NFL Power Rankings & Week 10 Recap 11/18/20
Week 10 RECAP
At this point in the season, you think you know which teams to be on and which teams to be off. You think you HOW to handicap a certain type of game. But, as we all know, the NFL makes a fool out of any decent handicapper. One of the good things about the NFL is as you get deeper into the season, the teams have interests that are easy to deduce. Are they playing out the string? Are they serious playoff contenders? Well, you know this going into the games. This way you can play certain teams a certain way.
Anyways, I say all that to say this: even if you have a game spot on. You have the motivation correct. You have the RIGHT SIDE. You can still lose. Case in point: I was on the 49ers last weekend and they were most certainly the correct side. They were leading early on – even before Drew Brees got hurt. They outgained the Saints. No, seriously, look at this box score:
I mean, look at that. The Niners lead the game in at least like 6 different statistical categories. It all came down to two special teams turnovers by the Niners and a pick at the very end (as they were going in for the cover) for me to lose that game. In fact, I would go so far as to say, that the Niners should have WON that game. Now with Brees out and Jameis in, I’m downgrading the Saints off of a win. You have to dig deeper to win in the NFL.
The Giants have won two games in a row. One more and it’s a winning streak! After watching that game I came away with two impressions. The Giants didn’t win so much as the Eagles lost. But also, that the Giants play for Joe Judge. The Giants have covered 70% of their games this year. Yes, read that again. The Giants are actually overperforming this year. Keep that in mind when wagering on them. As for the Eagles, this team is bad. I believe they have the ability to show up – when they want to. But overall, they are very hard to trust; especially as favorites. Alex Smith threw for 390 yds and the Football Team still lost the game. Very hard to trust this team in many situations. The one situation where I believe I can trust them is when their defensive line (their best unit) can dominate the opposing offensive line.
The Packers barely survived in a game they probably had no business winning. Lucky for them they are just the more talented team than Jacksonville. Any time you lay a big number you have to make sure that the favorite wants to destroy their opponent because if not, it hard to get margin in the NFL. The Lions barely survived. They got out to a big lead and allowed Alex Smith to get back into the game. It’s hard to trust the Lions with any sort of lead. This defense is just not good. The Vikings barely survived as a road favorite in Chicago. Oh, Minnesota covered the game but it was all due to Chicago’s god awful offense. I don’t know what the solution is here but I know that Nick Foles ain’t it. Bill Lazor calling plays, Matt Nagy calling plays, whatever. This team will most certainly have to go back to Mitch Trubisky. I will unfortunately be on them when they do (God help me). As for the Vikings, they are finally finding their groove but I prefer to play them as an underdog. I don’t think their defense is good enough to be in the favorite role.
Tampa went in to Carolina and handled their business. Anyone who didn’t think Brady would exact his revenge after getting blown out in primetime with an easy matchup has not been paying attention for the last 20+ years. The Bucs might be the most complete team in the NFC right now. The Saints won a game they probably shouldn’t have and they lost their Hall of Fame quarterback. Other than that, things are just going swimmingly in NOLA. With Winston most likely taking over at QB, I see about at 2.5 point downgrade on them. As for Carolina, they got destroyed by the aforementioned Bucs. They are a young team and this is going to happen periodically. McCaffrey looks like he’s going to miss additional time but as long as Teddy is the quarterback, they have no change in their rating. Remember, running backs have very little value. The most important thing to note when betting Carolina is that they can’t stop the run and everything else revolves around that fact.
The 49ers should have beat the Saints – or at least covered. Neither happened. I have come to the conclusion that Nick Mullens is not much of a downgrade from Jimmy Garoppolo. If there’s one team in the whole NFL that needs a bye, it’s the Niners. The Rams dominated the Seahawks. Surely but quietly the Rams have played some great football in the last month. However, in their brilliant win they lost their starting LT – that’s a big deal. As for the Seahawks, if they can’t win games strictly by their offense, they will be very hard to bet, as their defense is still terrible. There’s going to be a quick turnaround for Seattle, as they get a home game against the Cardinals this Thursday. This might be the most important game in the NFC West race this year. The Cardinals will be coming in after the “Hail Murray” or as I like to call it The Hop-kins. DeAndre Hopkins is an absolute beast and for the sin of trading him away, Bill O’Brien should never have another front office position in the league again. When Kyler is on this team is scary good. However, the Cardinals defense still needs a lot of work. This is a young team and might not be ready to make the next leap this year. Even with the amazing finish, it is now two weeks in a row the Cards have not covered.
Bill Belichick did what Bill Belichick does on Monday Night Football. He manufactured a win. The torrential downpour helped, yes. The thing about the Pats is that they win games in an unsustainable way. There are only so many WR passes they will keep getting away with until the league catches on. I, for one, think the Pats are done and have tempered by expectations for this team. The Dolphins won and covered, thus exceeding expectations. It would’ve been so easy for them to come out flat in that spot against the Chargers. Non-divisional team, playing after a last second win, Tua looking so good. But the Miami defense and coaching is willing this team to victories. I think that Tua will not continue to look this great after this more tape on him but the Dolphins are doing everything right. The Bills played well in a game I expected them to lose. That last drive by Josh Allen and the Diggs touchdown looked like championship football. The problem for the Bills is that they still can’t run the ball and their defense isn’t anything to write home about. I am weary about betting the Bills as a favorite. At this point, however, I expect them to win the division.
