My Opinion and Four Bucks - NFL 2017

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February 3rd, 2017
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My opinion on NFL betting and four bucks will get you a coffee drink at the nearest Starbucks, of course, you could just as easily take your four bucks and not worry about my opinion. You might be well-advised to ignore me given that I am not exactly a world-beater when it comes to betting ATS or the Over/Under. In fact, I have well-documented proof that, over five regular seasons and roughly 406 sides picked, I am running at a decent (but not incredible) 53.45% win rate against the Vegas lines.

Granted, that is playing the WoV Picks game that I created and run every NFL Season at the Wizard of Vegas Forums, so that also means that I must pick a minimum of five sides every week which entails often making picks I don't feel strongly about one way or another. I suppose that if I only made picks about which I had a strong opinion, my winning percentage would be a little better, but even with that assumption, I wouldn't be beating the vig by very much. At best, that might get me up to 55%, I'm no Wizard:

http://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/sports/26543-2016-wov-nfl-picks-game-discussion-thread/47/#post570294

+

http://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/sports/26543-2016-wov-nfl-picks-game-discussion-thread/51/#post571007

= 61.678%

Wizard is running at 61.678% wins over the course of the game, so if he does come out with an analysis of the Big Game, which he hasn't done yet, then it would be better to listen to him if he disagrees with me.

The first thing we should look at are the current Vegas Lines:

http://www.vegasinsider.com/nfl/odds/las-vegas/

Which, as of the time I am writing this, have the Patriots (-3) and the Over/Under for this game at 59 total points scored.

The Short Version

For those of you who just want my conclusion on this game and don't care about my reasoning/analysis, I conclude that I like the Patriots -3 (may or may not be making a bet through a friend of mine) and I do not have a strong opinion about the total.

The Long Version

For those of you interested in how I arrived at my conclusions, here you go:

Terminology

First of all, we are going to need to be speaking the same language in order to have a discussion about this, so it is going to be essential that everyone understand the concepts of, 'Point Spreads,' and, 'Totals.'

2_point_spread

Point Spread

The way that a Point Spread works as compared to a Money Line (read: straight picking the winner) is that, with a Point Spread, an individual is not just picking a team to win, but they are either picking a team to win by a minimum of a specified number of points, or alternatively, they are picking a team to EITHER win OR lose by fewer than a specified number of points.

In the case of the Big Game, the New England Patriots are (as of the time of this writing) being listed at -3 by virtually all sources. That means that if you want to bet the Patriots on a Point Spread Bet, (you bet $110 to win $100, or equivalent, such as $11 to win $10) then you are betting on the Patriots to win by more than three points. If you wish to bet the alternative, Atlanta Falcons +3, then you are betting on the Falcons to either win or lose by fewer than three points.

If the Point Spread falls on exactly three and the Patriots win, (yes, by exactly three points, not at all uncommon given the scoring system of the game) then neither side of the bet wins and all players simply get their money back. It's just a push, and I suppose the house loses a little money on paying the staff to take the bets and printing out all of those tickets. Maybe they'll make a little on the people who forget to go get their cash back, though, and it will offset.

Over/Under, or, Totals

This is simply a bet on the total points scored in the game. The line, as of the time of this writing, is 59 total points. A player will, once again, lay $110 to win $100 (or equivalent) and either pick the Over or Under 59. If the total scored by both teams is exactly 59, then the bet shall push and the player may go get his/her money back.

The Analysis

What we are going to do here is tackle the analysis of both of these propositions at, essentially, the same time because I think we can tie the potential bets into one another somewhat seamlessly. Let's get started!

In fundamental terms, we have a pretty classic matchup for this year's Big One. What we have is the league's most powerful offense (the Falcons) taking on the best team for preventing opponents from scoring (the Patriots) in the league. We have the team that scores the most points against the team that allows their opponents to score the fewest points, so that should pretty much offset, right?

