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NFL tackle prop – On an episode of The Football Analytics Show, Ryan Noonan of 4for4 talked about the favorable circumstances for Jacksonville safety Rayshawn Jenkins to rack up tackles and assists:
- Jacksonville has played Jenkins closer to the line of scrimmage lately.
- Baltimore’s offense allows the 3rd highest rate of safety tackles since they run and throw over the middle at a high rate.
- The Jacksonville score keeper gives out assists on tackles at the 5th highest rate in the league.
Ryan has gone 62.5% on his tackle props since the start of 2022, and he likes Jenkins over 5.5 tackles and assists. The price was better when the podcast was released on Thursday, but he would still bet -120 on DraftKings.
Dallas at Buffalo, NFL Week 15 – On the Forward Progress podcast, sharp quantitative bettor Clevta talked about how he likes Buffalo at home in this match up. The Dallas offense has not been tested lately, as they haven’t faced a top 14 pass defense by expected points added (EPA) since San Francisco in week 5.
The Buffalo defense has been better lately with improved health. In addition, Clevta likes the trade for CB Rasul Douglas, as the former Packer has a 84 PFF coverage grade with Buffalo.
In addition, Buffalo QB Josh Allen plays better against the man coverage that the Dallas defense prefers, and he can also use his legs to run against this coverage. Clevta likes Buffalo -1.5, and you can get -118 at FanDuel on Saturday morning for this late afternoon Sunday game.
Worst NFL pass defense – To evaluate pass defense, I take success rate and adjust for the opposing offense. By my numbers, Green Bay ranks 24th out of 32 NFL teams.
However, in this season of QB injuries, some defense get lucky to face a slew of back ups. My schedule adjustments now specify for the QB that played for an offense.
This matters for Green Bay, as they have allowed these passing success rates compared to the NFL average of 41.9%:
- Tommy DeVito, New York Giants, 57.1%
- Brett Rypien, Los Angeles Rams, 24.1% (now with the Jets)
- Jameis Winston, New Orleans, 41.2%
After adjusting for the presence of these back ups, Green Bay drops to dead last in my adjusted passing success rate. Members of The Power Rank have access to all of these numbers.
Cash out – This seems like a sucker bet. Just like with same game parlays, the modern sports book will give you terrible odds to cash out a bet.
However, as Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow discuss in their book Interception, the two bets have a similarity: the pressure to offer more bets leads to pricing inaccuracies.
As a personal example, I had a future on German Alexandra Popp to win the Golden Boot award for most goals scored at the Women’s World Cup in 2023. The probability to win this bet crashed when Germany somehow failed to get out of the group stage.
At that point, Popp was tied for the most goals in the tournament. However, she couldn’t win the Golden Boot since the tie breaker is assists, and another player with the same number of goals had more assists.
The modern sports book did not consider this, and I happily took the non-zero cash out. Miller and Davidow write about ways to take advantage of cash out on page 58 of Interception – The Secrets of Modern Sports Betting, which I highly recommend.
NFL humor – Patrick Mahomes was irate after the Buffalo game, but Joey Mulinary knows what the refs should have done.
Video of the totally awesome play that would go viral.
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
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