The Denver Broncos are Better Than You Think

And the Cowboys may be worse. We have charts and stats to prove it all!

November 20, 2024

Nov. 20, 2024
PRESENTED BY

Total Recall: Every Wednesday marks Square 1 to set our foundation for the week ahead—and the best place to start that grind comes directly from the books.

Remember: The house can’t help but tip its hand by posting live team totals.

John Laghezza

For whatever reason, NFL totals can be hard to wrangle. In my never-ending quest to make this newsletter an irreplaceable part of your daily routine, I charted all of this week’s baseline (-110) team totals to highlight outliers. Remember the time-tested adage, “One must first have a solid foundation.”

Allow us to do the dirty work so you won’t have to.

Takeaways: No real shock up top as, once more, the fantastic four (DET, WAS, BAL, PHI) all project to score more than 27 points this weekend.

But let’s take a closer look. What do you notice?

🎵 One of these things is not like others, one of these things just doesn’t belong 🎵

Scoring’s primarily predicated on the offense—that’s all fine and dandy. Hand-waving “quality of defense” borders on malpractice. Imagine choosing to face LAC, the league’s top-scoring defense, over the drain-circling Cowboys at the same price. Couldn’t be us.

Note venues as well. Three of the four top-projected teams play on the road in Week 12. Road teams sport a negative offensive EPA/play on the season, scoring nearly two fewer points per game (21.8) than their counterparts (23.3). I’m not quite crossing them all off without any weather issues—just doing due diligence and keeping my head on a swivel.

Down low will always present a challenge for over bettors. A team’s got to be pretty bad to imply ~17 points through 60 minutes. Face it, it’s a tough season replete with injuries compounded on top of poor choices. Some squads get left in total shambles. Case in point, the Cowboys. Frankly, I’m surprised Dallas opened north of 17 after mustering only 10 against Houston, despite 354 passing yards (what?!?) from Cooper Rush.

It’s Total Recall …

I’ll be back tomorrow with a detailed write-up on the Thursday Night game and two bets to get us through PIT/CLE.

You can also use our NFL Game Betting Model to identify the biggest edges on game totals, spreads, and moneylines!

What else is in today’s newsletter?

  1. The Watercooler: MACtion, a Rachaad White stat and more!

  2. Buying in on the Broncos: They’re good, people!

  3. Viz of the Day: Team Expected Points Added Per Play

AROUND THE WATERCOOLER

The latest analysis and insights from our merry band of sports betting nerds:

🏴‍☠️ There is a fantastic stat in here on Rachaad White. Remember the Sean Tucker Waiver Rush?

🤑 For my fantasy people! This week’s top DST streamers.

🚨 MACtion bets from Thor! We have two games tonight!

📊 Reminder that all of our staff’s best bets are housed in one easy place to peruse!

NFL Betting

THE BET: DENVER BRONCOS -5.5 (-110; DK)

My projections rarely wind up so far from the Vegas baselines (sign of a good model and a feature, not a bug), and this one’s screaming CLV (closing line value). It’s making me dream of a future with nationally regulated betting markets where positions can be bought and sold. Bet your bottom dollar once (if) it happens, I’ll be baking my bread and cashed out before kickoffs.

But enough jinx fuel …

Denver rides into Vegas Sunday afternoon as only 5.5-point favorites against their division rivals. I say “only” because my take’s firm. Denver’s actually a good, well-rounded team and the nation’s a little slow to digest the fact. 

I have some good stuff on the vulnerabilities in the Raiders defense a little lower in the newsletter, and the harder you stare, the worse it gets. For starters, Las Vegas plays entirely too soft schematically for their build. And then there’s the utter lack of situational adjustment once the injuries started. Check this out: the Raiders are the only team in the NFL to not run a single snap out of 4-3/3-4 on defense.

Playing with +5-DBs most of the time with backups in front makes it easy for rational coaches (cough, like Sean Peyton, cough) to create size mismatches. All this winds up reflecting clearly on the spreadsheet in suboptimal tackle rates and yards after contact, leading to over 40% of third downs getting converted against them this season. 

