence of -
“Things worthwhile generally don’t just happen. Luck is a fact, but should not be a factor. Good luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best. Negligence or indifference are usually reviewed from an unlucky seat. The law of cause and effect and causality both work the same with inexorable exactitudes. Luck is the residue of design.”
So what are football “home runs”? I chart them as any offensive scoring play of 40 yards or more, or any touchdowns from the defense and special teams. There can indeed be a lot of flukes here, and part of the diligence in doing proper post mortems is to isolate out what may have indeed just been lucky bounces. What Washington does is something far different, and while some might note the appearance of major amounts of luck to the Husky scoreboards I do not. Let’s start with this season:
2016 Home Run Touchdowns
Washington 18
Opponents 2
That looks rather extreme, doesn’t it? Yet I see it as the culmination of an aggressive coach that takes advantage of the whole field and the full 60 minutes, and now is at a program in which he has the kind of playmakers to make these things happen. Before you try to call too much of the 2016 campaign some favorable bounces, consider this –
2015 Home Run Touchdowns
Washington 20
Opponents 3
That makes it 38-5 over the last 24 regular-season games. Flukes don’t run that far. In particular let’s note the high level focus on football fundamentals when it comes to Defensive and Special Teams touchdowns, a category I call DST.
DST Touchdowns, 2015-16
Washington 14
Opponents 1
I believe there is a lot of design going on there. The only score allowed in the category was a Pick Six, which means the Washington special teams have a clean sheet in terms of TDs allowed.
This will help you to put the Washington season, and program in general, into a better perspective, and if the Huskies show well tonight they may be playoff bound. They don’t have the talent yet of an Alabama/Clemson/Ohio State, but they do have the playbook and the tactics to compete. In terms of this evening it is mostly a wash – I believe Mike MacIntyre should win Coach of the Year honors by a landslide, and part of that has come from his attention to detail, the Buffaloes playing fundamentally sound football. Their tally this season was 12 home run TDs while only allowing two.
NFL Fantasy QB – El Manning
From a purely value standpoint I don’t get this one, Manning sitting all the way down at #16 on the DraftKings board, though a more reasonable #9 at FanDuel. The Pittsburgh secondary is not loaded with great cover guys, which means opportunities for Beckham Jr.//Cruz/Shepard to find some operating room, and with the prospect of likely playing from behind the Giants may have the ball in the air often. That makes Eli the call this week.
Item: If you want to bet against the Rockets, and haven’t yet, you are already late to the party
There may not be a more obvious schedule setting over the entire NBA season than bucking the Rockets tonight, which is going to have a lot of folks looking to get in play today. It leads to one of the common handicapping conundrums – when have the markets fully priced a notion to the point that there is no longer any value? So time to dive in for the case study.
Here is the base set-up. This is the seventh court change for the Rockets in 11 days, a stretch in which they have played in every time zone, and the fact that they have gone 4-2, the capper being last night’s 132-127 double overtime win at Golden State, could make it easy to call it mission accomplished, especially with Saturday and Sunday off before they host the Celtics on Monday. So why push James Harden after his 45:48 from Thursday, or Ryan Anderson (44:54) or Trevor Ariza (42:52)?
None of this, of course, was lost on the guys setting the lines before Rockets/Warriors tipped off, or adjusting afterwards for that result. So let’s set the perspective as the morning trading heats up, looking at the Houston prices from the last six road games:
11/16 @OKC +3.5
11/21 @Detroit -2.5
11/25 @Sacramento -3.5
11/27 @Portland -1.5
11/29 @Utah -1
12/1 @Golden State +11
So now to tonight. At 7-11 the Nuggets power-rate perhaps a pinch better than Sacramento, but below the others, though with a stronger home court value because of the altitude. So let’s say Houston around -2 if both teams had the same rest. The odds makers naturally took note of the whole schedule cycle and opted for a Denver -1.5 as the overnight opener. That was already adjusted to -3.5 by 9:30 Eastern this morning, and in anticipation of some weary Houston legs the Total has dropped from 222 to 217.5.
Yes, there is a lot of handicap against the Rockets. But there may be as much as five full points of that handicap now built into the current line. That is how markets work. Might Denver win in double figures? It could happen, with Mike D’Antonio certainly excused if he waved a white flag tonight. But from a value standpoint anyone backing the Nuggets is paying a rather hefty tax.
In the Sights, NFL…
A big part of sorting through the 2016 NFL season has been the impact of OL play, and it is a carry-over from making that a key topic when 2015 began – there are coaches not holding back in discussing how poorly-prepared many lineman are coming from the college ranks these days, the spread offenses not helping to develop them for what is needed at this level. Several teams are simply a mess with their blocking corps right now and that includes both ends of the prime-time matchup this Sunday night, so it will be #354 Seattle/Carolina Under (8:35 Eastern), with plenty of 44.5 available in the Friday morning trading, and value down to 44.
