2014 Week 9 NFL Picks

New Orleans Saints at Carolina Panthers: 2014 Week 9 NFL Pick

stevenlourie 2014 NFL Picks, 2014 Week 9 NFL Picks, Panthers, Saints, Uncategorized

New Orleans Saints (3-4) at Carolina Panthers (3-4-1)

I’ve been high on the Saints this whole season, picking them to win the Super Bowl before the season and not really wavering from that a ton even as they got out to a 2-4 start. That 2-4 start was largely a result of starting the season with 4 of 6 on the road, a significant injury to Jimmy Graham (which he’s over now), a -8 turnover margin and a -3 return touchdown margin fueled by an 18.18% rate of recovering fumbles, and 3 losses by a combined 6 points. They were legitimately a few plays away from being 5-1.

Last week, they got Graham back and were able to beat a very good Packer team by 21 back at home, winning the turnover battle by 2. Now they’re legitimately a few plays away from being 6-1. However, now they have to go back on the road, which hasn’t been nearly as kind to them over recent years.  While they are 18-1-1 ATS at home over their last 20 home games with Drew Brees and Sean Payton, winning all 20 of those games by an average of about 19.6 points per game, they are 3-11 ATS on the road over the past 2 seasons.

I wish the Saints were still underdogs as they were with the early line last week (Carolina -1.5), as Drew Brees is 6-8 ATS as road underdogs since 2010, as opposed to 8-17 ATS as road favorites. That also would have opened up a significant trend as the Saints will be home favorites next week for San Francisco, while the Panthers will be road underdogs next week in Philadelphia (teams are 57-96 ATS since 2010 as home favorites before being road underdogs when their opponent will next be home favorites).

I hate going with huge line movement like this one (-1.5 to +2.5), but it’s all within the field goals so it’s not as big of a concern. This line is also more than justified as the line movement is simply catching up to how good the Saints have been all season. The Saints rank 6th, moving the chains at an 81.30% rate, as opposed to 78.08% for their opponents, a differential of 3.22%. The Panthers, meanwhile, rank 23rd, moving the chains at a 74.10% rate, but allowing opponents to move them at a 77.04% rate, a differential of -2.94%. That suggests the Saints should be favored by at least a field goal. On top of that, home underdogs in night games are 30-58 ATS since 1989. The Saints should be the right side, but I can’t be confident in them on the road.

New Orleans Saints 31 Carolina Panthers 27

Pick against the spread: New Orleans -2.5

Confidence: None

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Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Cleveland Browns: 2014 Week 9 NFL Pick

stevenlourie 2014 NFL Picks, 2014 Week 9 NFL Picks, Browns, Buccaneers, Uncategorized

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-6) at Cleveland Browns (4-3)

The Browns are at the end of one of the easiest stretches of play any team in the league has this season, as they went to 0-6 Jacksonville, hosted 0-6 Oakland, and now host 1-6 Tampa Bay. However, next week they have to go to Cincinnati for Thursday Night Football. Teams are 85-105 ATS since 2002 as non-divisional favorites, including 33-56 ATS since 1989 as non-divisional home favorites of a touchdown or more before being divisional road underdogs of a field goal or more. On the opposite side of the coin, the Buccaneers host the Falcons up next, any easier game that is going to provide significantly less of a distraction for the Buccaneers than the Bengals’ game will for the Browns. Teams are 121-90 ATS since 2002 as non-divisional road underdogs before being divisional home favorites.

Combining the two, teams are 57-96 ATS since 2010 as home favorites before being road underdogs when their opponent will next be home favorites. Making matters even worse for the Browns is the fact that the game against the Bengals is a Thursday Night Game, which will make that game even more of a distraction. Favorites are 35-56 ATS since 2008 as favorites before a Thursday Night Game. I like the Buccaneers chances of keeping this one close and maybe even pulling an upset (like they did in Pittsburgh) against a team in a bad situation. The Buccaneers have actually only lost two games by more than a touchdown this season, as bad as their record is. As long as the line is a touchdown, it’s a big play on the Buccaneers.

Cleveland Browns 19 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 17

Pick against the spread: Tampa Bay +7

Confidence: High

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Denver Broncos at New England Patriots: 2014 Week 9 NFL Pick

stevenlourie 2014 NFL Picks, 2014 Week 9 NFL Picks, Broncos, Patriots, Uncategorized

Denver Broncos (6-1) at New England Patriots (6-2)

On the season, the Patriots are just 11th in rate of moving the chains differential, despite their 6-2 record, as they’ve been overly reliant on a +11 turnover margin. They are moving the chains at a 74.91% rate, as opposed to 73.18% for their opponents, a differential of 1.53%. The Broncos, meanwhile, are #1 in that statistic, moving the chains at a 79.49% rate, as opposed to 72.12% for their opponents, a differential of 7.36%. That suggests this line should be around 2.5 in favor of Denver here in New England, which gives us a little bit of line value with the Patriots as 3.5 point underdogs.

