DadBodFootball Week 9 NFL Picks Against the Spread, Totals, and Implied Totals
West Coast Football is Best Coast Football
I’m writing this post on a plane travelling west for an annual, football themed trip with my friends. The 6 hour fight to Seattle gives me an opportunity to focus on ONLY the writing and lines/totals this week, but I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention how excited I am to have football on at 9 AM on Saturday and 10 AM on Sunday.
So many of my core football memories involve waking up early to tailgate with my family and friends for college, and professional football games - there’s something about the smell of bacon on a grill and a bit of Kahlua in your coffee that just means it’s truly fall football weather. There was also that time that we tailgated in a Chuck-E-Cheese parking lot at Lambeau Field in early December - the weather was so cold that all of our water and beer froze, so we had to make shake and bake pancakes with fireball… They were delicious.
We’re planning to attend the USC-UWashington game on Saturday and will frequent the finest of sports bars in the Seattle area to catch the Cowboys, Ravens, Lions, and Vikings all play. We got lucky with timing in that there’s only one overlap of games (Ravens and Cowboys both kick off at 10AM), so we’ll have ample time to crawl from pub to pub for each game.
On the betting front, we generally get overly invested in firing off live-bets from our barstools. That’s why I wanted to revisit my general rule for live betting in this week’s Chasing Zebras section. Best of luck to everyone in your picks, fantasy leagues, and bets!
Chasing Zebras - Live Betting Strategy
Football and Crabcakes - that’s what Maryland Does.
Hating Thursday Night Football and Live Betting MLs - that’s what DBF Does!
I’m revisiting the topic of live betting that I dug in to during Week 11 of 2023. For those of you who are new(er) to gambling, many sports books will let you bet on games while they’re actively being played. The Spreads, Totals, and Implied totals are updated in real time, which means you have an opportunity to either hedge on a previous bet - or, in my case, bet on closer to real time outcomes (i.e. how will the next drive end) and, more importantly, ride the changes in momentum.
What is DBF’s number one rule for live betting?
Bet against the momentum swing… Remember that “Live” betting follows a slightly different set of rules. It’s Vegas trying to mathematically predict how they can put out a line that attracts action following the trends within the game itself - so lowering totals if the first quarter is low scoring, increasing spreads if the favorite scores on their first drive, etc. You also have to remember that each drive or even quarter has little bearing on what the future has in store. If Vegas reduces a Total from 40 to 36 because neither team scored in the first quarter, I’ll generally bet the OVER on 36. Why? Two reasons:
First Quarter Scoring Trends Reverse - This statement is subjective - however, I feel that generally teams who score easily on an opening drive can slow down when they’re no longer calling scripted plays and the defense adjusts. I’ll use the Bengals-Bills matchup from Week 9 (2023) as an example… The Bills and Bengals exchange touchdowns on their first 3 drives - leading to a Bills 7 - Bengals 14 score to end the first quarter. The TOTAL (51) is FIRMLY trending in the right direction… so Vegas bumped the “Live” total to 56.5… What was the final score of the game? Bills 18 - Bengals 24… There were as many points scored in the first quarter as there were the rest of the game… I’ll gladly take the extra 5.5 points of cushion if it’s being offered.
Teams become more aggressive towards the end of halves - who doesn’t love a good “Two Minute Offense.” Teams, in a desperate attempt to put points on the board, will become more aggressive / take less time between plays, which CAN lead to more points in a short period of time.
The data backs the second statement up -
The second and fourth quarters see nearly 1.5 times the points scored than the first and third quarters.
In short - when it comes to live betting, your best bet - especially early on - is to maintain a level head and do the opposite of what the scoring trend is telling you to do. Vegas relies heavily on emotionally driven impulsivity - in practical terms, bettors will panic if the first quarter is low scoring and start hammering the UNDER at a 5-6 point discount…. What we all have to remember is that the first ~15-20 plays of an NFL game are scripted, meaning they aren’t run with adjustments to the actual performance in mind. Use this to your advantage.
Spreads, Totals
The OVER carried 11 of 16 matchups last week as we saw 756 points scored across 16 NFL games. That means, on average, a game’s total was 47 points - which would be nearly 5 points per game higher than all of 2023, and still 3.5 points higher than 2024. We’re seeing a continued uptick in scoring as offenses get comfortable and defenses get… worse? 715 expected points (adjusted to 16 games) this week represents the highest projected output in a week for DBF’s model - so I would tread lightly this week on hammering OVERS. Scoring trends generally normalize across a season.
Implied Totals
For those new to implied totals (or wondering what the heck I’m talking about) - an Implied Total is the expected points for ONE team in a matchup (with a TOTAL being both teams).
DBF Data points - Interpreting Implied Totals: In the DBF Tracker below, I include the Implied Total and delta to two other important data points
Average Points Scored: Informs how many points a team scores on average against a neutral opponent
DBF Points Expected: The Model’s output for expected points including adjustments for opponent defense, weather, home/road performance, injuries
This allows us to calculate the DOUBLE DELTA - how far off both average points and DBF Expected Points an implied total is. The more negative or positive, the more… theoretically… likely it is to be OVER or UNDER.
