Welcome to Week 8 of Deconstructing the Vegas Betting Lines. The Week 1 article has all you need to know about methodology, but here are the Cliffs 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 8 deconstructions.
Passing Scoring and Notes
2017 League Average Pass TD Points Rate: 41.4 percent
2016 League Average Pass TD Points Rate: 40.5 percent
Note: Lines pulled from Sports Insights on October 28.
Carson Wentz and the Philadelphia passing game comes in with the highest passing points projection, but there has to be some concern about game flow. Wentz has thrown 11 touchdowns in the past three games but might struggle to rack up passing yardage as a 13-point home favorite. He profiles as more of a cash play with a stable floor but less yardage upside than usual, although the price tag might be prohibitive in cash.
Russell Wilson is one of my favorite players of the week, as the Seahawks have really struggled running the ball since Chris Carson went down. I detailed in this week’s Stealing Signals how the Seattle passing game got going in the second half of a win against the Giants, and they are back home this week against a Texans team going through some turmoil. Similar concerns to Wentz apply, with the chief difference being Seattle could be forced to rely on Wilson to run out the clock if they can’t consistently gain yardage on the ground. Wilson comes in with projected ownership of five to eight percent on both DraftKings and FanDuel.
Andy Dalton is projected to be one of the highest-owned quarterbacks on the week, but here’s a word of caution: Indianapolis has allowed the second-lowest percentage of points via passing touchdowns in the NFL this season, with only Jacksonville allowing a lower rate. Teams have rushed for a league-high 10 touchdowns against their defense, but the passing points rate is also skewed a bit by the Colts allowing four defensive touchdowns. For their part, Cincinnati has trended heavily toward passing touchdowns, so it’ll be interesting to see which extreme rates regress toward the mean. Joe Mixon also projects for high ownership, so getting Cincinnati right will be integral to taking down tournaments this weekend.
One note that works in the favor of both A.J. Green and rookie speedster John Ross, who is set to play his most extended snaps of the year: Indianapolis has been terrible defending the deep part of the field.
Rushing Scoring and Notes
2017 League Average Rush TD Points Rate: 18.5 percent
2016 League Average Rush TD Points Rate: 22.7 percent
Despite the Jets allowing a league-high rate of passing points against, the Falcons have the highest rushing projection on the slate. This is due to their offensive rates, with Matt Ryan throwing just seven touchdowns in six games this year. The data suggests we should feel confident in Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman, but there are opportunities to be discerning with this information, and I think this is one of them: Unless you believe there is strong signal in Ryan’s passing touchdown rate, this looks like a good week for Atlanta’s offensive scoring rates to move back toward league-average.
The Patriots grade out well, and it’s Dion Lewis, not Mike Gillislee, who is the likely beneficiary. Lewis has seen an uptick in snap count and has six carries inside the 10 over the past four games, scoring both of the Patriots’ rushing touchdowns in that span.
In this week’s Stealing Signals, I discussed the Oakland backfield split after Marshawn Lynch‘s ejection. Jalen Richard and DeAndre Washington each saw nine carries and four targets in the Raiders’ Week 7 come-from-behind win, and Richard played a single snap more than Washington. Despite their status as road underdogs with a low team total, Oakland sports a solid rushing points projection. Both backs have affordable price tags but appear to be in a near perfect timeshare, limiting upside. Washington got the touchdown in Week 7 — a four-yard rush.
Lastly, both Saints RBs project to be chalky, and the projections support the case for the heavy home favorites. Chicago has conceded points through the air at a rate well below league-average and rate slightly above the league-average in percentage of rushing points conceded. Mark Ingram has scored three rushing touchdowns in the past two weeks, but Alvin Kamara has five red zone carries of his own over the last three, including two inside the 10.
Kicking and Defense/Special Teams Scoring and Notes
2017 League Average Kicking Points Rate: 33.6 percent
2016 League Average Kicking Points Rate: 31.5 percent
I preached patience in last week’s article, as the kicker recommendations had produced average results in recent weeks and overall for the season; this methodology has been better than average over the last two seasons. If you stuck with it, you were rewarded with a huge day for the model. Other than Dan Bailey, who got injured, every recommended kicker hit at least 11 points. Chris Boswell was the top recommendation, posting 19 points and a Plus/Minus of +10.9.
This week’s top kickers are Steven Hauschka, Jake Elliott, Wil Lutz, Stephen Gostkowski, and Randy Bullock.
2017 League Average D/ST Points Rate: 6.1 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.
