Introduction
Before diving into the nitty-gritty of this week's bets, it is important to establish a few key concepts that will come up repeatedly throughout the season. First and foremost, all bets will be recommended with an accompanying unit amount, typically somewhere between 0.5 and 2.0 units. One unit should equate to approximately one-percent of your allotted bankroll that you use for wagering across various sports. Arguably the most important aspect of being a winning sports bettor is proper bankroll management. By wagering in accordance with the recommended unit amounts-- totaling to a small percentage of your bankroll each week- this will ensure that you are never risking more than you can afford to lose. Additionally, the sports betting market is just that, a market. Markets typically tend towards efficiency, especially when the market price- or betting line in this case- is established by many players risking large sums of money to establish the price. Historically, the most accurate estimate of what the correct price, or most accurate pregame projection of a game, is determined by the closing line of the game. The betting limits for games increase as more information, in the form of wagers, becomes available to bookmakers later in the week. Subsequently, the betting line movements leading up to kickoff ultimately move the betting line into place, settling at the most efficient public indicator of what the price should be at kickoff. Using the closing line, calculating closing line value becomes a fantastic measurement of a sound process in sports betting. Beating the closing line, or betting on a game at a better number than the game closes at, is extremely difficult, but also typically leads to sustainable long-term success.
One hypothetical example of beating the closing line would be betting on the Kansas City Chiefs at -4 on Friday afternoon when the line closes at -5.5. Here, the most efficient number is deemed to be -5.5, leaving the bettor with 1.5 points of closing value. Another hypothetical example, conversely, would be betting on the Carolina Panthers at +7 on Friday afternoon when the line closes at +4 at kickoff. In this example, there would be 3 points of closing line value for the wager on Carolina. As previously stated, consistently registering bets with positive closing line value is a great signal of a bettor who should find success in the future. This season, closing line value (CLV) will be tracked for all recommended wagers, along with the win-loss and profit-loss totals.
Results
Week 2 Review
- Chicago Bears -5.5 (-110): LOSS -1.25 units, CLV: -1.26 points
- Kansas City Chiefs -8.5 (-110): LOSS -1.1 units, CLV: +0.46 points
- Carolina Panthers +8.5 (-110): LOSS -1.1 units, CLV: +0.90 points
Week Profit: -3.45 units
Total Profit: -2.51 units
Total CLV: +4.43 points*
*note: there was a minor error in the CLV tracking for Week 1's results, the CLV result for Week 1 was +4.33 points, not the original +4.125 points that was listed in last week's article, and this week's results are calculated using the corrected +4.33-point tally.
Last weekend, despite getting a better number than the market closed at on two out of our three wagers, all three came up short. Each wager managed to come up short in a unique fashion, as the Chicago Bears jumped out to a commanding early lead before allowing a few garbage-time drives to the New York Giants, leading to just a four-point victory. Out west, the Kansas City Chiefs came out flat against Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers, playing in a tightly-contested game from start to finish where the Chiefs never looked likely to cover the spread. Down south, in Tampa Bay, the Carolina Panthers were outclassed by the Buccaneers across the board, but stayed within striking distance throughout the second half after coming back from a 21-0 deficit. After a late score, it seemed inevitable that they would cover the spread, barring an unexpected touchdown run as the Bucs ran out the clock. Sadly, Leonard Fournette broke off a 46-yard touchdown run with a shade over one minute left to seal a 14-point victory for Tampa Bay. Regardless of one poor week, confident in the process and underlying numbers showing we are beating the market, we regroup move onto the next slate of games.
Moving forward, additional focus will shift towards the offensive side of the football for each team analyzed. Research has proven offensive metrics to be far more predictive of future performance than defensive metrics, especially early in the season. Early-season defensive metrics are highly dependent upon the quality of opposing offenses faced, and even with the requisite adjustments to account for opposing offenses, these defensive metrics provide little predictive value compared to offensive metrics.
As always, please gamble responsibly, never risk more than you can afford to lose, and, perhaps most importantly, have fun throughout the roller coaster ride that is an NFL Sunday. Football is back and there's nothing better than kicking your feet up on a Sunday afternoon and watching the NFL. Now, if you're looking for a fun sweat across a trio of games this weekend, let's dig into where you will be best served investing your money.
Chicago Bears @ Atlanta Falcons (-3) | TOTAL: 47.5
Pick: Atlanta Falcons -3 (-112), risk 1.68 units to win 1.5 units at DraftKings Sportsbook
This weekend, the Chicago Bears, on the heels of an unimpressive victory over the New York Giants, head down to Atlanta to take on the 0-2 Falcons after a crushing defeat at the hands of the Dallas Cowboys. The tale of each team’s respective Week 2 outing is quite the same for Chicago and Atlanta- both teams jumped out to commanding leads early in the game and stood by hopelessly as their respective opponents chipped away at the lead. However, the end of the story differs vastly for each team, as the Chicago Bears held on to their lead, keeping the New York Giants out of the endzone in the final seconds of their game to win 17-13, while the Atlanta Falcons made a series of fatal errors, including a grossly mishandled onside kick recovery, which led to a 39-40 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
Neither team has looked impressive through two games, but the standings are far more forgiving for the Chicago Bears than the Atlanta Falcons ahead of their Week 3 matchup. Chicago has scraped by with a pair of victories over the Detroit Lions and New York Giants, two of the worst teams in the NFL. On the other hand, the Atlanta Falcons sit at the bottom of the NFC South following a pair of defeats to the Seattle Seahawks and Dallas Cowboys, two of the NFC's best teams. Initially, based on the surface-level numbers, seeing Atlanta as three-point favorites here may come as a surprise. Not only is it justified, but this spread should be even wider than it currently is, which is why we have a 1.68 unit on the Falcons to cover the -3 spread, which would net 1.5 units of profit.
Chicago’s 2-0 start has kept quarterback Mitchell Trubisky’s butt off of the hot-seat to start the season, but the results for this offense through two games have been discouraging. Last week, I noted that he simply needed to get the ball to his playmakers on the outside and allow them to do the work to beat the Giants’ porous defense. For the most part, he failed miserably in this regard, completing just 3 out of 12 pass attempts to Allen Robinson and Anthony Miller, his top two receivers. Trubisky, now in his fourth-season under-center for the Chicago Bears, continues to struggle in the pocket, processing what the defense is throwing at him. His touchdown passes last weekend came on plays he scrambled out of the pocket and found a receiver in space outside of the offense's framework. For the high-end quarterbacks in the NFL, like Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, and Patrick Mahomes II, this trait is a fantastic addition to their incredible prowess throwing from inside the pocket. For a low-end quarterback like Trubisky, the reliance on extending plays-- frequently after missing open receivers throughout his standard reads and progression-- is extremely worrying. Overall, Chicago’s passing attack, and offense as a whole, grades as one of the weaker units in the NFL while Mitchell Trubisky is under-center. While Atlanta’s defense has posted horrific numbers through two games, including a mind-boggling 39 points-per-game, it is important to note the level of competition they have faced early this season. Both of their losses have come against elite offenses and passing attacks. After all, there is little shame in being torched by the current favorite to win the MVP award, Russell Wilson, and Dak Prescott, who is equipped with three receivers who would be number-one receivers on numerous other NFL rosters. Atlanta’s defense certainly is not good right now, but their horrific metrics through just 120 minutes of football are a product of a tough schedule more than anything else. In this matchup, there is more cause for concern with Mitchell Trubisky and Chicago’s offensive attack than anything else, giving the edge to the Falcons defense, almost by default.
The Atlanta Falcons offense, on the other hand, has been very impressive throughout the first two games of the 2020 season. Now playing in his 13th season, Matt Ryan is well-equipped with the requisite playmakers to enable him to remain one of the league’s most efficient passers. Ryan ranks 8th in the NFL in adjusted-net-yards-per-attempt through two games this season, in large part thanks to the emergence of Calvin Ridley as a top-tier complement for Julio Jones. Since the Falcons traded away Mohamed Sanu to the New England Patriots late in the 2019 season and increased Ridley’s playing time, Ridley, a third-year player out of Alabama, has been one of the NFL’s most productive pass-catchers. Since Week 11 of last season, Calvin Ridley is averaging 7.17 receptions for 105.7 yards and 1.2 touchdowns per game. While his touchdown numbers are certainly unsustainable over the course of a full season, his masterful route-running abilities consistently enable him to get separation from defenders, making him one of the league’s most-dangerous number-two receiving options in any offense. Opposite Ridley, Julio Jones continues to command attention from opposing defenses, as his rare combination of speed and physicality prevails against almost any defender in the NFL, even if he is somewhat hampered by a hamstring injury this weekend. On the other side of the football, Chicago’s defense has looked impressive throughout the first two weeks of the season, albeit against weak competition. The talent throughout the Bears’ defense at all three levels-- in the trenches, in the linebacking corps, and in the secondary-- leads one to believe they will remain an above-average unit in 2020 after a strong 2019 campaign. Despite the presence of difference-makers like Khalil Mack and Eddie Jackson, in the modern NFL, explosive offenses frequently prevail over strong defenses, and we should expect this matchup to be no different. This battle projects to slant towards the Atlanta Falcons, as their depth and talent in their aerial attack is the most important factor.
This Week 3 matchup between two teams with extremely misleading surface-level numbers has a true line of approximately Atlanta -6, given the underwhelming projections for Chicago’s offense as long as Mitchell Trubisky is under-center. At the current line of Atlanta -3 (-112) at DraftKings Sportsbook, we have a 1.68 unit wager on the Falcons to cover the spread and net 1.5 units in a victory.
San Francisco 49ers (-3.5) @ New York Giants | TOTAL: 41.5
Pick: San Francisco 49ers -3.5 (-110), risk 1.1 units to win 1.0 unit at FanDuel Sportsbook
The San Francisco 49ers return to the Meadowlands once again this weekend to take on the New York Giants after demolishing the New York Jets in Week 2. I would be remiss if I did not mention that the 49ers’ roster has been decimated by injuries unlike any other team in the NFL, as they lost Jimmy Garoppolo, Tevin Coleman, Raheem Mostert, Nick Bosa, Dee Ford, and Solomon Thomas to injury last weekend. Fortunately, their schedule is exceptionally forgiving, as San Francisco takes on perhaps the only team with a reasonable argument to be worse than the New York Jets this season, the New York Giants, here in Week 3. As mentioned last week, the New York Giants’ combination of a horrific coaching staff and a lack of on-field talent is the perfect recipe for disaster. Additionally, the Giants did not escape Week 2 without a pair of impactful injuries of their own, as Sterling Shepard landed on the IR with a turf toe injury, and Saquon Barkley was lost for the season due to a torn ACL. Without two of their most productive skill-position players, an already anemic offense projects to struggle even more, which they can ill-afford against a team that lights up the scoreboard like San Francisco. In this clash between the class of the NFC West, coached by one of the sharpest schematic coaching staffs in the league on both sides of the ball, and the basement-dwellers of the NFC East, led by one of the worst coaching staffs in the league, we have a 1.1 unit play on the San Francisco 49ers -3.5 points to win 1.0 unit.
Should Jimmy Garoppolo miss Week 3 due to the ankle injury he sustained last weekend, Nick Mullens will start quarterback for the 49ers. In previous stints as San Francisco’s starting quarterback, Mullens has proven capable of maintaining comparable levels of passing efficiency to what Garoppolo has produced under Kyle Shanahan, and it appears that the market has overreacted to this potential quarterback change. Then, in the backfield, Raheem Mostert is the most notable loss for the 49ers’ rushing attack. Mostert’s incredible speed and athleticism, combined with Kyle Shanahan’s schematic genius, leads to frequent chunk-plays on the ground-- as shown by Mostert’s remarkable count of 9 touchdowns of 20+ yards since the start of the 2018 season. Jerick McKinnon is slated to start in place of Mostert this weekend, and much like Mostert, McKinnon is a freakishly athletic player capable of regularly breaking off big plays. While a potent rushing attack is infrequently the driving force behind gaudy offensive numbers, San Francisco’s offense bucks that trend thanks to an incredible offensive line, top-end athletes carrying the football, and Kyle Shanahan’s unique offense. Expect the 49ers’ ground-game to remain dangerous with Jerick McKinnon shouldering the bulk of the load in a soft matchup against a miserable New York Giants’ defense. Additionally, George Kittle has returned to practice this week on a limited basis, which would provide a significant boost to this offense. Kittle is undoubtedly one of the most-valuable non-quarterback offensive players in the NFL due to his remarkable pass-catching and run-blocking prowess. Should Kittle play this weekend, there is even more value backing the 49ers to cover the 3.5-point spread against the Giants.