For instance, the Cleveland Browns have an implied total of 20.5 points - they average 17.3 PPG and against a top 5 defense in PPG are expected to score around 13.5 points… that leads to a double delta of -10.2, so we could feel confident betting on them to score UNDER 20.5 points.
Winning Quadrants - Do Teams Win And How?
This is a mainstay of the weekly post - visit Week 10 of the 2023 season for a longer description Winning Quadrants graphic from Week 10. I’ll be adjusting to 2024 data right around Week 6.
Y-AXIS Net Points: The “higher” a team is on the Y Axis - the more team “Wins” by, and the “lower” - the more a team loses by.
X-AXIS Average Total Points (net 2023 NFL Scoring average of ~43.8 PPG) -The left-most teams participate in games with the lowest TOTAL points - the right-most teams participate in the highest scoring games. I netted (subtracted) season scoring average to show if they are above or below the average game.
How can you use this? Well - it’s an interesting way of aligning our “feel” about certain teams - the Dolphins tend to win and score a lot of points - and identify how they generally align against their spreads/totals.
More on this below, but the Chargers and Browns both participate in low scoring matchups. While Jameis Winston represents a potentially more potent offense, the Total of 42.5 points implies that both of these teams will score ~20 points. According to this, it’s more likely that the game is in the low 30s than the mid 40s… so bet the Under.
NFL Week 9 - 3 Pack
This new section is where I go a bit deeper on how the data and analytics in this post can be applied to a given week’s matchups. I wouldn’t say that these are picks - more how I’m feeling about a week’s set of lines, totals, and implied totals.
*** NOTE *** - I generally write these on Thursday/Friday before game day, so the lines may NOT be exactly as they are below, but the notes won’t change substantially.
Total Record (Since week 7)
9-2
Last Week Performance
New Orleans Saints vs. LA Chargers -7 (HIT), UNDER 41 Points (HIT)
Green Bay Packers -4 (MISS - Packers -3) vs. Jacksonville Jaguars;
Tennessee Titans vs. Detroit Lions -11.5 (HIT), Titans Under 16.5 Points (HIT)
This Week
Cleveland Browns vs. LA Chargers -1.5, Under 42.5, Browns UNDER 20.5
You find a horse, you ride it until the wheels fall off (holy mixed metaphor). The Chargers are competing in games that average nearly 15 points below the 2024 season long scoring average of 44 points and have allowed 0 teams (yes, 0) teams to score more than 20 points. The Browns implied total is.. 20.5….
Chicago Bears (+120) vs. Arizona Cardinals
The model predicts that the Bears will win by 3 against the Cardinals, and I exclusively bet the ML when taking an underdog (over the course of a season, you’ll make more money with the better odds than taking the points). The Bears have a fast defense with a stout secondary, and I have to imagine they’re wanting some revenge after last week’s Hail Mary fiasco (seriously… why are you celebrating BEFORE the pass is thrown).
Detroit Lions -2.5 vs. Green Bay Packers
The model feels the Lions will win at Lambeau by closer to a touchdown than a field goal, and we cannot trust an injured Jordan Love. The Packers defense is playing well, but this Lions offense is electric right now - it’s top 5 in most efficiency statistics and can beat you on the ground and through the air.
Miami Dolphins vs. Buffalo Bills -6, UNDER 48.5 Points
I did my best to adjust the Dolphins to a level of efficiency that reflects their 2023 performance with Tua at the helm than the shell of an offense they ran while he was out for 6 weeks in 2024. That said, the Bills are at home and it feels like Vegas forgot that the Bills historically own the Dolphins (most recently winning 31-10 in Week 2). The UNDER is a bit frisky here, but I suspect it will be a 30-17 type score though a late game, meaningless touchdown could break us here. Definitely higher confidence on the Bills to cover than the UNDER.
What the model (probably) got wrong this week!
Stay away from the New Orleans vs. Carolina Panthers matchup neither team is particularly good, and the Panthers are approaching an unenviably double crown (worst offense, worst defense). They’re without their top 2 offensive playmakers (Thielen IR, D Johnson traded to the Ravens), and while Derek Carr is back, the Saints defense is banged up… Just don’t waste money on what could be a bad football game.
Model Performance
Reminder - the model GUIDANCE and not PICKS. I run every game through the model to identify opportunities where the underlying scoring and efficiency data does not align with the Vegas Spread and Total. I’ll continue to include WAR score here and a link to the post explaining why / how we can use it to determine if we’re hitting our most confident bets.
On Spreads, we went 9-6 with a WAR of 96.2. This means that not only did the model accurately predict a majority of spreads, but it correctly predicted the highest confidence/largest delta spreads too.
On Totals, we went 9-6 with a WAR of 15. While going 9-6 looks good, a WAR of 15 with 3 net additional wins indicates that we missed some of our more confident OVER/UNDER calls. Definitely something to keep an eye on in the model, and while I’ll take a WIN, it’s not one to hang your hat on.