Ben Gretch is the Senior Fantasy Analyst at RotoViz. He is the author of “2017 Will Not Look Like 2016 – Or Anything We’ve Seen Before” and the weekly column Stealing Signals.
Welcome to Week 3 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.
It’s been a wild first two weeks working with the Vegas lines. This analysis asks, “How can we get more out of implied team totals?” It’s not a particularly helpful analysis if the anchor is inaccurate en masse, as the implied team totals have been the first two weeks. Of course, if the crowd reacts to low scoring across the league by fading implied totals, it makes it the perfect time to lean back in.
Last week, we used 75 percent 2016 data and 25 percent Week 1. This week we’re going with a 50/50 split of 2016 and 2017 to date. The early-season rates are still a bit unstable, but two weeks of data is significantly better than one week. (Miami and Tampa Bay, of course, have still played just one game.) This data will be more robust in the coming weeks, but there are still interesting insights to be gleaned in the early going.
As always, consult the NFL homepage for more information on individual matchups that stand out. Here are the Week 3 deconstructions:
Passing Scoring and Notes
2016 League Average Pass TD Points Rate: 40.5 percent
2017 League Average Pass TD Points Rate: 37.5 percent
Note: Lines pulled from Sports Insights on September 22.
The Lions are tied for the NFL lead with six passing touchdowns thus far in 2017 and have yet to score a rushing touchdown. Atlanta’s pass defense has looked beatable, as Mike Glennon resembled competency in Week 1 and Aaron Rodgers threw for 343 yards and two touchdowns in Week 2 despite losing both Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb to injury, having a touchdown called back by a questionable offensive pass interference penalty (the Packers settled for a field goal on the drive), and dealing with Martellus Bennett‘s drops.
Matthew Stafford looks great in the Models, and Detroit’s team total has risen since open. He projects to be highly owned for a quarterback, but the big question is who to stack with him. Last week, Eric Ebron, Golden Tate, and Theo Riddick caught all 12 passes thrown at them, but they totaled 16 Air Yards and a 1.3-yard average depth of target (aDOT). Unsurprisingly, Kenny Golladay and Marvin Jones have combined for 65 percent of the team’s Air Yards through two weeks (AirYards.com). The delineation is interesting given Atlanta has allowed 278 passing yards per game despite being attacked at a league-low 5.7 aDOT. Ebron, Tate, and Riddick would seem to make for the more interesting stacks.
Overall, the projections are close this week. This analysis doesn’t peg a lot of exploitable matchups where offensive strength and defensive weakness pair nicely. Two more options that aren’t flying under too many radars are Green Bay and Carolina, who face the Saints defense at home this week. Both Aaron Rodgers and Cam Newton look good in the Models but have elevated ownership projections at quarterback.
Some exposure to these top names makes sense, but play around with the above table and the Models to seek out the wealth of differentiation opportunity we have this week.
Rushing Scoring and Notes
2016 League Average Rush TD Points Rate: 22.7 percent
2017 League Average Rush TD Points Rate: 21.2 percent
Thus far in 2017, the Patriots have run six plays at their opponents’ one- or two-yard lines. Mike Gillislee has converted all four of his touchdowns in these situations on five attempts.
That’s remarkable efficiency, but the three-per-game rate is well above the 1.75 they averaged in 2016, which was second most in the league. LeGarrette Blount took handoffs on 71 percent of those situations last year and scored 11 of his touchdowns there. Gillislee has a firm grasp on that role this year and should be in plus game script again. But he has yet to be targeted, meaning he’s reliant on those goal-line touches. A full 68 percent of his fantasy points thus far has come from touchdowns.
With a rising price tag, he’s a fade for me. The number of plays the Patriots have run at the goal line is due for regression, and even with a touchdown last week he posted only 12.9 points.
Instead, I’m using the above table to target a different running back projected for similar mid-level ownership: Derrick Henry. The Titans have already scored four rushing touchdowns in 2017, and they averaged one touchdown per game last year. The Seahawks defense has allowed just one through two games, but they’ve been low-scoring affairs. The 49ers rushed for 159 yards on just 19 carries against them in Week 2, and Henry should get a good chunk of the carries even if the questionable DeMarco Murray plays. [Editor’s Note: If Murray is inactive in Week 1, we will likely adjust Henry’s ownership projections in our Models. Monitor this situation.]
Last year, Seattle allowed the second highest rate of rushing touchdown points as a percentage of total points allowed. The Titans are favored, and it’s a good bet at least one of their scores comes on the ground.
Kicking and Defense/Special Teams Scoring and Notes
2016 League Average Kicking Points Rate: 31.5 percent
2017 League Average Kicking Points Rate: 35.4 percent
Four of the five kicker recommendations last week scored nine or more FanDuel points. The 10 recommendations through two weeks have averaged 9.6 with a Plus/Minus of +2.44. This method of highlighting teams that have high totals, score a high percentage of their points through the kicking game, and are playing teams who concede a high percentage of their points through the kicking game continues to be a strong way to choose kickers, as it was throughout last season.
I want to caution against two of the top five kickers on the above table. The Bengals offense and Panthers defense have registered 100 percent of their points scored/conceded through two games in the kicking game (i.e., all field goals). Will Lutz and Randy Bullock are in the top five here because of how we’re incorporating small samples. You can see that the Bengals offensive and Panthers defensive rates are substantially higher in the above table than the rates for any other team.
Let’s instead highlight the other five kickers in the top seven: Stephen Gostkowski, Graham Gano, Jake Elliott, Dustin Hopkins, and Giorgio Tavecchio.
2016 League Average D/ST Points Rate: 4.3 percent
2017 League Average D/ST Points Rate: 5.6 percent
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 could 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, later in the year we should fade a small degree of the implied totals for teams who grade highly here. Of course, the unleavened fade is already baked into the passing, rushing, and kicking projections in this column because those percentages are relatively lower.
Good luck this week, and be sure to use our Tools to research these teams for yourself.
News Updates
After this piece is published, FantasyLabs is likely to provide news updates on a number of players herein mentioned. Be sure to stay ahead of your competition with our NFL news feed:
