Intro by Yank
Plagues. Famine. Wind and rain. That is what week three brought down upon us, both psychologically and money-in-our-wallet-ly, particularly on Sunday. Let’s talk about what happened, how I saved myself to some degree on Monday, and how we are going to get back up off the mat.
The Recap
As mentioned, Sunday was a bloodbath. The Rams led a furious comeback to take the lead after being down 28-3, only to lose to Josh Allen and the referees on a bogus 4th down PI call. This marked the first loss in the history of The Collaboration. In The Isolation, Sam needed the Falcons to win as part of his bet (never smart). I bet on a team with Dwayne Haskins at QB for the third consecutive week (even less smart). For good measure Sam’s other half of his bet, the Cardinals, also lost. It was a dark time.
We realized, as mentioned before, that we are dumb, and bad at gambling. As such, we need to do two things to prevent our dumb selves from picking losers (note: this approach does not guarantee winners but it does help you sleep at night). Number one, bet on teams with good HCs AND good offenses. It seems obvious, but the best chance we had to win, the Rams, was the only situation where we had both on Sunday. Number two bet on teams not against their opponent. Our Rams bet was a mix of both but other than that we have been lacking. I’ve been consistently betting on the bad Football Team based on their opponents. Sam bet on THE FALCONS TO WIN because they were playing the Bears. We need to double down on our good ideas and fade everything else we have been doing.
Wouldn’t you know it, in the Monday night game, I bet on the best HC/Offense combo in the league twice (including in The Confrontation, sorry Sam) and it saved my bacon. Most importantly, we are on to week 4.
The Principles
Stay away from bad QBs and bad HCs.Only bet on HCs and Offenses you are confident in.- Bet for a team not against their opponent
- Parlay (and tease) at your own peril.
- Due to the salary cap, there isn’t a significant talent gap between the vast majority of NFL teams.
- If you’re going to pick a dog Week 1, play the money line.
Nominated Principles:
- Division games are less predictable than non-division games, due to team/scheme familiarity.
- Don’t chase your opinion about a team with bets.
Week 4 Picks
The Collaboration (2-1):
Buffalo Bills-3 @ Las Vegas Raiders
Yank: The one thing I didn’t mention above about that Rams/Bills game is that I was completely wrong about the Bills. In just the short portion of the game where I was paying very close attention, Josh Allen converted multiple high-pressure 3rd and 20+ situations into first downs. Earlier than that he opened up a 28-3 lead on an excellent defense. He led a game-winning TD drive to cap it off. Is he guaranteed to be awesome every week? Likely no. But are he and this Bills offense potent enough to be dangerous week in and week out? Definitely yes. Sam and I power rank all the teams each week and last week we had the Bills in our “prove it” tier. Beating the Rams definitely proved it for me. If I’ve said it once I’ll say it a thousand times in this space, barring injuries I expect that Rams team to win 12 or 13 games. The Bills look like contenders to do the same.
Sam: In last week’s picks, I laid out the case as to why the Rams might not cover – feel free to give it a peep if you’re so inclined. Essentially the argument was that Josh Allen might actually be good this year and that adding a player like Diggs can have a bigger impact than you might expect. He certainly proved it against the Rams and I anticipate he’ll do it again here. There are two things that give me pause this week. First, the Bills are the road team. Yank and I started the season wondering if the home team should get the traditional 3 point bounce but it hasn’t been as clear as we initially thought. For instance, as we saw last week, the Rams, who we still think is the better team, lost a close one on the road to the Bills. If you take into consideration home-field advantage, the Raiders are technically 6 point dogs. This leads to the second concern. Are the Raiders this week’s Bills? I think both Yank and I came into the season out on the Raiders, but they’ve been more successful than anticipated. They’ve managed 34 points twice in 3 games and are currently sitting at 2-1. Their offense could be legit and take advantage of a Bills’ defensive unit that hasn’t really lived up to the hype yet. That being said, I’m out on Jon Gruden being anything other than a .500 coach (.500 coaches lose this game) and the defense is bad (see Yank for details).
Yank: True fans of this space will remember my first pick ever on this blog was basically a pick against the Raiders. We don’t do that anymore, but I want to carry over one critical piece of that logic. I didn’t like the Raiders because I think their coaches are BAD. You might say, well now Yank, you must have been wrong, they are exceeding expectations at 2-1 and have beaten some decent teams. My rebuttal: last year the Raiders were 31st in defensive DVOA aka their defense was more like Joe Exotic yelling at a tiger to get off his boot, whereas you’d really prefer a fence, or better yet a wall. This Bills team is a famished tiger that has caught the scent of anchovy oil. And our “new and improved Raiders”? They have improved all the way to… still 31st in defensive DVOA.1 This one’s simple folks. Raiders D Coordinator Paul Guenther stinks, he stunk last year, and he still smells like anchovy oil today. You’ll catch me on the side of the tigers errr… Bills. Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs are hungry. Let’s feed them dollar bills.
Sam: Who needs a bounceback more than us? Probably Lamar Jackson and the Ravens. There’s not a lot to explain here. We like Lamar Jackson and the Ravens offense. They had a clunker last week against a VERY good team. Who are they playing this week? A likely Chase Young free Football Team (yes that is still a thing). A few quick nuggets to point out about this matchup: 1.) Last season, the Ravens scored over 30 points in 8 of 16 matches. A common theme amongst those 30 point games? They played bad football teams (notice the lower case this time). 2.) Lamar Jackson is 21 and 1, that is O-N-E loss, ONE!! against non-Chiefs opponents as a starter in the regular season. 3.) The Cardinals scored 20 easy against the WFT in the first half earlier this year. Let’s kick this week off right.
Yank’s Play: $5.56 on the Bills (-112) and $5.80 on Ravens 1H O15.5(-117)
Sam’s Play: $5.00 on the Bills (-125) and $4.20 on Ravens 1H O14.5(-120)
The Confrontation (2-1 Yank):
Indianapolis Colts-2.5 @ Chicago Bears
Sam: Alright. This has to be my riskiest play of the week. Foles playing for the Bears is an unproven quantity. Sure he had a nice second half against the Falcons but he has to be the most volatile QB in NFL history in terms of season-to-season performance. I mean this guy went from an MVP type season with the Eagles, to losing the starting job on the Rams, to Super Bowl MVP, back to can’t even maintain the starting job in Jacksonville. What you notice in that very glossy outline of his career is a pattern of success with good coaches and talented teams and bad play with bad coaches and not as talented teams. My hunch is that this Bears team is closer to the Eagles teams of success than they are to the Jags and Rams. Why is that you ask? In addition to being a Vikings fan, I have had the added burden of watching the Bears and namely Mitch Trubisky twice every year. I had to watch Trubisky miss wide-open throws and slowly beat my team every year. With a good QB, they could easily have put my team away every year, but instead, it was like slowly dragging my eyes down a cheese grater. So I’m banking on Foles being better than Mitch (which feels like a low bar) and Nagy getting a little bit of that Philly magic back. With this reasoning, I feel in solid shape already. Add in the fact that I think the Colts are bad and overvalued and you have the recipe for cash flow. The Colts lost to the Jags, barely beat the Vikings despite being able to put them away at any point, and beat the hapless Jets. Additionally, the Colts have had a few injuries on offense and Rivers is just as likely to win the game as he is to throw it away at the last second. I’ll regret saying this, but give me DA BEARS.
Yank: We are betting on teams now, that’s the whole bit, and most importantly we care about offenses and coaching staffs. Rivers and the Colts offense have largely done what they have needed to do against bad opponents, but I will be the first to admit they are not the reason to make this bet. Frank Reich and the Indy coaching staff, on the other hand, are the type of group you want to back. Can you name a player on the Colts defense? While you flounder around let me tell you they are #1 in defensive DVOA through three weeks. The Colts are also #1 in overall DVOA through three weeks. While that may not hold up through the season it indicates that the Colts are executing at a high level, particularly defensively, and I think that is largely attributable to coaching. On the other side, we have a head coach who needed three weeks to realize Mitch Trubisky wasn’t the answer. I watched every play of the Bears against my horrible Giants in week 2 and I can say with confidence this team is not well coached, or particularly talented. They got some life from Foles last week, who the Falcons weren’t prepared for, but this Colts team and staff will not be surprised by Foles and will not fall apart like the Falcons. Do we really think we are going to live in a world where next week we are talking about the 4-0 Chicago Bears? I think that their luck runs out, finally, this week.
