Point Blank – January 20, 2017
Steelers/Pats – The Game Inside the Game…It is about to become a long strange trip for the Clippers…
Time to shift the focus to the particulars of Pittsburgh/New England in the last Sunday clash, a fascinating handicap because there are so many major moving parts. So today I will serve up some of those key talking points, enough to get a dialog started that can aid the process of building out the handicap between now and kickoff.
Item: The conundrum of how many overall edges, vs. how many big edges, there are in Foxboro
There is a starting point here that has already been discussed across the threads this week, but is an ideal way to both frame this matchup, and also set general football handicapping frameworks. The Patriots have an edge with Bill Belichick over Mike Tomlin in game-day coaching, and at QB with Tom Brady over Ben Roethlisberger. The Steelers have the edge with the remaining rosters, and one could make the case that they win every position group except the secondary.
Hence why this game may be better understood through a look at the various matchups, to see where either team has a chance to step up and take control. I’ll start from the top down, because the numbers are so dramatic -
Item: Has Tom Brady solved the Mike Tomlin (LeBeau/Butler) defensive schemes
This will be the seventh time that Brady has gone up against the Steelers in the Tomlin era, and here is what has happened when the ball has gone in the air in the first six -
Att 215
Comp 153
Yards 1,889
TDs 19
Ints 0
PR 127.5
That is a heck of a place to start, Brady not being bothered by the Pittsburgh tactics whether it was Dick LeBeau or Keith Butler calling the shots. Do the Steelers have an answer? There has only been one through the years against Brady – bring pressure to get him out of his comfort zone. Denver did that in last year’s AFC Championship game, and Houston was able to do it last week. Pittsburgh has failed in the past, and whether it can happen on Sunday goes back to a key talking point last week – the difficulty of reading the Steelers statistics.
The Pittsburgh pass rush was among the NFL’s least effective through the first half of the season, but that came when James Harrison and Bud Dupree were not in the starting lineup. Since then the numbers have picked up, but that has also been across a weak schedule cycle, so it has to be taken with some grains of salt. The Steelers do have playmakers on defense, so consider the success/failure of the NE passing game to likely be a ticking clock – if Brady gets enough time he will find his receivers, but if the pass rush can disrupt just enough plays the afternoon gets interesting.
As noted here earlier in the playoffs, the current NFL rules make containing a passing game a challenge, which helps explain why the four survivors are here based on their particular strengths. The modern pass defense has to be able to occasionally disrupt to be effective, and the Pittsburgh defensive front is built better for that than any other remaining group.
Item: The Patriots defense may not look as good as the announcers will say it should
I will be going back to a theme that was touched upon here a few times already in these playoffs, but this time I will make it more graphic. New England allowed fewer points than any team in the NFL, which you will hear often come Sunday, and the defense is indeed fundamentally sound. But the Pats weren’t necessarily special in producing those numbers; the schedule was. Want an effective visual of that? Here are the QBs that they faced across their 17 games (those they only faced once are in schedule order) –
RYAN FITZPATRICK (2)
BROCK OSWEILER (2)
TYROD TAYLOR (2)
CARSON PALMER
RYAN TANNEHILL
CODY KESSLER/CHARLIE WHITEHURST
ANDY DALTON
LANDRY JONES
RUSSELL WILSON
COLIN KAEPERNICK
JARED GOFF
JOE FLACCO
TREVOR SIEMIAN
MATT MOORE
Not an inspiring group, is it? No one on the list rated higher than #11 in passer rating, but look how inept the list gets at the bottom end – of the QBs that threw enough passes to qualify, Ryan Fitzpatrick was last, and Brock Osweiler next-to-last. That represents 23.5 percent of the schedule right there. But Fitzpatrick/Osweiler are better than Jones, Goff, Cleveland’s undynamic duo of Kessler/Whitehurst, and possibly Kaepernick. Throw those four games in and now almost half of the schedule was against opposing QBs that would be rated as bottom feeders.
It has been a long time since this group faced any kind of challenge – the last month has produced Fitzpatrick, Moore, a bye and then Osweiler. Does that run the risk of leaving a team ill-prepared to step up to a challenge? In Roethlisbeger, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown the competition changes dramatically. Hence the focus on a tactical matchup next -
Item: Can the Butler do it…
WRs like Brown are not going to be stopped one-on-one, he is just too good, and the modern rules make it even tougher for opposing DBs. Might there at least be a tactical advantage that the Patriots bring that most teams wouldn’t dare attempt – Malcolm Butler singled off against Brown? That is the way that Belichick and Matt Patricia have dialed it up in recent meetings, including the earlier clash in Pittsburgh this season (of course, it is easier to dare to do that when Jones is throwing the passes).
The past numbers have not indicated the ability for Butler to stop Brown; even with the limitations of Jones it was seven catches for 106 yards for Brown in this season’s first meeting (Butler did come up with a key end zone INT, but again, it was Landry Jones so…). But what it does do is allow for the Patriots to at least try to scheme that way, which leaves the other options open. If they believe that Butler can at least hold his own, that eliminates the need for double-teams that can open up holes for an offense to exploit, especially when a defense wants to commit a safety closer to the line of scrimmage to address Bell.
