Monthly Archives: October 2014

Eagles – Cardinals Odds Breakdown

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As promised, my column from BGN is below. Short version: I’ve got the Eagles +3 and Under 48.  If Sproles plays I like the Eagles a bit more, if he doesn’t I like the under a bit more.  This looks like a close matchup, but I’m still skeptical that the Cardinals are a very good team.  If the Eagles defense plays like it has over the past few games, it will be very tough for Arizona to put up any points (their offense is bad).  Most importantly, of course, is the play of Nick Foles.  In a tight game, TOs are often determinative.  Against a bad offense on the road, I’d be quite happy to see a lot of sacks if it means avoiding an INT (and hopefully a fumble).  Note, though, that Arizona has a sack rate of just 3.0% (low), but an opposing INT rate of 3.6% (high).  That just reinforces the notion that Foles should be extra conservative with his throws today.

Sproles’ potential absence looks like a big factor today.  The Cardinals punt team is close to the bottom of the league according to DVOA.  If he plays, that could easily swing the game in the Eagles favor.

Rumor has it Mychal Kendricks might play.  If so, watch him closely.  If he’s developed like we all hoped he would (he looked good to start the season), it could have a big impact on the Eagles defense, particularly against a player like Andre Ellington who is dangerous catching passes out of the backfield.

See the rest below, but I’m cautiously optimistic that Chip Kelly used his bye week effectively.  Just 1-2 big plays on offense should be enough to win this game.

My picks record to date:

Line: 2 – 4

O/U: 2 – 4

Reader record:

Line: 3 – 3

O/U: 4 – 2

This week’s lines:

Eagles +3 (+125)

Cardinals -3 (-145)

Over 48 (-115)

Under 48 (-105)

Reviewing last week:

The Giants are who we thought they were! I had a strong suspicion that the Giants hype was built largely upon a really easy schedule, and it looks like that was correct.  Unfortunately, I really heavily on the numbers, so I ended up taking a loss on both sides. The Eagles covered against the Giants (by 24 points) but failed to clear the over.  That gives me a loss on both sides.  To be fair, though, I did say I would actually touch the line.  But this column isn’t much fun if I don’t take a side each week, so losses it is.  Readers split the action, winning with the Eagles but losing on the over.

This week’s game:

Another “big” game for the Eagles, because the Cardinals are currently 5-1 and appear as though they could be competition for a top playoff seed.  Similar to last week, I’m skeptical. The Cardinals point differential is just 21 points, which ranks 10th in the league.  That means the teams “expected” record is just 3.6 wins.  Now, we can’t be too dismissive here, because the team took a -20 hit in its game against Denver (in Denver).  By comparison, the Eagles PD is 51, for an “expected” record of 4.1 wins.

Beyond that, the Cardinals are a very tough team to peg on paper.  The team has wins against the Giants, Washington, and the Raiders.  As we know, that doesn’t tell us anything about the Cardinals beyond “they’re not terrible”.  It is interesting to note that they’ve won those games by 11, 10, and 11 points.  Those are strong margins, but if the Cardinals were really a great team, we’d expect to see them blow a few bad teams away.

Of more concern, if you’re an Eagles fan, are the Cardinals’ wins against San Diego and San Francisco.  Both of those came within the first 3 weeks of the season, so they’re informational value is declining, but they still stand as high quality wins, albeit home wins.

The numbers:

Eagles Overall DVOA: 14.5% (6th)

Cardinals Overall DVOA: 0.6% (15th)

Eagles Offense: -2.9% (18th)

Cardinals Defense: -10% (5th)

Eagles Defense: -6.3% (8th)

Cardinals Offense: -11.2% (25th)

The Eagles have a big advantage on STs (as they have against everyone) and rank 1st in the league in STs DVOA.  The Cardinals rank 15th.

The DVOA breakdown is quite positive for the Eagles.  They rank as the better team by a significant margin.  Additionally, the Cardinals offense is the weakest unit of the group.  Given that the Eagles are underdogs, DVOA would lead us to take the points and side with the good guys.

Let’s look at a few comparative match-ups:

The Cardinals and Eagles, despite only having played 6 games each, actually share 3 common previous opponents.  Each team has played the Giants, Washington, and San Francisco.  The results:

Against the Giants:

Arizona won in New York by 11 points.

The Eagles won at home by 27.

Against Washington:

Arizona won at home by 10.

The Eagles won at home by 3.

Against the 49ers:

Arizona won at home by 9.

The Eagles lost on the road by 5.

That’s an advantage for the Cardinals.  Against the same competition, the Cardinals have performed a bit better on balance.  However, the difference isn’t stark enough to provide a really strong signal towards the Cardinals.

The projection:

Using our DVOA comps:

The Cardinals offense does not rank similarly to any other Eagles opponent thus far.  Arizona is much worse than both Washington and New York, but is a lot better than Jacksonville.  Of course, against those teams the Eagles allowed 34, 0, and 17 points.  That’s very low value information given the dispersion.

