DBF Week 11 Update - Lines, Totals, and Implied Totals for NFL Week 11
Thursday Night Football - It Sucks and Blows
Week 10 / TNF Musings…
As if I didn’t have enough reasons to dislike Thursday Night Football games, the Ravens fan in me now has a strong hatred for something called the “Hip Drop Tackle.” Did you know Rugby outlawed this from the game because it caused too many injuries? Did you? DID YOU!!?!
Even with the first meaningful matchup in weeks (and sad bird noises aside), the TNF game once again felt flat. Not only were there injuries (Burrow, Andrews, Lamar, OBJ, and about 17 of the Bengal’s corners), some idiot kept flying a drone around the field, so I had to stay up until 11:45 to catch the end of the game… We know that players and fans have not been happy with the recent product… It does make you wonder how happy Vegas is with the additional exposure (read: Very Happy, we’re all idiots).
Speaking of - one of my friends found great joy in calling out Live Betting his Vikings as a way to make cash on games you may otherwise be losing. In some cases, you’re able to double down, and in others, hedge on your initial bets. When it comes to Live Betting (betting on game odds, spreads, and totals during the game), my general rule is as follows…
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 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.
Week 10 Recap
The model selected 13 lines as favorable - going 10-3. The three losses were the Ravens (Line: -6.5 ; Final: +2), Bills (Line: -7 ; Final: +2), and the Seahawks (Line: -6.5, Final: -3). No explanation needed on what went well - games generally followed their script on defensive and offensive efficiency, and while there weren’t any clear ML opportunities, I still took the odds on the Texans (+205), Vikings (+125), and Cardinals (+105). I mentioned this in my Week 11 Early Lines Post - we saw 6 Underdogs WIN, so the Underdog ML hypothesis is still viable.
The model selected 13 TOTALS as favorable - going 6-7. Scoring was well up over historical norms - with Vegas expecting 589 points to NFL Teams scoring 639 points. The UNDER carried 6 of 14, bringing the total on the year to 90 of 150 (60% of games hitting the UNDER). Personally, I think this was just a high scoring week - and not a return to higher scoring, so I’m not substantially altering points scored.
As we removed weighted betting, we would have netted $60 for the week on $260 TOTAL wagered. Not a bad return if you were to play every game/odd, which is not something I’d ever recommend.
Five Things I Think I Think, Plus Is Thursday Night Football Bad For Gamblers
I wasn’t able to watch much of the Week 10 games, so my musings are more conceptual in nature… but what the actual fuck is wrong with the Bills.
Speaking of Bills, Belichick benching Mac Jones for the final series against the Colts told everyone in the NFL exactly how he feels about him. It does make you wonder how warm Bill the GM’s seat is and if he’d ever give it up to become just Bill the head coach… I doubt it, and we’re probably watching the Bills’ last season in New England.
Speaking of legendary coaches, how Mike Tomlin has pushed a statistically awful Steelers team to 6-3, the world may never know. They’ve been outgained in every WIN this year, and yet find a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Outside of Saints fans, I can’t imagine anyone isn’t excited by what Joshua “Passtronaut” Dobbs is doing for the Vikings. I, unfortunately, watch a lot of their games and always wondered what a more mobile QB (than Kirk Cousins) might do to help their poor O-Line and Run Game… sure enough, here comes Dobbs looking like Lamar Jackson. You have to love it.
I’m not sure I’ve ever made money betting on a Thursday Night Football game despite betting the most money on Thursday Night Football Games….
Before I dive in to the objective, my subjective, tin-foil-hat territory view is that Thursday Night Football games are strictly at the behest of the Network/Marketing and Sports Gambling hands that drive the NFL. It’s clearly not for players, fans, or employees because of the logistical nightmare of coordinating a travelling circus in a short week.
What does Thursday Night Football have going for it?
A Captive Audience - there are generally no other major sporting events (i.e. marquee college football games, playoff caliber hockey or basketball)
A Captive Gambling Audience - I counted 17 sports book related commercials or spots during last night’s Amazon Prime coverage of the football game. Even Al Michaels got in on it… When the Ravens hit an extra point to go up 34-13 in the fourth quarter, he quipped “And that was a critical extra point for some of us”.. The Total was 46.5).
From a product perspective, the general consensus that I hear is it’s watered down due to the short week, and for whatever reason, the slates have largely been mediocre.
From a betting perspective, does any of that matter? Are these games statistical outliers in a way that we can exploit? Let’s dive in…
This is a chart of Thursday Night Football games for 2022, 2023, and historical averages (red) for all games during both seasons. It shows:
% of Games UNDER Total - answer: Are TNF games more or less likely to exceed totals than other games
Home Team Win % - answer: do home teams have an advantage in winning a TNF game.
Home Team Cover % - answer: are home teams more likely to cover in TNF than in other games.
For 2023, it appears that Thursday Night Football games are
Higher Scoring (54.5% hit the under compared to 60% for all other games)
Average TNF Game in 2023: 45.6 Points ; Average NFL Game in 2023: 42.3 Points
The average UNDER is only 4.5 points below the TOTAL (and 4 UNDERs have come within 1.5 points of the TOTAL)
The average OVER is 14 points above the TOTAL.
Favor the Home Team to WIN (63.6% TNF vs. 53.9%All Games) and COVER (54.5% TNF vs. 48.5% All Games).
Favorites have WON 8/11 matchups, and the only underdogs to win have done so on the road
Home teams as Favorites: 7
Home teams as Underdogs: 0
Road Teams as Favorites: 1
Road teams as Underdogs: 3
Only 1 time has a favorite WON and not covered.
To me, the biggest takeaway here is on the TOTALs and Favorites. From the VERY limited data, we see that scoring is ~3 points higher per game and home teams are winning and covering at a higher clip than the average game.
This can inform betting by
considering, but still probably not taking, the OVER on TNF games
Considering the Favorite ATS or Road Underdog ML…
TL;DR - I’m not sure I’m changing my stance that I probably shouldn’t bet TNF games, and it does not appear that these games are outliers or fit a different profile than the average NFL Game. For starters, the sample size is small. More notable, across the 2023 season we’ve seen many marquee matchups fall flat (See Week 9), so an inferior product is not something unfamiliar to the NFL on Sundays/Mondays. It just so happens that maybe we emotionally dislike it more on Thursdays…
Week 11 Lines
ATS - This week 50% of spreads are a touchdown (+7) or greater, meaning there are many predicted, lopsided games on the slate. In 2023, the favorite has gone 18-16-2 ATS in these matchups including 8 outright losses. As we noted in Week 3’s DBF Summary - these games are not statistically more or less likely to hit the OVER or UNDER, so go with your gut.
TOTALS - Vegas is expecting 601 points scored this week, an increase from the 589 last week, but still nearly 40 points below last weeks total scoring output (639) in the same number of games. With the lopsided spreads, I’ll probably avoid TOTALS this week or bet them individually (and not as part of a parlay).
There are some spicy implied totals this week - so be sure to check the tracker and review the Delta to Average Scoring and Efficiency data to identify where teams may reasonably be expected to score more or less than their IT. In some cases, I actually prefer to bet these over large spreads in high total games because of teams getting a considerable lead and resting starters in the second half.
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