Item: Can Big Ben make some plays (about those H/A splits)
There will be plays available against the New England defense, and the assumption would usually be that Roethlisberger is good enough to make them. A 13-6 career playoff record, with two Super Bowl rings, is nothing to sneeze at. But the Pittsburgh offense left a lot of points on the field at Kansas City last week, and it continued what has been a theme for the 2016 season, Big Ben playing much better at Heinz Field than on the road. The question becomes whether this was merely the small sample size of a single season, or a genuine issue.
Roethlisberger H/A Passer Rating
Career: 99.5 88.8
2016: 116.7 78.4
Where do we attach the weight? Is there an emerging concern for a guy that has been around since 2004 and has taken a lot of hits across that span? For perspective, let’s set the H/A splits in a similar way for the others that we will see on Sunday –
Brady H/A
Career: 98.1 96.3
2016: 112.6 111.9
Rodgers H/A
Career: 109.4 99.2
2016: 106.5 101.9
Ryan H/A
Career: 98.9 89.1
2016: 119.5 115.0
There is some concern here. Note that Roethlisberger’s historical splits are not far from the others, and in truth not far from a standard H/A league-wide expectation. But if we focus on 2016 that gap compared to the others is alarming; at a time in which the new rules allowed others to put up career-highs, Big Ben regressed. In theory he is a savvy veteran that has been through the wars and can handle the pressure of the setting, but what explains the 2016 performance realities? It wasn’t as though it was the schedule – the only Steeler road game against a playoff team was that dismal 30-15 loss at Miami.
Might this be where the game gets decided? Brown and Bell are as good as any players at their position in the NFL, and the Pittsburgh OL was playing as well as any down the stretch. There will be plays available against a New England defense that despite some of the favorable base numbers only grades out around average. But Roethlisberger did not maximize the production at Kansas City, and will need to be much more efficient on Sunday.
Item: And so…
OK, I know a lot of you are also looking for conclusions, and I do have one. The question is whether I can get it into play.
Among the most basic tenets in football science is that it is difficult to knock out a team that is both good, and balanced. You can beat them, but you can’t beat them easily. The Steelers are that. The overall quality of talent is high, and there is not a weak position group for an opposing team to exploit. If an open draft, position-by-position, were to be held, there would be more Pittsburgh starters taken than New England starters. Hence on those notions I do get a Steeler ticket at +7. The issue for now is that there aren’t any, and they likely won’t appear. And such is the life in this endeavor.
Because of having been through so many pointspread battles through the years action isn’t necessary, and in truth I find this matchup to be so compelling that the pulse rate will likely be as high at kickoff without a wager as with one. For the true football aficionado there is a lot to see here, especially since much of the game will also be spent with the eye focused towards how each of these teams will match up against the NFC winner.
About Last Night…
The Clippers played pretty well against Minnesota, for some stretches about as much as could be expected from this group. Yet they lost anyway, and there is a challenge ahead for the marketplace. For as glaring as the absence of Chris Paul would be, which has absolutely had the oddsmakers rushing to make major adjustments, it is now an 0-7 SU and 1-6 ATS tally in games that he has not played, LAC falling 54.5 points short of the market projections, or a significant 7.8 per game.
The timing could literally not be much worse for Doc Rivers, whose team is about to embark on a nightmarish cycle between now and the All Star break – 10 of the next 11 games are going to be on the road, including the truly bizarre cycle of going from the Mountain Time Zone tomorrow night at Denver, to a back-to-back on the east coast vs. the Hawks and 76ers on Monday/Tuesday, only to fly back to the west coast for a few days, and then back to the east coast for Celtics/Raptors/Knicks over four nights in early February. This has a chance to shatter a team that may be rather brittle. It is one thing to try to keep your energy up when Paul’s return is around the corner, which was the case in December, but his return is a long way away, and maintaining confidence and energy through this next stretch will be a major challenge.
It wasn’t news that the Clippers lost last night, the news may have been that they played about as well as they could have and still lost. A rather brilliant showing by Karl-Anthony Towns absolutely played a part, but that won’t register as much to the LAC psyche as the fact that they flat-out lost the game. I am going to turn the microscope for extra magnification; there may be some opportunities to exploit this bunch between now and the All Star break.
In the Sights, Saturday NBA…
Although the -4 is gone there is still plenty of -4.5 out there to back #522 Denver (9:05 Eastern) tonight, and now with the news that Wilson Chandler and Danilo Galinari are projected back in for the Nuggets tonight it is a fit, the fact that we can play from two directions leaving just enough value despite a half point having been lost.
Both of these teams have been focus points in the last two PB editions, hence the Play-On and Play-Against notions. The Nuggets are targeted because of their strong play after the extra time off they got around the London trip, and the Clippers for the very real vulnerabilities with Chris Paul – as obvious as it may sound to call for a reduction via his abence, an 0-7 SU and 1-6 ATS without him, the only cover by a half point, shows that the markets can’t reach the proper bottom yet.
Here is what matters about Denver’s loss at San Antonio – despite being short-handed the ball movement was still there, with 27 assists on the road against a quality defense. That flow matters here because now it is not just the drop in quality for LAC but an issue of depth as well – that short-handed back-court will be hard-pressed to stay sharp on the defensive end at this pace (current Total is 222),and at this altitude. Since taking a few days off before facing the Pacers in London the Nuggets have dished 126 assists across four games, averaging 123.3 points in the process, and that mode of attack should wear the Clippers out this evening. LAC has not left the state since December, and in what could be an arduous road trip ahead I want to buy in early.
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