THE POWER RANK

7-Nugget Saturday, January 14, 2023

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Your weekly dose of sports betting tips, news and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.

NFL playoff teasers – On the latest Props & Hops podcast, host Matt Landes and pro bettor Hitman broke down a number of games for moving spreads through the key numbers of 3 and 7.

For example, the markets have Jacksonville +2.5 at home. Even if you think the Los Angeles Chargers will win, there is plenty of room for Jacksonville to cover +8.5.

With the uncertainty of Baltimore’s QB situation, Cincinnati -8.5 to -2.5 is a great second leg. The markets may move further towards Cincinnati (Pinnacle had -10 on Friday), so it makes sense to bet this now.

Market movement – This is based on NFL data from Unabated odds screen for Circa sports book.

  • Seattle at San Francisco – The spread reached San Francisco -10.5 on Monday before moving back towards Seattle. The weather report calls for rain and high winds, which makes it difficult to score the points to cover a big spread.
  • Los Angeles Chargers at Jacksonville – This game was at pick on Monday before moving to Chargers -2.5 later in the week. With the news that WR Mike Williams won’t play, some books like Caesars moved to Chargers -1.5 on Friday, but not Circa.
  • Miami at Buffalo – This spread has been as low as Buffalo -9 this week but has moved to -14 with news that Skylar Thompson will start for Miami.
  • Baltimore at Cincinnati – This spread was Cincinnati -6.5 on Monday and got as high as -10 at some books during the week.

Daniel Jones and turnovers – On The Football Analytics Show, Kevin Cole of Unexpected Points noted how well the Giants QB has been with avoiding turnovers this season. I asked him how much credit new coach Brian Daboll deserved for this play.

Kevin noted that Jones had become better at turnover prevention before Daboll arrived. The young QB lost over 100 expected points to fumbles and turnovers his rookie year. But then this number dropped from 80 to 60 over the next two seasons before going to 30 this season.

Kevin also provides insight on all Wild Card Playoff games in the most recent episode of The Football Analytics Show.

NFL injuries – Unless otherwise noted, this information comes from ESPN.

Garrett Riley – While Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has been loyal to his assistant coaches, he fired his offensive coordinator this week and brought on Garrett Riley of TCU.

Here are how Riley’s offenses have fared in this three seasons as OC:

  • 2020, SMU, 46th.
  • 2021, SMU, 28th.
  • 2022, TCU, 25th.

These results are solid but not elite. The success of Riley’s older brother at Oklahoma and USC probably helped him get this upgrade.

Gonzaga basketball – Up 1 point in the final seconds at BYU, Gonzaga played a magnificent defensive possession and didn’t allow a shot to hit the rim. This gave Gonzaga their third straight conference road win of 5 or fewer points.

However, defense has been an issue this season. Gonzaga ranks 78th in my points per possession adjusted for opponent, as they no long have shot blocker Chet Holmgren.

Gonzaga is still elite on offense (8th in adjusted points per possession), but their defense will need to improve to contend for a national title. My numbers like them to win by 19.6 at home against Portland on Saturday.

College football humor – “We’ll make this exit interview brief. I know TCU has that rehab appointment to get to.”

Football betting with a PhD edge

These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:

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The Philadelphia Eagles and explosive plays

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Philadelphia has had an excellent season, as their 14-3 record earned them the top seed in the NFC. Circa has them at +475 to win the Super Bowl heading into the playoffs, the fourth best odds.

QB Jalen Hurts was the frontrunner for NFL Most Valuable Player until a late season injury derailed his campaign. While Hurts came back for the finale against the New York Giants, he will welcome a week of rest before his playoffs start.

However, there is one concerning factor about Philadelphia: passing efficiency. 

In my work, I’ve found success rate as the most predictive metric for an offense. A play is a success if the offense gets the following fraction of yards towards the next first down:

  • 50% on 1st down
  • 70% on 2nd down
  • 100% on 3rd, 4th down

With the overwhelming importance passing in the NFL, let’s look at success rate on passing plays. I split the season up into the first 9 weeks and the remainder of the season (including playoffs) and looked at the correlation between these two periods.

The r-squared value for passing success rate between these two sets is 0.331. That means that passing success rate in the early part of the season explains almost a third of the variance in the later part of the season. 

