Your weekly curated list of sports betting tips, analytics and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
NFL receiving yards prop – On an episode of The Football Analytics Show, JJ Zachariason discussed the narrative that Aaron Rodgers likes to throw his guys. This suggests that WR Allen Lazard, who came over from Green Bay to the New York Jets with Rodgers, will have a big season.
However, JJ notes that Corey Davis is more likely to have the second most targets after Garrett Wilson, as Davis has had better stats over the past few seasons. JJ’s model for NFL receiving stats has Lazard near his market total of 650.5, and the likelihood of an injury suggests value on under 650.5 (-110 at DraftKings).
JJ is a season long fantasy football expert, and I highly recommend all 52,000 words of his fantasy draft guide.
Heisman futures – History suggests that USC’s Caleb Williams will not repeat as the Heisman winner. On The Football Analytics Show, Bill Connelly discussed two players with intriguing odds on FanDuel.
- Joe Milton, Tennessee, 25-1.
- Quinn Ewers, Texas, 12-1.
Note that both of these players could be sitting on the bench by week 5 because of highly touted freshmen back ups. However, these are the high variance players to consider when betting the Heisman.
Milton has elite arm talent and will play for a high scoring Tennessee offense. Ewers was awful on 3rd and 4th down last season, and regression means he will be better on these crucial downs. With a wide open Heisman race, Bill doesn’t necessarily recommend betting either of these players but looking for high upside.
College football handicapping – At the Bet Bash college football panel, Bud Elliott of CBS Sports talked about his process for making bets. While he doesn’t have time to watch every game, he does watch all turnovers and explosive plays to determine signal from noise.
For example, consider explosive plays. While analytics shows that randomness plays a large role in explosive plays, Bud watches these plays to see if the offense took advantage of a match up. He is looking for some signal, as these coaching edges might persist to future games.
Follow Bud for all of his college football betting insights, and make sure you don’t miss the next Bet Bash.
Detroit at Kansas City – The Lions come into the season with high expectations as the favorite to win the NFC North. They open the entire NFL season at Kansas City on Thursday, September 7.
The markets have moved from Kansas City -7 to -6.5 at most sports books. This might be the result of the hold out of DT Chris Jones, a key piece of the Kansas City defense.
At this point in the preseason, the member numbers for The Power Rank come from my market model that takes season win totals and backs out a rating for each team. These numbers favor Kansas City by 8.1 points. This model suggests value in Chiefs -6.5 if Jones plays.
The member NFL predictions will get updated before the start of the season. To learn more about a membership to The Power Rank, click here.
Sports betting humor – Hilarious story about a date with a sports bettor (listen to the end of the 1:44 video). He tells his side of the story later in the thread.
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
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