Actually, it shouldn't, because there wouldn't be much to talk about if it did!

3_the_basic_formula

The Basic Formula

We had a very similar tale of the tape in last year's Super Bowl which saw the Denver Broncos (fewest points allowed) against the Carolina Panthers (most points scored). The difference this year is that the public heavily favored the high-powered offense of the Carolina Panthers last year, and just about all of the sharp bettors were eager to jump on Denver +5-6 Points, and the Broncos went on to win by 14.

The main difference that year is that you had the league's best scoring offense going up against that of the Broncos, which was ranked in the bottom half of the league in points scored per game. In the meantime, the heavily lauded Denver defense was ranked fourth in points allowed per game, but that of the Carolina Panthers, in sixth, was not far behind.

Right off the top, this year is pretty substantially different which is what leads to New England being favored in the game by three points. The first major difference is that New England compares much more favorably to Atlanta in terms of points allowed than did Denver to Carolina. The Patriots are ranked number one with an average of 15.7 points allowed this year while the Falcons are ranked 23rd with 24.8 points allowed per game.

For those of you keeping score at home, that is a difference of 9.1 points per game in favor of New England.

It is definitely advantage New England in terms of defense, so let's see where the two teams stack up against one another in terms of scoring. Atlanta is the best scoring team in the league averaging a total of 34.4 points per game, but whereas Denver was in the bottom of the league going up against Carolina last year, New England is ranked third in the league in overall scoring with 28.4 points per game.

Again, if you break out your tally sheet, you will see that favors Atlanta by six points per game.

9.1 - 6 = 3.1 in favor of the Patriots.

The Point Spread for the game is -3, in favor of the Patriots.

So, Brandon, why do you, 'Like,' the Patriots as opposed to just thinking it is relatively neutral?

Pretty Basic Look

Well, we calculated our Lines based on scoring in terms of both Points Scored and Points Allowed, but we didn't factor in that the Patriots were lacking a certain someone for four of those games and also that their Points Scored may have been pulled down by playing a certain third-stringer in two of those games.

In fact, if we look at the 511 points scored (including Playoffs) by the Patriots this season, then we have the average of 28.4 points per game. However, if we subtract the 81 points scored in Brady's absence but also subtract out the four games he didn't play, then we have 430/14 = 30.71 points scored per game.

That is a difference of 2.3 points per game more for the Patriots which, using our method of simple points differential, would move the line to about -5 to -5.5. Granted, I think that Line may favor the Patriots a little bit too much, but at the same time, getting shutout by the Bills in Week 4 in a game that saw the Patriots playing their third-string Quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, is definitely an outlier type game. Barring catastrophe, Jacoby Brissett shall not be seeing any meaningful playing time in the Big Game.

4_a_little_more_advanced

A Little More Advanced

First of all, I wouldn't think this was a NEUTRAL bet given only the circumstances that I mentioned above. In fact, given that one would have to lay $110 to win $100 (or make an equivalent bet) my conclusion would be that both sides of the bet suck and one is better off not betting. I might be inclined to take the Patriots -3 at Even Money, or perhaps even the Lay $101 to win $100 that 5Dimes had going at one point, but I certainly wouldn't be willing to lay that much when I think the, 'Average Line,' should be Patriots -3.1 at Even Money.

Granted, while I don't like the lay, I would immediately like (gun to my head) Patriots -3 more than Atlanta +3 because the three is a push and I think Atlanta should be getting 3.1. Other than really fiddling with the odds (and with the express goal of generating a zero Expected Value bet) there really is no way to give Atlanta 3.1, though.

That is where we get into the Money Lines which seem to be a little more flexible on this game. Currently, the Money Line (if you want the Falcons) is anywhere from +125-+140 depending on the sportsbook in question. That translates to an implied probability ranging from 41.67%-44.44% whereas giving a team three points on the Over/Under translates to an implied win probability of 40.2%:

http://wizardofodds.com/games/sports-betting/nfl/

That would make the fair Money Line +149, and of course the Money Line isn't going to be fair, but when I see the implied Money Line (on the high end) more than four percentage points greater than the odds implied by the point spread, I like the other side of that point spread.