From the flip side, the Eagles defense is a bit better than San Francisco, against which the Cardinals scored 23 points.  If we write off the Giants game as an anomaly, that result fits well with the results from the previous paragraph.  Overall, it gives us an expected point range for the Cardinals of 20-24 points. For the season, Arizona is averaging 23.3 points per game, so our range looks very reasonable.

The Cardinals defense is very good.  It’s better by DVOA than any team the Eagles have faced this year.  The closest comparison is with Indianapolis and, to a lesser extent, San Francisco.  Against Indy (in Indy), the Eagles scored 30 points.  Against San Francisco, the Eagles scored 21 points, with ZERO coming from the offense.  As I explained two weeks ago, it is NOT correct to just write that off.  However, it is a warning sign we need to account for.

On the other side, the Cardinals have allowed 14, 14, and 20 points against the Giants, 49ers, and Washington.  Each of those teams ranks almost identically with the Eagles by offensive DVOA.  If we use all of those results, we come to an average of about 20 points and a range of 14 – 24 points (skewed to the low end because of the 49ers game).  Let’s take the midpoint of 18 rather than 20.

BUT, we still haven’t accounted (at least fully) for the fact that A) the Eagles are coming off a bye week and B) the Eagles have a very significant STs advantage.  Qualitatively, people tend to place a lot more weight on the bye week advantage than is probably warranted, but it can’t be ignored.  Last season, the Eagles also played the Cardinals just after the bye week, beating them 24-21.  But the spread was 3.5…  As I said, the bye week is an advantage, but not a huge one.  I’ll give it 1 point, moving the Eagles to 19.

Now, STs must be accounted for, but as everyone knows, Darren Sproles probably deserves a lot of credit for the Eagles great return game.  He’s currently listed as questionable, but I’m operating under the assumption that he won’t play.  That’s a shame, because the Cardinals’ punt team is particularly weak, at least according to Football Outsiders.  There are just 5 teams that have worse punting units, whereas the Eagles have the second best return unit.  Even without Sproles, that’s a potential source of variance in the Eagles favor.  However, as good as Cody Parkey has been, Arizona has a sizeable advantage on the Kick/FG side. That seems really strange, and I’m still figuring out how that’s possible, but I can’t ignore the numbers.  That’s a long way of saying STs is largely a wash.  If Darren Sproles were definitely playing, I’d be inclined to add 2-3 points for the Eagles.  With him potentially missing the game, I’ll dial it back to 1.

That moves us to an expected point output of 20 for the Eagles. That’s REALLY low, especially considering the team is averaging 30.5 points per game.  Fortunately, the spread is 3, which means the Eagles at 20 and the Cardinals at 20-24 points largely points towards taking the points.  The big margin of safety from the Eagles difference from average just increases the confidence a bit more.  Take the Eagles +3.

Lastly, with two good defenses and no Darren Sproles, it looks like under 48 is the play. That goes against our general rule (always take the Eagles over), but the breakdown points strongly in that direction.  Nick Foles, as he’s playing now, and Carson Palmer do not seem likely to combine for a shootout.  If Sproles really is out, I think the under is actually a really attractive play.

Eagles Bye Week Review

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I desperately need a non-preview post, and with the Eagles heading into the post-bye week part of the schedule, now seems like a great time for a high level look at how this season is progressing.  Rather than attempt to follow a consistent thread, I’m just going to do bullets so that I can touch on everything I think is important and interesting about the season so far.

– Let’s first check in with my preseason projection.  My base-case had the Eagles scoring about 425 points and allowing 366, for an “expected” record of 9.6 wins.  At their current pace, the Eagles will score 488 points and allow 352.  So the defense is largely where we thought it would be.  The offense is pretty far ahead, though.  It’s important to note that the Eagles’ schedule gets tougher from here on out.  We’ll likely see the scoring rate (30.5 per game right now) decline and the points allowed rate (22 per game) go up.  Meanwhile, the current win projection has to be 10-11, meaning the Eagles are slightly ahead of where I thought they’d be.

– Blue Chips Watch – The most important part of the season.  Do the Eagles have any players that can truly be considered “Blue-Chip” or “top-tier” talents?  The answer to that question is a bit mixed.  First, the good news:

Fletcher Cox has become the player we all hoped he’d be.  I was worried about the transition to the 3-4, and the adjustment did take some time.  However, Cox now looks comfortable in his new role and has been a very disruptive player this year.  Here are the Top 15 Defensive Ends by Expected Points Added Per Game (from advancedfootballanalytics.com).

Screen Shot 2014-10-25 at 3.13.06 PM

First, I have to mention JJ Watt.  If you’re not watching this guy play, you’re missing out on something special.  It’s really tough to project really high-level play into the future, but I’m completely comfortable saying that JJ Watt is currently playing about as well as any defensive player EVER.

Notice who is #2 on that list, though.  Fletcher Cox has had a very big impact this season. That’s a great sign for the Eagles’ future.  The team needs a few cornerstone players, and Cox is playing like one.