On New York’s side of the football, the outlook for the 2020 season is looking increasingly bleak. Expectations were low for the Giants entering the season, with a projected win total of just 6.2 wins, according to the betting markets, and that number has plummeted down to approximately 4.7 wins as it currently stands. There are very few, if any, redeeming qualities for the Giants’ offense. At the top, their play-caller, Jason Garrett, has an extensive track record of horrific decision-making, frequently opting to run the football in 2nd-and-long situations and asking far too much of his quarterbacks on 3rd downs. Now, with Daniel Jones under-center, this suboptimal plan-of-attack is significantly less effective, as he pails in comparison to the quarterbacks Garrett had at his disposal during a mediocre tenure as the head coach and play-caller for the Dallas Cowboys. Daniel Jones’ struggles last year as a rookie are well-documented, and he has shown little through two games this season to lead us to believe he is anything better than a replacement-level quarterback. So far, in 2020, Jones ranks 32nd out of 34 qualified quarterbacks in adjusted-net-yards-per-pass-attempt. Now, without two of his most dynamic playmakers, Sterling Shepard and Saquon Barkley, expectations are even lower for Jones and the Giants’ offense. New York’s horrific offensive line certainly plays a significant role in Jones’ struggles, as their consistently-poor pass-blocking performance frequently leaves Jones exposed to dangerous situations that exacerbate his shortcomings with regard to decision-making and arm talent when throwing the football. Overall, the New York Giants’ offense is one of the worst in the NFL, and the San Francisco 49ers defense should have little trouble stifling this attack, even with a depleted defensive-front.
In total, despite the question mark at quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, the overall advantage in play-making talent on both sides of the football, especially if George Kittle can return to action this weekend, should easily prevail against the New York Giants, who I currently rank as the worst team in the NFL. The true line for this game is approximately 5.5 points according to my projections, providing value wagering 1.1 units on the San Francisco 49ers to cover the -3.5-point spread and net 1.0 unit of profit at FanDuel Sportsbook.
Carolina Panthers @ Los Angeles Chargers (-6.5) | TOTAL: 43.5
Pick: Carolina Panthers +6.5 (-106), risk 1.06 units to win 1.0 unit at DraftKings Sportsbook
The Carolina Panthers make their third consecutive appearance in Beating the Odds to start the 2020 season, as they look to rebound after giving up a garbage-time 46-yard rushing touchdown to Leonard Fournette last weekend to lose against the spread against Tampa Bay. This weekend, the Panthers head to the west coast to take on the Los Angeles Chargers, who will be led by Justin Herbert once again after further medical testing revealed that Tyrod Taylor suffered a punctured lung when Los Angeles’ medical staff gave him a pain-killing injection in his chest for cracked ribs last week. While Herbert and the Chargers managed to hang with the defending Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, last week in his NFL debut, expectations should be tempered for the Chargers here in Week 3, as the Carolina Panthers will have a full week to prepare for this matchup against the rookie quarterback.
Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers exceeded expectations in his NFL debut last weekend, leading the game against the Chiefs for a significant portion of the game before coming up just short in a 23-20 overtime loss. The context beyond Herbert’s end-of-game stat line is critical to analyze his performance properly. Since Tyrod Taylor was a late scratch for Week 2, aggravating the chest injury that held him out of the game during pregame warmups, the Kansas City Chiefs game-planned for the Taylor-led Chargers’ offense all week. Taylor and Herbert differ fundamentally in their playing styles and preferences as passers. Taylor frequently extends plays with his legs, scrambling from the pocket and looking downfield, attempting high-risk/high-reward passes. While Herbert also extends plays with his legs, he prefers much safer, shorter passes. These traits are encapsulated in the Next Gen Stats from each players’ respective start for the Chargers this season:
- In Week 1, Tyrod Taylor threw 36.7-percent of his passes into tight coverage, compared to Justin Herbert’s 15.2-percent mark in Week 2.
- Taylor threw his passes to a target that was, on average, 3.4 yards BEYOND the first-down marker and 11.6 yards downfield in Week 1, compared to Justin Herbert’s average target being 0.1 yards BEHIND the first-down marker and just 8.8 yards downfield in Week 2.
