Looking for sharp sports betting action this weekend? Your curated list of tip, analytics and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
Dallas at Colorado, NHL playoffs – Professional bettor Rob Pizzola will not let the 2-1 score in Game 3 of this series fool him. This game had a total expected goals (xG) of 6.14, which means there should have been more goals.
In this series, both the Stars and Avalanche have struggled to suppress scoring opportunities. The 6.14 xG in Game 3 was the lowest of the series. The Dallas Stars have reached 4.4 xG in the two previous games.
Rob likes the over in Game 4 with Dallas at Colorado, and you can grab over 6.5 goals, +112 at FanDuel (good to +101). Caesars has over 6 goals at -115, good to -125.
Rob hosts the excellent sports betting podcast Circles Off. He not only conducts fantastic interviews but now also talks about the latest drama on gambling Twitter.
Shadeur Sanders – In a surprising twist to the NFL draft, the Colorado QB has yet to get drafted through three rounds. This has implications for his bank account.
As noted by Jeff Darlington of ESPN, the first pick of the fourth round in 2024 signed a contract for $4.85M over four years. Sanders reportedly made $6M last season in NIL deals.
Some fraction of the NIL money came from sponsorships, and these sponsors like Nike and Beats might continue to support Sanders. He has certainly generated enough buzz over the past few days.
However, Sanders would have signed a contract worth $47.6M as the second overall pick in 2025.
Jaxson Dart – The New York Giants traded up into the 1st round to draft the Ole Miss quarterback, and the analytics differ on the wisdom of this pick.
Anthony Reinhard compared a player’s draft position with a consensus big board that aims to evaluate talent. Dart ranks 49th in the big board, which makes him the biggest reach of the 1st round.
In contrast, Kevin Cole at Unexpected Points incorporates positional value into his calculations (subscription required). Quarterback is the most important position in football, and Kevin estimates that Dart is worth $18.6M more than the Giants will pay him as a rookie.
It will take longer to know Dart’s true value, as he probably sits behind Russell Wilson this season.
Strikers in soccer are overrated – Arsenal will most likely finish 2nd in the Premier League for the third consecutive season. During this period, no Arsenal player has scored more than 17 non-penalty goals. Conventional wisdom says that Arsenal needs to sign a striker this off season.
Soccer analytics expert Ryan O’Hanlon disagrees. The author of the book Net Gains notes that Manchester City has scored fewer Premier League goals the past three season with Erling Haaland than the season before he arrived. Real Madrid has seen the same decline this season after adding Kylian Mbappe.
In addition, Ian Graham, Liverpool’s former head of research, argues that a great goal scorer can score goals at the cost of better opportunities for teammates. Liverpool prefers attacking players that can pass and dribble in addition to shoot.
If you have an ESPN+ subscription, I highly recommend reading the entirety of this sports analytics masterpiece.
NFL draft humor – Since Shadeur hasn’t gotten enough attention over the past few days:
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:
- Valuable
- Concise
- Entertaining
Other emails offer analysis of college football and NFL games that founder Ed Feng has bet and a sample of predictions usually saved for paying members of The Power Rank.
To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”
Leave a Reply