Start accounting for injuries to starters at all three levels of the defense and things fall off a cliff for Vegas. They’re among the NFL’s very worst in EPA/play over the last six weeks and it’s showing up as over 30 points/week on the scoreboard (image below).

Meanwhile, Denver’s combination of Sean Payton and Bo Nix has made a statement this year. Nothing spells winning like a QB/Head Coach mind-meld. They continue improving on offense without the most talented roster, averaging over 22 points this month. There’d probably be more DEN fanfare if not for missing a makeable kick to beat the Chiefs—before dismantling the Falcons at Mile High. Not sure I have the confidence to go over the 24-point team total but for me, the edge easily goes to the Broncos' offense.

That brings us to the Denver D and the most obvious mismatch perhaps on the entire slate this weekend. The Raiders border on unwatchable, ranking bottom-three in EPA/play on offense, and outside Brock Bowers do not deserve your attention. They’ll have the great misfortune of facing the Broncos’ defense, vying for best in the NFL.

  • 16.6 Points Allowed Per Game: 3rd

  • 289.4 Yards Allowed Per Game: 3rd

  • 4.6 Yards Allowed Per Play: 1st

  • +0.12 EPA/Play: 2nd

  • 57.8% Tackle Success: 2nd

Give me Denver to dominate in every phase as the rest of the world figures it out late and this line closes north of a TD.

CHART OF THE DAY!

🧠📊 Chart of the Day: Team Expected Points Added Per Play

Each week, we present the league through the lens of a single image. While no one picture or stat can truly shoulder such a load, learning to take the temperature of each team’s offensive and defensive expected points added (EPA) will sharpen your game —this per-play metric defines the value of each play by the effect it has on the offense's likelihood to score.

It provides an analytically dense, perspective-laden snapshot that is absolutely worth familiarizing yourself with.

NOTE: The cross in the middle represents league average. Also, positive EPA is ideal on both sides of the ball—so in this specific case, the closer to the upper-right corner, the better a team’s combined performance in both phases.

THE GOOD:

The Lions: Glad I didn’t call a top on these Lions, who continue to pummel opponents into submission. Detroit’s outsourcing opponents 39-16 since their bye … six weeks ago! Two 50-point outings in a month feel like proof the offense plays without weekly ceilings. Oh, their +0.21 defensive EPA/play laps the field this past month as well. Could this be the year?

The Eagles: We’ve been riding the Eagles’ wings for weeks now without fail. Winners of six straight off the bye, it’s all coming together for Nick Sirianni (even without Big Dom, mind you). Hard to ask for much more from Philly right now, outscoring the opposition 29-14 over that span. Wow. Adding Saquon Barkley added a much-needed layer to what I think is the best PHI team in the Jalen Hurts era. Lions/Eagles NFC Championship, anyone?

THE BAD:

The Raiders: Another Raiders season wasted without proper directionality. If a team enters a season without starting-level quarterback play, they better lock it down on defense. It’s nothing but audible sighs and sad trombone sounds for Las Vegas. The predictably poor offense is now complemented by a Swiss cheese defense, allowing 35 points/game this month on the NFL’s worst defensive EPA/play. Ugh, so bad.

The Bears: Chicago’s four-game losing streak off the bye sank any early hopes for a postseason appearance. Guess we can forget about the post-bye rookie bump, huh? While this season may be toast, there’s still a lot to be excited about going forward if last week’s close loss versus Green Bay is any indication. I doubt we’ll see them in this section of the newsletter again this season.  

THE UGLY:

The Cowboys and the Jags: It’s a race to the bottom between the Cowboys and Jaguars. At least Jacksonville has the decency to be on a bye and not subject us to their play. Missing franchise quarterbacks on already flawed offenses, combined with arguably the two worst defenses in the game today. Sheesh. Cooper Rush and Mac Jones could not be in worse spots going forward—we’re talking about Chernobyl levels of toxicity here. Both DAL and JAX should be perpetual double-digit underdogs for the rest of the season with very little chance of winning another game in 2024.

It’s time to wrap it up.

Want to see how your fantasy team rates, player-by-player? Check out the Utilization Report.

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