Kansas City Chiefs (1-4) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-3)
The Chiefs are more than a field goal underdog here against a Tampa Bay team that isn’t very good and yet the public still likes Tampa Bay this week. This is because the public sees Kansas City as a joke. As much as I love to fade the public in general, I especially disagree with the public assessment of Kansas City this week. They rank 21st in the league in yards per play differential, as opposed to dead last where Tampa Bay ranks.
Given the difference between these two teams’ differential, the “real” line (calculated by taking the difference, dividing by .15 and adding 3 points either for home field) should be -5.5 in favor of Kansas City, meaning we’re getting a whopping 10 points of line value. Even if that sounds ridiculous (and it kind of does to me), know that in order for this line to be valid, Tampa Bay would either have to rank 17th in yards per play differential or Kansas City would have to rank -0.2 yards per play worse than dead last. We’re getting line value with Kansas City, even if you don’t agree it’s 10 points worth.
The reason Kansas City’s yards per play differential is so much better than their record and points differential is turnovers. The Chiefs have a ridiculous -15 turnover differential just 5 games into the season, meaning they’re losing the turnover battle by an average of 3 per game. They’re on pace to be -48 in turnovers, which would surpass the NFL record by 18, a record that’s stood since 1965. They’re not going to continue on this pace. Even if they break that record and finish with say a turnover differential of -31, that’s an average of -1.6 per game the rest of the way, which is only half as bad as what they’ve done through 5 games. Basically, even if the Chiefs break a 47 year old record, they’ll still be noticeably improved going forward. That’s why they’re undervalued.
I don’t even think they’ll break that record. They could, but they probably won’t. Turnover differentials tend to be very inconsistent on a week to week basis. If you look at every possible turnover differential that a team can have, teams in each group tend to average a turnover differential of about +0.0 the following week, no matter how good or bad they were in this area the following week. You can see more, here.
One area where the Chiefs have been especially bad in so far is fumbles. They’ve lost 10 fumbles this year, but they’ve only fumbled 13 times total, which isn’t as bad. Historically numbers will show that recovering fumbles once they’re on the ground is more luck than skill and this tends to even out over time. Even if they continue to fumble 2.6 times per game going forward, which is probably not going to happen, you can expect them to only lose 1.3 per game, rather than the 2 per game they’ve lost thus far. That will make a noticeable difference in their turnover differential.
Another area they’ve been bad in so far is interceptions as they lead the league with 9. This is more skill than fumbles, so it’s not as likely to continue, but maybe a quarterback switch from Matt Cassel to Brady Quinn will have a positive impact. As bad as Quinn has been in his career, his interception rate of 2.5% is pretty average. Through 5 games, Matt Cassel was at 5.1%. If Quinn can even be his career average, it would be more than a 2 times improvement over what we’ve seen from them through 5 games.
The other issue they’ve had is forcing turnovers. They’ve forced just 4 this season, including just 1 fumble. However, they have forced 7 fumbles, but have only managed to recover 1 (ironically it was on special teams). If they continue to force fumbles at this rate, they can be expected to recover roughly .7 fumbles per game, which is an improvement of 350% and a half fumble per game over what they’ve done through 5 games.
They’re also just forcing .6 interceptions per game, but remember who their competition has been: Matt Ryan, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, and Joe Flacco. With the exception of Fitzpatrick, none of those quarterbacks throw many interceptions anyway. Last year, they combined to throw an interception on 2.8% of their throws, including a career outlier year by Philip Rivers in interception rate. Facing Kansas City this year, they’ve thrown an interception on 2.2% of their throws. That’s not so awful on Kansas City’s. This week, they face Josh Freeman, whose career interception rate is 3.5%, including 4.0% last year.
If their interception rate cuts in half going forward and they force the same amount of fumbles and fumble with the same frequency going forward, they can be expected to force 6.6 interceptions (unchanged rate), recover 7.7 opponents’ fumbles, lose 14.3 of their own fumbles, and throw 9.9 interceptions going forward, a turnover differential of -11 in their final 11 games, or -1 per game, or a 300% improvement.
That’s not unrealistic. In fact, that’s assuming they don’t play any better, doing things like fumbling less overall, forcing more fumbles, etc., which they could. In fact, history might suggest they will (see the link I posted earlier and the link I will post again soon). It’s also not taking into account what should be a higher rate of forcing interceptions as their competition gets easier. This is a really in depth look into why I don’t put a ton of stock into turnovers. Again, here is the general.
Turnovers aside, Kansas City hasn’t been nearly as bad as people think this year. Tampa Bay, meanwhile, is horrendous. I don’t think that’s a secret or anything, but they are dead last in yards per play differential and we’re getting a lot of line value with Kansas City no matter how you look at it. Kansas City is also in a good spot as dogs before being favorites with their next game being at home against Oakland. Teams are 73-48 ATS in this spot since 2011, including 20-8 ATS off a loss as dogs. The Chiefs do have a bye in between, which weakens the trend a bit, but dogs before a bye who will be favorites after the bye are 52-33 ATS since 1989, so there’s still a trend.
Meanwhile, non-conference dogs of 3+ before being divisional dogs are 23-46 ATS since 2002 and Tampa Bay faces New Orleans next week. Tampa Bay is in a good spot as non-divisional favorites after a bye. Teams are 89-62 ATS in that situation since 2002, but since 1989 (I had to go back there to get enough data), teams are just 15-20 ATS in that situation when their next game is one in which they will be divisional dogs. I considered this to be a co-pick of the week and a 5 unit play. Instead, I’m going with 4 units because Tampa Bay is coming off a bye, but that shouldn’t be a huge factor.
Public lean: Tampa Bay (new thing I’m adding, siding with the odds makers on bets is not a bad thing to do since they make so much money, so I’m listing this here to allow readers to “fade” the public, if they so choose, in this example, the odds makers win if Kansas City covers)
Sharps lean: TB 12 KC 5
Final update: Sharps are afraid to bet this game in general as it’s the 2nd least picked game of the week, but I don’t have much of a problem picking the Chiefs as more than a field goal underdog. Besides, Aqib Talib has been suspended for the Buccaneers, which really hurts a pass defense that already ranks dead last in the league.
Kansas City Chiefs 20 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 16 Upset Pick +175
Pick against spread: Kansas City +4.5 (-110) 4 units
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