That’s before you even take into account that the Patriots have been playing much better football over the past four games, since that loss to Kansas City. They’ve moved the chains at an 80.99% rate over the past 4 weeks, as opposed to 66.96% in the first 4 weeks of the season. Their defense hasn’t been quite as good (74.26% vs 72.00%) and they’ll have trouble stopping Peyton Manning without Chandler Jones and Jerod Mayo, but they can definitely still outscore them. I believe the Patriots will be closer to the last 4 weeks than the first 4 weeks over the final 8 weeks of the season, as Rob Gronkowski is back to full health. Over the past 4 weeks, he’s caught 27 passes for 411 yards and 4 touchdowns over the past 4 games combined on 134 routes run (3.07 yards per route run).

Their offense has always been better when they have a healthy Gronkowski on the field. Coming into this season, from 2011-2013, Tom Brady completed 65.3% of his passes for an average of 8.07 YPA, 81 touchdowns, and 24 interceptions when Gronkowski played (36 games, including playoffs) and the Patriots scored 32.8 points per game. When Gronkowski isn’t on the field, Brady completed 58.3% of his passes for an average of 6.88 YPA, 30 touchdowns, and 13 interceptions and the Patriots scored 28.0 points per game (19 games, including playoffs). Over the first 4 games of the season, Tom Brady completed 59.1% of his passes for an average of 5.77 YPA, 4 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions. Over the last 4 games, he’s completed 69.6% of his passes for an average of 8.81 YPA, 14 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions.

Last week was the best offensive game they’ve had yet as they moved the chains at a 90.24% rate in a 51-23 win. Despite that, they are underdogs of 3.5 here, just the 4th time in the last 25 years that a team has scored 50 points or more and then been home underdogs of 3.5 or more the following week. Those teams are only 2-1 ATS, but it’s such a small sample size and, considering how rare it happens, I don’t think the Patriots deserve to be underdogs of this much, which my above numbers also suggest.

It’s also a rarity that the Patriots are home underdogs, as this is just the 11th time they’ve been home underdogs since Tom Brady took over as the starter. In those previous 10 games, they are 9-1 ATS, winning straight up in 8 of those 10 games. That makes sense, as the Patriots are 105-22 straight up since 2001 at home, including 9-4 ATS (13-0 SU, winning by an average of 12.46 points per game) at home over the past 2 seasons. Going off of that, Tom Brady is 44-18 ATS in his career as an underdog or a favorite of fewer than 3 points, winning at an absurdly high rate in situations where he basically just has to win straight up.

Going off of that, he’s 31-10-1 ATS in his career against teams that have better records than his, including 19-6 ATS as an underdog. Possibly even crazier, he’s 30-12 straight up in that situation, a winning percentage of 71.4%. The rest of the league wins at a 38.5% rate. The Broncos are in a good spot, as they have the Raiders up next, meaning they have no distractions upcoming. Teams are 78-54 ATS since 2012 before being 3+ point road favorites, including 49-30 ATS as 4+ point favorites, and 20-5 ATS as 7+ point favorites. Still, as long as this line is more than a field goal, the Patriots are my Pick of the Week.

New England Patriots 34 Denver Broncos 27 Upset Pick +140

Pick against spread: New England +3.5

Confidence: Pick of the Week

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Rate of Moving the Chains – Week 9

stevenlourie 2014 NFL Picks, 2014 Week 9 NFL Picks, Uncategorized

What is this? This is rate of moving the chains, which is my primary statistic for handicapping games. It holds the assumption that the goal of any team on any given 1st and 10 (or 1st and goal) is to move the chains (or score). In order to figure out how often teams meet that goal, I take first downs plus touchdowns and divide it by first downs plus touchdowns plus failures to move the chains (successes divided by attempts). Failures to move the chains include punts, turnovers, failed 4th downs, and field goal attempts (being forced to kick a field goal is a failure). I have this sorted by percent for (to evaluate offenses), percent against (to evaluate defenses), and differentials (to evaluate teams).