In the case of the Patriots, that makes them an implied 59.8% to win the game, according to the Point Spread and the Money Lines on them range from -145 (59.18% implied) to -160 (61.54% implied) which means that, based on the Money Lines, the point spread likes the Falcons too much and does not like the Patriots as much as it should.

The problem is that the Point Spread is not as finely tuned as the Money Line because it fundamentally can't be. If you made New England a 3.5 point favorite (-3.5) then what happens is the implied probability of them winning jumps up to 61.4% which is way on the high end of the implied probabilities based on the Money Line and higher than the Money Line based implied probabilities of most of the sportsbooks.

Even this sort of measure is slightly close, though, as it will be for most NFL games. If nothing else, if decimal lines (other than halves) were possible for the Over/Under, this might just point to Patriots at -3.1 being a more precise line than -3. For the sake of argument, it might say that, if the game could be played 1,000 times, and then whether a bet wins or loses is based on the average, then the Spread might be NE -3.1 as opposed to -3. Of course, that can't happen.

5_situation_specific_statistics

Situation Specific Statistics

The simplest, 'Basic Spread,' method does not yield any apparent advantage over the Vegas Spread and not does getting into the implied odds of the point spread compared to the implied odds of the Money Line. That being the case, we are going to have to get into strengths and weaknesses of the two teams.

In the case of the Falcons, I am interested in how many points they scored this year against teams with better than average defenses:

If we look at the Falcons against the top fifteen scoring defenses in the league, they put up:

24, 23, 24, 28, 15, 38, 28, 36 (Playoffs Included) for an average of: 27 Points

Okay, so you have a team that put up an amazing 34.4 points per game, 5.1 points per game more than the team (New Orleans Saints) closest to them and six points more than the Patriots, but against even reasonably good defenses, they average 7.4 fewer points!

As we know, New England also has a powerful offense, and Tom Brady has thrived on making both weak and strong defenses alike look like a joke, but he has especially thrived against weak defenses. This year was no exception, so let's look at how many the Patriots put up against the worst fifteen defensive teams in the league when Brady plays:

33, 30, 22, 26, 41, 35 (Playoffs N/A) for an average of: 31.17 Points

That is compared to the 28.4 NE has averaged for the year and we see that they play 2.77 points per game better against weak defenses. Much as Atlanta was weaker against the teams with some of the better Opponent Points Allowed, (New England was #1) New England was stronger against opponents in the bottom fifteen in the league in Opponent Points Allowed (Atlanta is tenth-worst in the league in this respect)

What that leaves is how New England has performed in terms of Opponent Points Allowed against the Top 15 Offenses in the league:

21, 16, 16, 25, 17 (Playoffs Included) for an average of: 19 Points

While New England has not played strong scoring teams often, we do see that they allow teams that score well a few more points, on average, than they do against all opponents. The difference in this respect is New England allowing 3.3 more points than average.

We would also look at how Atlanta performs against the best teams in scoring, in terms of Opponent Points Allowed, but a glance at their schedule shows that the majority of the teams they have played have been in the Top 15 in scoring (or close) and that they have only played two teams ranked 20th, or worse. In other words, they have had the misfortune of playing pretty great offensive teams (which the Patriots certainly are) consistently throughout the year.

Okay, so here is what we have in terms of comparable matchup specifics:

The Falcons have played eight games against Top 15 teams in terms of Opponent Points Allowed and have averaged 27 Points (7.4 fewer than average). The Patriots are #1 in the league in terms of Opponent Points Allowed.