In the chaotic world of football, this is as predictive as any NFL team metric gets. If this notion of predictability doesn’t make sense, I have a visual primer on linear regression and r-squared.

For the season, Philadelphia is 14th in the NFL in passing success rate. They have had success on 44.2% of pass plays compared to an NFL average of 42.7%. 

It should be noted that Philadelphia’s pass rate has decreased the past two games:

  • Gardner Minshew against a strong New Orleans defense.
  • Jalen Hurts coming back from a shoulder injury last week against the New York Giants.

Philadelphia is most likely better than 14th in the NFL by passing success rate.

But what about explosive plays? A team might not need success on a per play basis if they can regularly break off big plays.

To look at this, consider yards per play on successful pass plays. Philadelphia averaged 15.8 yards per play, 4th best in the NFL and significantly better than the 13.9 NFL average this season.

However, explosiveness is not predictive. If we do the same study as with success rate, we get an r-squared of 0.053. Randomness plays a large role in explosive passing plays.

This research suggests that the Eagles will not continue to break big plays in the future. Even with the talent of A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith at WR. Even with the improvement of Hurts as a passer this season.

For additional evidence of the randomness in explosive plays, consider this: Carolina led the NFL in yards per play on successful pass plays. The Panthers. It didn’t matter that they got Baker Mayfield, P.J. Walker and Sam Darnold from the NFL morgue to play QB.

Predictions based on regression are not perfect, as the Minnesota Vikings in one score games proved this season. However, you’ll be right more often than not.

If the big plays evaporate for Philadelphia, they might find themselves in a tight game late in the 4th quarter. Then they fail to convert a 3rd and 5 late. My metrics suggest that Philadelphia is less likely than Kansas City or Buffalo to convert this play. 

A promising playoff run ends early.

Football betting with a PhD edge

This article was sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter on Friday, January 13, 2023. 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.

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Podcast: Kevin Cole on predicting the NFL playoffs, 2023

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Kevin Cole, football analytics expert and creator of the Unexpected Points newsletter and podcast, joins the show for a wide ranging conversion. Highlights include:

  • Chicago Bears and the number one pick in the 2023 draft (5:21)
  • Adjusting QB stats for teammates and Daniel Jones (15:03)
  • Kevin’s model for predicting spreads (23:50)
  • Seattle at San Francisco (27:35)
  • Los Angeles Chargers at Jacksonville (32:35)
  • Miami at Buffalo (35:44)
  • New York Giants at Minnesota (38:05)
  • Baltimore at Cincinnati (40:25)
  • Dallas at Tampa Bay (45:03)
  • The favorite to make the Super Bowl from the AFC (49:23)

Kevin always has so many insights with everything he says. To listen here, click on the right pointing triangle.

This episode of The Football Analytics Show is also available on:

Support the podcast on Patreon.

New York Giants at Minnesota, NFL Wild Card Playoff

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Minnesota is the definition of a fraud. The Vikings scored 3 fewer points than their opponents this season. Usually, a team like this has a .500 record.

Instead, Minnesota finished 13-4 this season and contended for the top seed in the NFC until the final weekend. They went an unthinkable 11-0 in one score games.

When a team starts the season 6-0 in one score games, quants like myself predict regression to the mean of .500 in these games. In a close game, one play can swing the outcome, and these critical plays bring a large random element into these games.

The regression prediction didn’t work out for the Vikings this season. 

It’s not like the New York Giants are Warren Buffet compared to the fraud Minnesota. They had a -6 point differential for the season but 9-7-1 record. The Giants went 9-4 in one score games.

Rookie coach Brian Daboll has done a remarkable job with QB Daniel Jones. RB Saquon Barkley has had a solid season, but the Giants don’t boast any kind of talent at WR.

When the Giants have the ball, throwing it will be weakness on weakness. Here are how these two teams rank by my passing success rate adjusted for opponent.

  • New York Giants – 21st pass offense
  • Minnesota – 27th pass defense

It gets better when Minnesota has the ball. Thank you, Justin Jefferson.

  • Minnesota – 11th pass offense
  • New York Giants – 17th pass defense

One of these teams will win, and it should be the Vikings. I’d lean towards them -3 at home.

Football betting with a PhD edge

This article was sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter at 12:30pm Eastern on Thursday, January 12, 2023. 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!”