In today's Betting Life Newsletter:
Serves me right for talking up these prime-time games three weeks in a row. Last night’s Monday Night Football doubleheader stunk to high heaven. Woof. I physically cannot watch Kirk Cousins play quarterback anymore—it hurts my feelings.
Well, there’s only one direction to go from here with an exciting slate on deck, full of NFL games with massive playoff implications.
Let’s go …
Total Recall: The beginning of each week marks square one to set our foundation for the NFL schedule ahead—and the best place to start that grind comes directly from the books themselves. Remember, the house can’t help but tip its hand by posting live team totals.
For whatever reason, these implied team totals can be unusually hard to wrangle. So, of course, in my never-ending quest to make this newsletter an irreplaceable part of your daily routine, I charted all of this week’s baseline (-110) totals to highlight outliers.
Allow us to do the dirty work so you won’t have to.
TT Takeaways: No point in hashing out the usual suspects in their normal perches. This tool’s true use lies in identifying teams out of place that simply looking at the over/under fails to describe.
Must admit I’m surprised to see my guy Drake Maye pulling up the rear. New England is projected to score fewer points than everyone but the Saints. That includes the Giants! What?!? Buffalo’s defense certainly plays well at times, but it has also allowed 42+ points in back-to-back games. Man, talk about total disrespect.
Strange to see Kansas City sitting near the bottom of the board as well, though perhaps that’s to be expected with Patrick Mahomes’ status up in the air—I guess we were due for the annual late-season Mahomes ankle injury. However, unlike prior occurrences, the GOAT could actually sit this one out with a two-game conference lead over the Bills.
Lastly, I’m keeping a hairy eyeball on George Pickens’ status. If he can’t go, there’s no way the Steelers should imply 20 points against a Ravens defense playing possessed lately.
Total Recall, indeed …
Make sure to check out Fantasy Life’s NFL Odds Page:
What else is in today’s newsletter?
- Tuesday Charts: Team Expected Points Added Per Play
- Look Into My Crystal Ball: It’s Gotta Be Maye
The latest analysis and insights from our merry band of sports betting nerds:
🔥 Josh Allen is Superman, but is the rest of the Bills offense too crowded? Find out in Dwain’s Week 16 Utilization Report.
🎳 It’s time to go bowling! Thor breaks down this week’s Bowl Games.
👀 The Packers are favored by how much? LaMarca says to jump on this bet before the line moves.
🤔🔮 What difference a week makes in betting who will win the NFC North.
🦬 We’ve had a shakeup in the odds to win Super Bowl LIX.
Tuesday Charts🧠📊—Team Expected Points Added Per Play
Each week I’ll be presenting the league through the lens of a single image. While no one picture or stat can truly shoulder such a load, learning to take the temperature of each team’s offensive and defensive expected points added (EPA) will sharpen your game—this per-play metric that defines the value of each play by the effect it has on the offense's likelihood to score.
It provides an analytically dense, perspective-laden snapshot that is absolutely worth familiarizing yourself with.
NOTE: The cross is league average. Also, positive EPA is ideal on both sides of the ball—so in this specific case below, the closer to the upper-right corner, the better a team’s combined performance in both phases.
THE GOOD:
PHI—We named Philadelphia our class of the NFC a month ago, when it was still admittedly neck and neck with Detroit. Well, the Philly defense we planted our flag for continues to improve as injuries lay waste to the Lions’ depth chart. Our bet on the Eagles to take down the conference’s No. 1 seed looks pretty good.
TB—This wasn’t supposed to be the shameless self-promotion edition, but we’ve been all over the Buccaneers’ recent renaissance. Running the gauntlet of BAL, ATL, KC, and SF cost Tampa four straight heading into the bye, but Baker and the boys came out stronger on the other side. With DAL, CAR and NO on the upcoming schedule, TB could run the table and hit the playoffs firing on all cylinders.
MIN—The rich get richer. If things keep up at this pace for Minnesota, its Week 18 clash in Detroit could be for the divisional crown. Kevin O’Connell’s crew just put a bow on their 7th straight victory, and looks really good doing it. Really impressive turnaround after some mid-season struggles.
THE BAD:
PIT—Not to pick on the Steelers, but their relative drop in EPA and its impact on the postseason landscape can’t be ignored. Feeling the pain of building a roster around a single point of failure, Pittsburgh hardly looks functional without alpha WR George Pickens. A playoff appearance may be certain but the division is not. The Steelers will try and correct course down the stretch, facing a brutal remaining schedule of BAL, KC, and CIN.
ATL—Atlanta may have pulled off an ugly Christmas sweater of a victory last night, but winning isn’t everything. Thankfully, Tampa leapfrogged the Falcons in the NFC South so we won’t have to see them in the playoffs. At one point ATL was 6-4 with hopes for a breakout when its veteran QB finally found his legs. Well it’s Week 15, the Falcons have dropped four of their last five (should’ve been five) and Kirk Cousins makes the Tin Man look like Usain Bolt out there. Worth pondering if we may see rookie Michael Penix soon.
THE UGLY:
NYG/LV—Somebody, flush! It’s a race to the bottom for the Giants and Raiders, separated by a literal hair in strength of schedule. Per NFL.com, “In situations where teams finished the previous season with identical records, the determination of draft position is decided by strength of schedule—the aggregate winning percentage of a team’s opponents. The team that played the schedule with the lowest winning percentage will be awarded the higher pick.”
Now it’s just a question of who will mess up and accidentally win a game.
Look Into My Crystal Ball🏈🔮—It’s Gotta Be Maye
THE BET: New England Patriots TT O14.5 (-115)
Crushed last week’s Raiders under so hard I almost went back to the well. Except this time Vegas faces the Jaguars—one of the few teams worse than Atlanta defensively. While I still think LV falls fantastically short once again, the siren song of that low Patriots total sucked me right in.
Citing Buffalo’s recent two-game collapse (42.5 PPG, 489.0 yards/game) as a reflection of the defense as a whole would be misleading. That said, allowing +345 yards/game on 5.6 yards/play to a dead-neutral 0.00 EPA/play makes a strong case for an average unit.
New England Is certainly flawed on offense, I’ll concede that off the rip. However, I can’t shake the feeling a measly 15-point total is missing some forest for the trees. It’s not just that New England scores +15 points every single game Drake Maye has started. The improvement is clear on film to the point of resonating onto the charts—Maye’s YPA chart could headline Coinbase’s homepage (image below).
Buffalo has struggled against the run all year (4.7 yards/rush, 10.2% explosive rush rate) so expect a heavy dose of Rhamondre Stevenson. Sustaining drives should keep us in the hunt for those three FGs we need in the event of a single TD. Plus, we could actually benefit from the wild game script—the Bills pull back into preventive looks whenever they pull ahead. Sean McDermott’s going to let Maye cook underneath if the Pats are down three scores late. What does he care?
Hope you enjoyed today’s Betting Life newsletter! Don’t be shy, contact me anytime on X @JohnLaghezza with questions, comments, or feedback. I love hearing back from you! We’re here to help!
