THE POWER RANK

  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • The Craft of Sports Betting Professionals
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • World Soccer/Football
    • College Basketball
    • College Football
    • NFL
    • NFL passing success rate
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member
  • Log in

San Francisco at Dallas, NFL Wild Card Playoff

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

This is a game with two offenses I find difficult to figure out.

San Francisco has stuck with incumbent QB Jimmy Garoppolo, and he has led the 14th best pass offense this season. The Niners have benefitted from explosive plays, as the pass offense ranks 1st by my adjusted yards per pass attempt. Do it all player Deebo Samuel has averaged an insane 2.98 yards per route.

The problem with explosive plays is volatility. Before this season, I looked at yards per pass attempt on successful plays, and asked about the correlation of this quantity from early to late season. The R-squared value was 0.053, which suggests that explosiveness is not predictive. This is bad for the Niners.

San Francisco faces a Dallas pass defense all over the place in the metrics I look at:

  • 3rd in my adjusted success rate
  • 15th in my adjusted yards per play
  • 8th in PFF coverage grades

The Dallas pass defense is probably a little better than NFL average.

This season, I’ve had the idea in my head that Dallas has a great to elite offense. QB Dak Prescott is fully healthy, and he has elite targets in WRs Amari Cooper and CeeDee Lamb.

However, I’m not sure the numbers back this up.

The Dallas pass offense ranks 5th in my rankings, which is great. However, from a clean pocket, Prescott has a PFF grade of 89 this season. (I look at grades from a clean pocket because they are more predictive than grades under pressure.) While this is a solid grade, it is only 11th best among NFL starters and even behind Geno Smith.

CeeDee Lamb has averaged 2.06 yards per route, a excellent rate and an improvement over the 1.81 in his rookie year last season. Amari Cooper has averaged 1.65 yards per route this season. This is low for an elite receiver and lower than the 1.81 he averaged last season when more passes were coming from Andy Dalton than Prescott.

If Prescott isn’t top 10 in delivering the ball and Cooper has fallen off, Dallas might not be as efficient as conventional wisdom suggests.

Dallas faces a San Francisco defense that ranks 6th, a remarkable result given the injury to top CB Jason Verrett in the first game.

My numbers like Dallas by 2.8, and I don’t see any value in this game with the markets at -3. It shouldn’t surprise you to see San Francisco advance, as my numbers give them a 41% win probability.

Football betting with a PhD edge

This article was sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter at noon Eastern on Thursday, January 13. Dallas is -3 at most books as of Sunday morning, January 16.

This newsletter is a free service that strives to be:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

The predictions are based on my PhD research from Stanford, and the content covers college football and the NFL.

To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”








 

 
 

Filed Under: National Football League, The Power Rank Newsletter

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Data driven betting information

Valuable. Concise. Entertaining.

To sign up for The Power Rank's email newsletter, enter your best email and click on "Sign up now!"

Popular Articles

  • How to predict interceptions in the NFL
  • 5 insights from academic research on predicting world soccer/football matches
  • How to win your NCAA tournament pool
  • The ultimate guide to predictive college basketball analytics
  • Accurate football predictions with linear regression
  • The surprising truth about passing and rushing in the NFL
  • Football analytics resource guide
  • The Reason You Can’t Avoid The Curse of Small Sample Size
  • The essential guide to predictive CFB rankings
  • How computer rankings make you smarter about sports
  • How to win your college football bowl pool
  • Do you make these 3 mistakes with college football statistics?
  • The Top 10 Things to Know About The Power Rank’s Methods

Recent Articles

  • Members: Super Bowl game and prop analysis
  • 7-Nugget Saturday, January 28, 2023
  • Cincinnati at Kansas City, AFC Conference Championship Game
  • Podcast: Dr. Eric Eager on the NFL Conference Championships
  • Members: Football analysis for NFL Conference Championships

© 2023 The Power Rank Inc., All rights reserved.

About, Terms of Use, Privacy Policy

Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes

Valuable. Concise. Entertaining.


These are the goals with every correspondence, which cover bets on the NFL and college football.


To sign up for The Power Rank's free email newsletter, enter your best email and click on "Sign up now!"


No thanks, I'll make my predictions without data and analytics.

{"cookieName":"wBounce","isAggressive":false,"isSitewide":true,"hesitation":"","openAnimation":false,"exitAnimation":false,"timer":"","sensitivity":"","cookieExpire":"","cookieDomain":"","autoFire":"","isAnalyticsEnabled":true}
  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • The Craft of Sports Betting Professionals
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • World Soccer/Football
    • College Basketball
    • College Football
    • NFL
    • NFL passing success rate
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member