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Super Bowl look ahead spread – Based on my current member numbers, I’d make Cincinnati a pick or -0.5 against either Philadelphia or San Francisco.
Assuming a full strength Patrick Mahomes, I’d make Kansas City -2 on a neutral site against Philadelphia or San Francisco. It really makes things easy when the two finalists from the NFC have about the same rating.
Patrick Mahomes passing yards prop – The market has concerns about Mahomes’s ankle injury, but it may have over adjusted a few numbers. For example, the passing yards prop is typically in the 310 range, but DraftKings has 285.5 for the game against Cincinnati.
On the latest Props & Hops podcast, pro bettor Hitman said that his information leads him to believe Mahomes will be healthier that the market anticipates. Hitman also thinks that if Mahomes has limited mobility, it might turn a few scrambles into pass attempts, which helps the over.
Hitman likes Mahomes over 285.5 passing yards against Cincinnati.
Brock Purdy – Despite the stellar play of the rookie, I was determined to find something wrong with him. He had only thrown four interceptions this year, but there is huge amount of randomness in picks.
Back in 2020, my COVID project was a better way to predict interceptions. I found that it’s more predictive to look at interceptions and pass defended, or any play in which a defender gets a hand on a pass or jars the ball loose with a hit on a receiver. In essence, this expands the set of plays in which the QB put the ball in a dangerous position.
The key to predicting interceptions is bad ball rate, or interceptions and pass defended per pass attempt (my research found this to be as predictive as completion percentage). The verdict on Purdy? His bad ball rate of 11.7%, better than NFL average of 12.3% this season.
Based on a market value of 31.5 pass attempts, Purdy has a 50.2% chance to not throw a pick, or to go under 0.5 interceptions.
San Francisco at Philadelphia – Pro bettor Rob Pizzola likes many aspects of Philadelphia’s match up with San Francisco.
First, Philadelphia is capable of exploiting San Francisco’s weakness in the secondary. While CB Charvarius Ward is solid, this leaves Deommodore Lenoir to cover either A.J. Brown on Devonta Smith on the outside.
Second, Philadelphia has strength along the offensive line to match up with the strength of San Francisco’s defensive line. This will help slow down the Niners pass rush. If the pass protection breaks down, QB Jalen Hurts can then scramble against a defense ranked 26th in success rate against QB scrambles.
Rob likes Philadelphia -2.5 at home. Check out all the good work Rob and colleagues do over at The Hammer.
Injuries – This information is curated from the ESPN NFL injuries page unless otherwise noted.
- Kansas City QB Patrick Mahomes is dealing with an ankle sprain, but coach Andy Reid says he will start. Mahomes hasn’t been on the injury list the past two days, but his mobility remains a question.
- Kansas City WRs Mecole Hardman and Justin Watson are questionable with a pelvis injury and illness respectively.
- Philadelphia OT Lane Johnson and CB Avonte Maddox both practiced on Friday and will play against San Francisco.
- San Francisco RB Elijah Mitchell is questionable with a groin injury. Key weapons RB Christian McCaffrey and WR Deebo Samuel were on the injury report earlier this week but are no longer there.
Get ready for a wild NCAA tournament – My college basketball team rankings take margin of victory and adjust for schedule with my proprietary algorithm. Let’s look at the rank of the four teams that have contested the last two championship games:
- Kansas – 18th
- North Carolina – 21st
- Baylor – 25th
- Gonzaga – 19th
This season, Purdue tops these rankings, and they are predicted to beat an average Division 1 team by 16.6 points. At this point last season, five teams had a higher rating than 16.6.
Early season returns suggest that there are no dominant teams in college basketball. There might be more surprise Elite Eight and Final Four teams in the 2023 NCAA tournament than usual.
Humor – Greg sent professional poker player Melissa an unwanted picture of his genitalia. Melissa posted a cleaned up version still not suitable to show here and said “thanks i hate it.”
Greg was not pleased, and asked to get in touch with her boss. Melissa sent him to another poker player, who informed Greg that HR said that this matter needed to go to the police. Greg didn’t get the joke and was not pleased. You can’t make this up.
This Barstool article makes it easy to follow the thread.
Data driven betting information
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