Welcome to Week 7 of Deconstructing the Vegas Betting Lines. The Week 1 article has all you need to know about methodology, but here are the Cliff’s Notes:
- We’re breaking the implied team total into four scoring types — passing, rushing, kicking, and defensive/special teams scores (i.e. returns and safeties).
- To do this, we’re leveraging the rates at which teams score their points and their opposing defenses concede them in each phase of the game.
- There are two calculation methods — one averages the offensive and defensive rates, and the other squares, combines, and square roots the differences of the rates from the league mean. The latter method uses the principles of standard deviation to emphasize rates further from the mean.
As with every analysis, it’s great to get more data each week. We’re in the middle of the year, where this analysis can really provide an edge.
As always, consult the NFL homepage for more information on individual matchups that stand out. Let’s jump into the Week 7 deconstructions.
Passing Scoring and Notes
2017 League Average Pass TD Points Rate: 41.0 percent
2016 League Average Pass TD Points Rate: 40.5 percent
Note: Lines pulled from Sports Insights on October 21.
The Sunday night game looks to be a favorable matchup for passing points, which is sort of the M.O. anytime New England takes on even a solid offense. Because of their high-powered offense and sieve of a pass defense (which is allowing the most passing yards, net yards per attempt, and passing touchdowns in the league), game and team totals will be high. Both Tom Brady and Matt Ryan project for elevated ownership at FanDuel.
Let’s focus on some other situations, although few of the top projections here will fly under anyone’s radar. Dak Prescott is a road favorite in San Francisco as C.J. Beathard makes his first career start for the 49ers. Prescott has a strong projection more because of the Cowboys’ tendencies than the 49ers’ defense; Dallas has scored a surprisingly high rate of passing touchdowns in 2017 after finishing second in the league in percent of points scored via rush touchdowns in 2016. With a high team total but also high salaries, Dak, Dez Bryant, and Jason Witten are all in play.
The Packers’ passing game has a high number, but remember these projections are built on to-date data. Under Aaron Rodgers, the Packers have easily scored the highest rate of passing touchdowns points in the league. It’s unlikely that will continue with Brett Hundley taking over, but this matchup is conducive to aerial production as just four teams have allowed a lower rate of scoring on the ground than the Saints. The Packers would be wise to attack through the air in the red zone.
Perhaps the biggest contrarian suggestion offered here is Philip Rivers. The Chargers have a low team total, but they score the third-highest percentage of their points via pass touchdowns while the Broncos defense has yet to concede a score on the ground and has subsequently given up the league’s highest rate of passing points. If the Chargers do approach their 20.25 implied points, it’s a fair bet they’ll do so through the air. When these teams met back in Week 1, Rivers threw for three touchdowns.
Rushing Scoring and Notes
2017 League Average Rush TD Points Rate: 18.7 percent
2016 League Average Rush TD Points Rate: 22.7 percent
It’s remarkable the Colts grade out so well in the rushing lines this week given their implied team total. They are one of just two teams (Tennessee is the other) to score more rushing touchdowns than passing, and Jacksonville’s defense is one of three to concede more touchdowns on the ground. Jacoby Brissett, though, is skewing the numbers a bit, as he leads the Colts in rushing touchdowns with three. With Robert Turbin out, Frank Gore and Marlon Mack have elevated scoring potential. Gore comes in with the sixth-highest Projected Plus/Minus among DraftKings running backs.
The aforementioned Titans also grade well here despite the Browns’ tendencies. As discussed in the AFC edition of my Stealing Signals column at RotoViz, Derrick Henry played substantially more on the first two drives in Week 6 than he had in the team’s first five games. It was easy to assume head coach Mike Mularkey’s postgame comments about an increased workload for Henry were influenced by his 72-yard touchdown late in the fourth quarter, but the early-game playing time indicates the wheels were in motion from the opening kick this past week. Keep an eye on whether the team activates DeMarco Murray, because Henry could be in for a huge workload if Murray’s unable to go.
Kicking and Defense/Special Teams Scoring and Notes
2017 League Average Kicking Points Rate: 33.3 percent
2016 League Average Kicking Points Rate: 31.5 percent
Last week’s recommended kickers using this methodology were a mixed bag. Overall, the recommendations in this article are averaging 8.37 FanDuel points, just slightly better than the league average of 8.31 for the 2017 season. It’s a decent sign that even as the results have been underwhelming relative to the last two years (which is all I’ve tracked), they are still basically average. Also, as I’ve mentioned, the data getting stronger each week should be expected to improve things. Harrison Butker had a top-five projection this week and hit three field goals on Thursday night, including a 50-yarder.
From the Sunday and Monday games, this week’s top kickers are Stephen Gostkowski, Dan Bailey, Jake Elliott, Steven Hauschka, and Chris Boswell.
2017 League Average D/ST Points Rate: 6.5 percent
2016 League Average D/ST Points Rate: 4.3 percent
As always, the D/ST table is included mostly to be transparent with all the data. In my review of 2015 data, the subdivided defense/special teams scoring projections were the only scoring type to perform worse than the betting lines, and it was notably worse. The implication is that conceding or scoring D/ST touchdowns and safeties isn’t predictive of future performance, which is useful to know, since it’s possible that some teams have inflated over/unders and/or implied point totals if they have scored and/or conceded a high rate of points via defense/special teams.
In other words, it might be useful to fade a small degree of the implied totals for teams who grade highly here. Of course, the passing, rushing, and kicking projections in this column control for this with relatively lower percentages.
Good luck this week, and be sure to use our Tools to research for yourself.
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Ben Gretch is the Senior Fantasy Analyst at RotoViz, where he authors the weekly column Stealing Signals.
News Updates
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