- Based on the distance downfield and separation from defenders of his intended target, Taylor's expected completion percentage was approximately 55-percent in Week 1, compared to Herbert’s expected completion percentage of 60.9-percent in Week 2.
Justin Herbert and Tyrod Taylor are very different quarterbacks, based on their risk-tolerance and tendencies regarding whom they prefer to throw the ball to. After Kansas City spent a week devising a plan to contain Tyrod Taylor, the last-minute switch to Justin Herbert under-center provided an unexpected and different set of issues they had to defend. This short-notice favored the Chargers and enabled their offense to overperform expectations in the short-term. However, in the long-term, now that opposing teams know what to expect under-center from Herbert and have a full week to game-plan for how to contain him, rather than just a few minutes or hours, the Chargers’ offense projects to be a below-average unit. Fortunately, a soft matchup against a horrific Carolina Panthers defense still gives Los Angeles a significant edge in this battle.
In Week 2, the Carolina Panthers lost Christian McCaffrey to an ankle injury that is expected to sideline him for 4-to-6 weeks. This loss is undoubtedly impactful, as he is a key contributor for the team on the ground and through the air, but the impact may not be as significant as it seems at first. Mike Davis, McCaffrey’s primary backup, stepped into the starting lineup in his absence and proved to be a capable pass-catcher, hauling in all 8 of his targets for 74 yards on the day (mostly in garbage time.) Also, as previously mentioned a handful of times throughout the brief history of Beating the Odds, oftentimes, the value added by a potent rushing attack lags far behind the value of a potent passing attack in the context of winning football games. It is inarguable that completely ignoring the necessity of a competent ground-game will hurt a team in the long-term. However, the value added by anything less than the highest-end rushing attack (like that of the San Francisco 49ers) is marginal, meaning the downgrade from Christian McCaffrey to Mike Davis in the running game will not serve to impact Carolina’s offense in terms of the likelihood of winning this game. Additionally, Christian McCaffrey’s absence may enable the Carolina Panthers to expand Curtis Samuel’s role in the offense. Samuel, who entered the NFL as a hybrid between a running back and wide receiver, is an electric playmaker with the ball in his hands whose opportunities have been limited to this point in his career due to the emergence of D.J. Moore on the outside as one of the best young receivers in the NFL, and Christian McCaffrey as perhaps the NFL’s best running back. McCaffrey’s injury may allow Curtis Samuel to see increased playing time in the backfield, spelling Mike Davis and providing value as a weapon in all phases of the game. On the outside, the aforementioned D.J. Moore has shown continual improvement on the outside here in his third NFL season. Moore is one of the youngest third-year players in the NFL, and his steep, upward trajectory at this young age has many analysts thinking that he could be a superstar in the league down the line. Lastly, the offseason signing of Robby Anderson via free agency has provided a stable secondary option for Teddy Bridgewater to turn to with confidence. Overall, Carolina’s offense, directed by offensive coordinator Joe Brady, one of the brightest young minds in college football last season, has massive potential this season, even if they haven’t been remarkably consistent and efficient out of the gates in 2020. A difficult matchup against a Los Angeles Chargers defense that limited Patrick Mahomes II and the Kansas City Chiefs to just 20 points in regulation last weekend projects neutralize Carolina’s offensive upside this weekend, but not gain any substantial advantage over the Panthers, which would be required to justify the current 6.5-point spread on this game.
In sum, given the minor edge to the Chargers’ offense when they’re on the field, and the net-neutral result of the battle between the Panthers’ offense and Chargers’ defense, the true line for this game is approximately 4.5 points, in favor of the Chargers. Here, given the value between the true line and the betting market, we have a 1.06 unit play on the Carolina Panthers to cover the +6.5-point spread to win 1.0 unit at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Summary of Picks
Atlanta Falcons -3 (-112), risking 1.68 units to win 1.5 units at DraftKings Sportsbook
San Francisco 49ers -3.5 (-110), risking 1.1 units to win 1.0 unit at FanDuel Sportsbook
Carolina Panthers +6.5 (-106), risking 1.06 units to win 1.0 unit at DraftKings Sportsbook
As always, feel free to reach out to me directly on Twitter with any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this article-- I would love to hear any and all feedback you may have regarding how you think I can improve this article and provide more to you value down the line. Good luck all!
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