The Patriots have played six games against the worst fifteen teams in terms of Opponent Points Allowed (with Brady) and have scored 2.77 more points per game on average with 31.17 points. What should frighten the Falcons is that this isn't much better or worse than the average game this season which has seen the Patriots score 30.71 points, on average, as long as Brady has played. In other words, even if Atlanta had a decent defense (and they don't) NE is incredibly consistent on offense, anyway.

The final thing to look at, and the only thing even remotely worrisome for the Patriots, is the Opponent Points Allowed against Top 15 Total Scoring Teams. The Patriots have allowed an average of 19 points against such teams, which is 3.3 points more than average. However, and this IS important, the only game in which more than 25 has been scored on the Patriots this season is when Seattle won after puting 31 points up against them.

The two that jump out at me are Atlanta scores 7.4 fewer than average against good defenses and New England allows 3.3 more than average against good offenses, the difference there seems to favor New England by about 4.1 points. The sample sizes, granted, are limited, but those are the sample sizes we have to work with.

The other thing about New England is the amazing consistency. They average more than thirty points per game this season as long as Brady is playing. They have scored thirty (or more) points nine times this season (including Playoffs) compared to only five games in which they have failed to do so (27, 24, 22, 26, 16) as long as Brady has started. Other teams have only scored thirty or more against the Patriots once this year, and on only four other occasions (games without Brady included) have opponents put up more than twenty points...and the Patriots won all of those games!

6_over_under_totals

Over/Under-Totals

As far as the Over/Under 59 goes, I like the Under very slightly for reasons that I have already indirectly mentioned. The biggest reason is that the Patriots have a defense that is both strong and consistent, but that defense hasn't really gone up against a high-powered offense. In fact, they have only played two teams (the Bills, ranked tenth, twice) in scoring and allowed 16 and 25 against the Bills (average 20.5) as well as the Cardinals (ranked sixth) in Week 1 which saw the Cardinals put up 21 points. The Falcons have averaged 9.5 more points scored than the Bills this season and 8.3 more than the Cardinals.

In other words, as well as the Patriots defense has played, I have no reason not to believe that the Falcons won't score in the high-20's, or perhaps low 30's. I think all of the statistics point to the fact that NE should be more than a three point favorite, but I'm not convinced that the total should be under 59, I think it should be, but not enough to Lay $110 to win $100. If someone were willing to take the Under 59 and Lay me $110 to win $100, (I win $110 if it goes Over 59) which would essentially be me playing the Vegas side, I would take that.

For even money, I would take the Under 59, but I can't go any further than that with it. Atlanta against Top 15 defenses hangs 27 points, New England against Bottom Fifteen Points Allowed Teams hangs 31.17 points, the total is 58.17 points, which makes Under 59 good at Even Money and that's about it. The Falcons have also played good defenses more often than not this year while the Patriots have not faced an incredibly powerful offense.

Conclusion

I definitely like the Pick NE -3 and I would love it Laying $105 (or less) to win $100. While I still like NE -3 Laying $110 to win $100, I am definitely not in love with that bet and probably would not make it. While the value in the tie doesn't really change with the extra $5 laid, (you're either going to win, lose or push either way) I would like my overall analysis to favor New England by five points (it doesn't, more like 3.5 or 4 points) before I would be willing to Lay that much.

However, as of the time of this writing, CG Technology (The Venetian is one location powered by them, among eight others) is currently offering up Patriots -3 Laying $105 to win $100, which I LOVE! For those of you with access, again as of the time of this writing, Pinnacle Sports is GIVING odds on the Patriots -3 at +102, which means you bet $100 to win $102. I don't just love that line, I CRAVE it!

As far as the 59 Total is concerned, I like the Under, but not enough to bet it unless it is at Even Money. I would not lay anything on Under 59.

I guess I should close by making my prediction for the final score of the Big Game. I hope I'm not way off or I am going to hear it in the comments. My analysis leads me to this conclusion, and keep in mind guessing an exact score is really tough:

New England Patriots: 31 Atlanta Falcons: 27

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