Yank’s Play: $5.50 on the Colts-2.5 (-110)
Sam’s Play: $6.05 on the Bears+2.5 (-110)
The Isolation (Yank 1-3; Sam 1-2):
Two Team 6-Point Teaser (-120)
The Baltimore Ravens-8 (was -14) @ The Washington Football Team
The New York Giants @ The Los Angeles Rams-7.5 (was -13.5)
Sam: Just as I am in need of a bounceback performance this week, so are the Rams and Ravens. The Ravens in particular had a disappointing Monday Night Football performance (you don’t need to tell me twice) and the Rams came up just short of a valiant comeback effort after a disastrous first half. I like both of these teams to get back on track and in a big way. In fact, I almost played both of these lines straight up. The Rams and Ravens fall into our Good Teams/Teams to Bet On tier and the Football Team and the Giants are now officially at the bottom. If I lose, it will be because of some freak mistake/performance, and what would lead you to expect that? At the end of the day, I can rest easy. I feel confident that I have the QBs and the Coaches in both matchups and I’m placing my bet on teams that don’t historically relax even when up.
Bonus: The Arizona Cardinals-3.5 @ The Carolina Panthers
Sam: As for the Cardinals, they did me dirty last week. Yank tried to convince me that they might not be all that and the Lions might not be as bad as we think. I didn’t listen and I’m poorer for it. This week is Bounceback Week though. Let us return to the tiers to examine this matchup. Again we have a team in the Cardinals who are in the top or second tier and a Panthers team that is at the bottom. I like this Cardinals offense, I think this is now the third week in a row that I have made this point, and I will continue to ride it. The Panthers’ Defense has been lackluster. Sure they played well against the Chargers, but I was expecting Herbert to play a little shakier (I think there is something about the adrenaline of finding out you’re starting your first NFL game 5 minutes before kickoff that could raise you up a little). The Panthers offense has been decent at times, able to put up yards but not always capitalize on points, but this line is at 3.5. If our tiers are correct (which we likely demonstrate that they are not), then why is this line not like the lines in the parlay? WFT, Giants, and Panthers all fall in or near the bottom tier. The Rams and Ravens might be slightly more proven over the course of the season, but the Cardinals are in or just below that same tier, yet they don’t get a 13 point lead? I expect this game to play out more like Cards vs. WFT, then Cards vs. Lions.
Sam’s Play: $7.00 on Cards-3.5 and $4.20 on Ravens-8 and Rams-7.5 Teaser
Kansas City Chiefs 1H Over 14.5 vs. New England Patriots
Yank: I did not really like many of the matchups this week. Rather than pick against the spread on a game I didn’t love I am going to leave my powder (mostly) dry for future weeks. As discussed in previous posts, I love Mahomes, Reid, and the Chiefs offense, especially in this early part of the year where defenses haven’t had much time to practice together. As evidenced on Monday night the Chiefs can put up a 30 spot on anyone, anywhere. To that point, while New England on a short week is another tough matchup the full game line is KC-7 and the total is 53. This implies Vegas expects a 30-23 KC victory even in these difficult circumstances. This team can score TDs on literally any play every time they have the football and will be trying to score on every play of every first-half drive. I am going to bet this every week through at least week 6 as long as the total is under 17. That continues this week.
Note: I placed this wager and wrote this section before the Cam Newton COVID news. Suffice it to say if the game is played I continue to like my chances here.
Yank’s Play: $5.00 on the Chiefs 1H O14.5(-107)
The Bank-Week 4
| Yank | Sam | |
| Starting: | $94.90 | $83.82 |
| Risk: | $21.86 | $26.45 |
| Potential Earnings: | $19.70 | $23.50 |
| Record: | 5-6 | 4-6 |
| Record against the Spread: | 4-4 | 3-4 |
Authors: Sam Mattson and Michael Yanckello
References
- “Week 3 DVOA Ratings” By Aaron Schatz, 9/29/20, https://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2020/week-3-dvoa-ratings
One Last Line 
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