Welcome to Week 9 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 always, consult the NFL homepage for more information on individual matchups that stand out. Let’s jump into the Week 9 deconstructions.
Passing Scoring and Notes
2017 League Average Pass TD Points Rate: 40.5 percent
2016 League Average Pass TD Points Rate: 40.5 percent
Note: Lines pulled from Sports Insights on November 4.
In a slate that’s been turned upside down a couple of times, the Cowboys project to be the most reliable touchdown-scoring offense. Both their offense and Kansas City’s defense have scored/allowed kicking and D/ST points at rates well below average; as a result, the units have scored/allowed both passing and rushing points at rates above league average. With their high team total of 28.0 points, the Cowboys come in with the highest passing and rushing projection for the week.
The exciting aspect of that is how concentrated the Cowboys’ production has been all season. Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, Dez Bryant, and Jason Witten have scored 18 of their 23 offensive touchdowns. Prescott, Elliott, and Bryant project to have high ownership, while Witten is more contrarian given Kansas City’s -2.3 Opponent Plus/Minus against tight ends.
Philadelphia’s high-flying offense faces off with Denver’s stout defense, which remains the only one in the NFL not to have conceded a rushing touchdown. If the Eagles are to hit their implied total of 24.5 points, Carson Wentz is a good bet to throw a couple of passing touchdowns. Zach Ertz is the favored passing-game option, as Denver has been crushed by tight ends to the tune of a +4.00 Opponent Plus/Minus, more than double the second-highest rate on the slate.
Houston’s high passing projection is buoyed by their rate of points scored via passing touchdowns. Don’t get sucked into thinking it’s a sneaky option; Indianapolis has conceded passing touchdown points at a rate more than 10 percentage points below league average, and with Deshaun Watson out the Texans’ offensive rates are essentially meaningless. The Texans still have a strong team total, but the matchup dictates attacking on the ground in the red zone, something Bill O’Brien will likely do instead of lean on Tom Savage. Lamar Miller has the Texans’ only two rushing scores other than Watson’s two.
Rushing Scoring and Notes
2017 League Average Rush TD Points Rate: 18.8 percent
2016 League Average Rush TD Points Rate: 22.7 percent
The Saints have rushed for six touchdowns in the three games since their bye and the Adrian Peterson trade. They draw a Buccaneers defense that, despite looking like a pass funnel in some metrics, has allowed five rushing scores in the last three games and now allows rushing points at the sixth-highest rate in the league. Mark Ingram has scored in three straight games and has six carries and a target inside the 10-yard line during that span. Alvin Kamara scored his second rushing touchdown of the year last week on what was his fourth carry of the season inside the 10-yard line. Ingram’s clearly the preferred option in close, but Kamara does get decent usage there given how much the Saints have leaned on their running backs overall.
The Titans have a solid matchup with the Ravens, who have been harder to score on through the air than on the ground relative to league averages. DeMarco Murray is still the lead back and best bet to earn the goal-line touches. He has six carries inside the 10 in the last two weeks, while Derrick Henry has two of his own.
Following up on the Elliott and Miller notes above: The Cowboys and Texans both have top-five rushing point projections. Elliott is the best rushing touchdown bet on the slate, while Miller takes a little more faith without Watson directing the offense.
Kicking and Defense/Special Teams Scoring and Notes
2017 League Average Kicking Points Rate: 33.8 percent
2016 League Average Kicking Points Rate: 31.5 percent
Four of the five recommended kickers from last week, and eight of the 10 over the past two weeks, have hit double-digit FanDuel points.
This week’s top kickers are Ryan Succop, Wil Lutz, Harrison Butker, Jake Elliott, and Josh Lambo. New Dallas kicker Mike Nugent projects to be a popular option due to a cheap salary and the high team total, but both the Dallas offense and Kansas City defense allow/concede kicking points at a rate at least six percentage points below league average. Nugent’s a fade candidate with Lambo being the best low-priced alternative.
2017 League Average D/ST Points Rate: 6.4 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.