The Steelers absolutely crushed the Bengals. The funny part is I still don’t think their offense is what it appears. There was a massive structural advantage in this game that I did not see – the Steelers defense against the putrid Bengals offensive line. The problem is that the Bengals line does not seem to be getting any better. I believe in Joe Burrow but I also believe that if he doesn’t start getting the ball out quicker, he may get hurt. The Browns won what was one of the ugliest games of the year. There is no reason against the Texans defense that the best they could come up with, at home, is 10 points. Yes, the two-headed attack of Chubb and Hunt were good but Baker needs to do more if this team hopes to get to and win a playoff game. And yes, I got burned by that ½ point by Chubb stepping out of bounds. Seriously, what was that decision? If he didn’t want to score, I can respect that. The least he could do was go down in bounds and have the clock continue running. He’s not doing this right. Thanks for nothing bud. So, the Ravens have looked bad again in primetime, for the second time this year. You know what this means right? I will most likely be on them this week. Harbaugh is too good of a coach to not have this team play well. Baltimore still has the same issues: Lamar’s inability to throw when needed and to win when behind. It’s important to pick them in games you think they can be ahead and dominate from a position of strength.
The Titans are not the best team in the AFC South, Indianapolis is. The Titans have a poor defense and it showed when they were systematically dismantled by the Colts. Now that we are passed the midpoint of the season, I think those early Tennessee wins were a mirage. A bunch of tight wins and barely covering the spread. I love Vrabel as a head coach and you can’t deny Derrick Henry but I will be hard pressed to back this Titans team in most situations. Last Thursday was one of those situations where I believed you could back Tennessee. Not so much. The Colts might have one of the best overall rosters in the NFL, outside of QB. I’m not saying Rivers is bad or totally washed, I’m just saying, as always I’m not sure I can trust Rivers in high pressure situations. The Jags put up a valiant effort as almost 2 TD dogs to the Packers. Don’t let that performance fool you, that said more about the Packers than the Jaguars. Jax is still a bad team starting a 7th round rookie QB. You know who’s not as bad as Jacksonville but still pretty fucking bad? The Houston Texans. I do not know where Houston goes from here. They are terrible, they got their coach fired, they have no upcoming 1st round picks and they are actively trying to trade the good players on their team. This team is a total whack-a-mole and you will never know when they will show up. I do know that its hard to completely count them out when they have Deshaun Watson at QB.
The Drew Lock experiment has now officially not worked in Denver. The Broncos had every reason in the world to be competitive in that game against the Raiders; instead they got torn apart. Lock threw 4 picks but they might as well have been 40 picks. Awful. The Raiders do look better than I expected, however, I am not letting go of my perception that this is a below average team. If they can win or keep this upcoming game with KC close, I will change my mind. It will be hard for me to take the Raiders seriously as a contender with that defense. The Chargers are still being coached by Anthony Lynn. That makes the Chargers practically unbetable. While Justin Herbert has continued to look good, his team finds a way to lose games. It will be a big boost for them once they get Joey Bosa back but I like backing this team as an underdog.
POWER RANKINGS
If you are unfamiliar with the way power rankings work, here is a crash course. Power rankings are a way to show how strong or weak a team is from an “average” team. This is a system to derive my own point spreads. By having this system, I can say, “this line is off” due to my power rankings.
An easy way to explain this is using an example from the list below. The Chiefs are currently my highest rated team and they are 8.5 points better than an average team. The average team is 0 points. So, from my power rankings if the Chiefs played the Raiders, I believe they should be 8.5 point favorites on neutral field. There are variables that are not inherent in this list, such as home-field advantages, injuries and other unknown intangibles. The list assumes point differential on a neutral field. If Kansas City is playing Las Vegas in Las Vegas, according to my Power Rankings, KC should be about a 5.5 point favorite (accounting for a Raiders 3-point home field advantage). Another example from the list below is the Bills should be a 7.5 point favorite over the Minnesota Vikings on a neutral field. If the game was in Minnesota, the Bills should be a 4.5 point favorite. If the game was in Buffalo, the Bills should be a 10.5 point favorite, according to my power rankings.
It is important to keep in mind that all home field advantages are not the same. In theory, I think Green Bay’s homefield advantage is probably 3.5 points, while the Los Angeles Chargers are more like 1.5 or 2 points. Another caveat is to be mindful or intangible factors, such as motivation, coaching issues (firings / hirings), travel, etc.
The most important concept in handicapping sports is you should ONLY bet if you DISAGREE with the line. There is no value if you agree that the line given by the sportsbook is correct. Why would you bet and lay juice (-110) on something that you think is correct? Literally, the odds are not in your favor. If you want to bet any way, that is degeneracy. While I don’t encourage degeneracy, I do believe that as a handicapper, the goal is to benefit off of others’ degeneracy.