In charting Seattle’s dismal loss at Tampa Bay you could see one of the worst performances from any OL all season, Russell Wilson getting officially sacked six times in 39 drop-backs, but you also have to note his 80 yards on eight attempts, much of that coming from plays in which he avoided a sack and broke the pocket to make something positive happen.
I have quoted Seattle OL coach Tom Cable more than any other when it comes to that issue of there not being enough NFL-ready lineman, and as he tries to develop a young group of players that does not necessarily have all that high of a pedigree anyway there is a lot of patching going on. The newest change will be Bradley Sowell starting at RT instead of Garry Gilliam, now the fifth different starting line in 12 games, and OC Darrell Bevell laid it out this way – “We are just trying to find the best five guys. If it changes every week, then it changes every week.”
Yet one might grade the patchwork Seattle group as being the better of the units on the field for this game – Carolina is down to one player starting where he was on Week #1, LG Andrew Norwell, with Michael Oher not making this road trip, and Ryan Kalil and Gino Gradkowski going down with injuries vs. Oakland. Brought in off the streets this week was Ryan Wendell, who was last on a roster with the Patriots, and they signed Dan France from the Cleveland practice squad. An NFL coach does not sit on Santa’s lap at a shopping mall in early December and ask him to put someone from the Browns practice squad under the Christmas tree.
Here is how Ron Rivera defined it - “It’s about as catastrophe as you can get. I mean, when you look at the losses we’ve had this year. But our coaches will coach up the guys that are available to us.” And now Rivera has to send that group out in front of one of the NFL’s toughest crowds. The Over/Under for false starts by the Panthers is around 2.5 Over -120.
I am expecting to see a stodgy game in which neither offense gets into a consistent flow, with the struggling OL groups in particular a factor in short yardage settings and near the goal line. That can mean punts instead of first downs, and field goals instead of touchdowns, leaving value for this opportunity.
In the Sights, Saturday Hoops…
I believe the injury to Northwestern’s Derek Pardon means more than the marketplace is appreciating today, seemingly no adjustment being made at all. So with +14 available in the Saturday morning trading (there is some +14.5 at good shops to be had), it will be #723 De Paul (7:00 Eastern, note the time change) going into pocket.
Northwestern is not going to get many easy wins at the best of times – the Wildcats have good ball skills but lack athleticism, with the 6-8/235 Pardon their tough guy around the basket, leading the team in rebounds and blocked shots, while also efficient on offense (57.6 FG%). Now he is likely sidelined until the start of Big 10 play, and not only is their little depth at his position, freshman Barret Benson only having played 15 minutes through the first seven games, there is not much depth at all – without Pardon there are only six remaining players that go at least 10 minutes per game. This is not a group that will easily extend margins.
Meanwhile DePaul will bring it tonight, a short game day bus ride eliminating many of the usual issues of a road game. In the career of senior floor leader Billy Garrett Jr., a Chicago native, the two meetings between the programs have gone to the wire, a 57-56 upset win for the Blue Demons on this floor in 2013, before Northwestern won in OT at Allstate Arena last December, and Garrett Jr. and Eli Cain, both 6-6, bring one of the nation’s tallest back-court tandems, combining to average 33.6 points. Their ability to attack vs. a depth-shy favorite keeps the back door wide open here.
In the Sights, Monday NFL…
Time to get this in play so that you can add it to your Sunday shopping assortment. I believe the markets are in the wrong place for Monday’s matchup in the Meadowlands, and that gets #378 New York Jets (8:35 Eastern) in play, with plenty of +2 to be found, something that can also fit its way into a Teaser sequence.
The overall numbers between these teams are not that far apart, and for a simple, yet important, talking point let’s lay out the bases -
Colts Jets
Per Pass O 6.9 6.5
Per Rush O 3.9 4.3
Per Pass D 7.6 7.0
Per Rush D 4.6 3.6
New York gets a net win there, which is important, though again this is just the base stuff. But now the key – take those base numbers and factor the schedules across them. If we use the Jeff Sagarin numbers as an impartial neutral source, the Jets have faced the #5 schedule this season, while is has been #27 for Indy. That matters – while the Colts remain alive in the AFC South, a legitimate case could be made that the winner of that division might finish last in the AFC West, NFC South and possibly the AFC East. Yes – the Jets may be as good as winner of the AFC South.
The New York story was detailed here back in the summer – Todd Bowles and his team drew a schedule that was heavily weighted towards the toughest opponents coming up first. The key was going to be how well they maintained focus after falling down early, in order to grab some wins when they became available, and there has been no sign of a reduced effort – they competed well against the Patriots last week, and there is that magic of a Monday night home game to ensure the proper effort here. With an anticipation of the energy being that this is the wrong price point, the Colts bringing some of the worst collective defensive numbers we will ever find from a road favorite. Ryan Fitzpatrick does not have to be special here, merely take advantage of the openings with Matt Forte, Brandon Marshall and the emerging Quincy Enunwa.
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