First Downs Touchdowns Field Goals Punts Turnovers Failed 4ths Safeties
1 NO 190 23 14 19 13 3 0 81.30%
2 DEN 158 28 8 36 4 0 0 79.49%
3 GB 166 26 12 28 7 3 2 78.69%
4 IND 213 28 16 30 15 4 1 78.50%
5 DAL 182 23 16 27 15 1 0 77.65%
6 KC 151 19 12 28 7 2 0 77.63%
7 SD 167 23 14 35 5 2 0 77.24%
8 CHI 179 21 9 30 15 5 0 77.22%
9 PIT 186 20 15 35 8 4 0 76.87%
10 BAL 178 23 21 22 12 6 0 76.72%
11 SEA 138 18 14 29 6 2 1 75.00%
12 NE 170 22 22 34 5 4 0 74.71%
13 CAR 170 16 18 35 10 2 0 74.10%
14 SF 139 15 16 27 7 4 0 74.04%
15 ATL 166 22 10 35 14 6 1 74.02%
16 NYG 151 19 7 36 13 4 0 73.91%
17 STL 140 14 11 31 11 3 0 73.33%
18 MIA 150 16 16 26 12 7 0 73.13%
19 WAS 166 19 14 37 16 3 0 72.55%
20 ARZ 137 15 16 39 5 1 0 71.36%
21 CIN 135 17 19 31 8 3 0 71.36%
22 CLE 139 17 13 40 5 5 0 71.23%
23 DET 153 17 19 37 11 2 0 71.13%
24 PHI 154 16 15 36 17 2 0 70.83%
25 HOU 152 17 17 38 13 2 0 70.71%
26 TB 123 14 9 32 14 3 1 69.90%
27 TEN 138 15 13 41 11 4 2 68.30%
28 NYJ 153 15 15 42 18 3 0 68.29%
29 MIN 147 11 19 44 12 3 0 66.95%
30 OAK 113 12 8 40 13 2 0 66.49%
31 JAX 143 13 14 45 18 4 0 65.82%
32 BUF 135 17 19 47 11 3 1 65.24%

 

Defense

First Downs Touchdowns Field Goals Punts Turnovers Failed 4ths Safeties
1 BUF 164 15 19 43 18 3 0 68.32%
2 DET 148 13 12 45 12 4 1 68.51%
3 PHI 148 18 13 44 10 4 0 70.04%
4 KC 128 12 16 35 5 3 0 70.35%
5 MIA 133 16 13 31 14 4 0 70.62%
6 MIN 151 19 12 45 11 2 0 70.83%
7 BAL 155 13 18 32 12 5 1 71.19%
8 WAS 150 20 13 45 8 2 0 71.43%
9 NYJ 140 25 14 48 3 0 0 71.74%
10 IND 157 21 10 42 12 6 0 71.77%
11 CLE 156 17 12 39 11 5 1 71.78%
12 HOU 167 19 13 39 17 3 0 72.09%
13 DEN 146 17 11 39 8 4 1 72.12%
14 DAL 141 17 11 33 13 4 0 72.15%
15 ARZ 145 16 11 35 14 2 0 72.20%
16 JAX 166 18 18 38 8 5 0 72.73%
17 NE 173 18 17 32 16 5 0 73.18%
18 NYG 142 18 13 29 13 2 0 73.73%
19 SEA 137 15 13 31 7 2 1 73.79%
20 PIT 166 20 19 33 11 1 1 74.10%
21 SD 152 19 8 35 9 6 1 74.35%
22 CIN 171 16 19 25 12 5 1 75.10%
23 TEN 191 21 19 35 11 4 0 75.44%
24 ATL 177 23 21 30 13 0 0 75.76%
25 SF 136 18 6 30 11 2 0 75.86%
26 OAK 149 19 15 28 6 4 0 76.02%
27 CHI 166 22 21 22 12 4 0 76.11%
28 STL 142 19 13 25 8 2 0 77.03%
29 CAR 174 24 16 27 14 2 0 77.04%
30 TB 171 23 19 26 10 0 0 77.91%
31 GB 188 21 12 26 15 6 0 77.99%
32 NO 152 19 14 25 7 1 1 78.08%

 

Overall

1 DEN 7.36%
2 KC 7.27%
3 IND 6.73%
4 BAL 5.53%
5 DAL 5.51%
6 NO 3.22%
7 SD 2.89%
8 PIT 2.76%
9 DET 2.62%
10 MIA 2.51%
11 NE 1.53%
12 SEA 1.21%
13 WAS 1.12%
14 CHI 1.11%
15 PHI 0.79%
16 GB 0.70%
17 NYG 0.18%
18 CLE -0.55%
19 ARZ -0.84%
20 HOU -1.38%
21 ATL -1.74%
22 SF -1.82%
23 CAR -2.94%
24 BUF -3.08%
25 NYJ -3.45%
26 STL -3.70%
27 CIN -3.74%
28 MIN -3.88%
29 JAX -6.90%
30 TEN -7.14%
31 TB -8.01%
32 OAK -9.53%

2014 Week 8 NFL Pick Results

stevenlourie 2014 NFL Picks, 2014 Week 9 NFL Picks, Uncategorized

Against the Spread: 10-5

Straight Up: 11-4

Pick of the Week: 1-0

High Confidence: 1-0

Medium Confidence: 3-2

Low Confidence: 2-3

No Confidence: 3-0

Upset Picks: 1-1

Against the Spread: 76-44-1 (.633)

Straight Up: 82-38-1 (.683)

Pick of the Week: 5-3

High Confidence: 5-6

Medium Confidence: 29-9

Low Confidence: 17-14-1

No Confidence: 20-12

Upset Picks: 10-8

Survivor Picks: 6-2 (PHI, GB, NO, SD, DET, SEA, BAL, KC)