One more note about that chart.   Check out #12.  Cedric Thornton has pretty quietly become a really good player.  Maybe it won’t last and maybe he’s just taking advantage of favorable match-ups as a result of the attention Cox draws.  But, he’s also 26 years old and in just his 3rd season.  I mentioned pre-season that the Eagles have to hope for a “surprise” impact player to emerge.  Thornton isn’t quite there yet, but he’s certainly worth keeping a close eye on.

The rest of the “Blue Chip” breakdown isn’t as positive.  Kendricks looked really good to start the season, but his injury prevented us from seeing if that was actual growth or a short-term performance bump.  Lane Johnson had his suspension, and two games isn’t enough of a sample to make any large judgments.  Brandon Boykin seems to have pissed off somebody behind the scenes, because his usage rates don’t match up to his apparent skill level relative to other players on the team (he’s been playing about 1/3 of the snaps, basically only in the nickel package).  With Chip Kelly’s “culture” focus, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some friction between Boykin and the coaches.  In any case, it’s a big disappointment to not see him on the field more.

Marcus Smith has been a non-factor.  That’s not a surprise, but it certainly doesn’t do much to quiet those who pegged him as a big “reach” in the draft.

Jordan Matthews has 23 catches and 226 yards receiving.  That doesn’t sound exciting, but remember that rookie WRs rarely make significant contributions.  This year’s class is a very strong one, with Kelvin Benjamin and DeAndre Hopkins making a big impact so far.  We shouldn’t let that overshadow the fact that Matthews performance thus far is a good indicator for next year and beyond.

Zach Ertz has been underwhelming in terms of raw stats, but I think that’s due to factors outside of his control.  He may need to improve his blocking ability in general, but with the O-Line injuries, it’s no surprise Chip has leaned more heavily on Brent Celek than I was expecting pre-season.  Still, Ertz ranks 12th among TEs in receiving yards (20th in targets).    His 61.3% catch rate isn’t good, but that’s largely due to Foles’ accuracy issues.   Meanwhile, he ranks FIRST in the league in Win Probability Added and 8th in Expected Points Added Per Play.  In other words, Ertz is still very much on pace to be a high-impact TE, assuming Celek doesn’t play forever and Chip starts to trust Ertz in the run game.

– Don’t jump ship on Nick Foles just yet.  Nick Foles is not having nearly as good a year as he did last season.  But we knew that would happen.  Several of his statistics from last season were undeniably unsustainable.  As a result, I think he’s suffering by comparison.  For example, Nick Foles’ interception rate this year is 3.0%.  That’s not good.  It’s also not catastrophic.  Andrew Luck’s Int rate this ear is 2.3%.  Given Foles’ history, I expect that rate to come down.  If he can lower it by 1% (one fewer INT every 100 throws), he’ll be right in line with the best starting QBs in the league.

Meanwhile, everyone who was complaining that Foles took too many sacks last year is now yelling at him for throwing too many picks, apparently ignorant of the fact that they two might be linked.  While Foles’ interception rate has jumped this season, his sack rate has declined from 8.1% to 2.9%.  This year’s O-line also hasn’t been as good.  It’s entirely possible that Foles has been trying to limit his sacks by throwing the ball in areas he would have avoided last season.  Hopefully there’s a better balance to be struck, but we can’t ignore the fact that Foles has dramatically improved an area of the game most people were not satisfied with.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the biggest difference between Foles last year and this year is his TD Rate.  Last season, Foles threw TDs on 8.5% of his throws, the highest mark in the league.  This season, he has thrown TDs at a rate of just 4.2%.  Forget the interceptions, THIS is the real difference.  Relatedly, his Average Net Yards per Attempt has dropped from a league-leading 9.18 to 5.98.

Now….what in the world could be the cause of such a decline?

Let’s tip-toe into this one.

On deep throws this year, Foles is 15 of 48 (31%) with 7 TDs, 4 INTs, and 2 drops.  He’s attempting deep throws on 20.3% of his passes (all from profootballfocus.)

Last season, Foles was 25 of 55 (45%) with 14 TDs, 1 INT, and 0 drops.  He attempted deep throws on 17% of his passes.

That’s the difference between last year and this one for Foles.  The deep passing game hasn’t been nearly as effective.  Note that despite worse results, he’s actually attempting such passes MORE often.  Yes, the causality might run the other way, but the basic takeaway is the same.  For some reason, the Eagles deep passing game this year is not nearly as effective as it was last year.

Oh, by the way, the Eagles released the league’s premier deep threat in the offseason.  Again, this is not a judgment of that decision.  I really don’t want to argue about DeSean Jackson anymore (besides, I think I’ve definitively won the argument already).  However, if you’re going to be hard on Foles, you have to at least try to account for the fact that his receiving corps this year is nowhere near as good as it was last season.  Not only is Jackson gone, but Riley Cooper isn’t the same player he was last season.

The upshot, of course, is that Nick Foles needs to play a bit better, but we might also just be seeing the effects of a subpar receiving corps.  That’s a very fixable problem, at least over the long term.

So, on perhaps the most important Eagles question of the year, “is Nick Foles an answer?”, I’m advocating for a measured approach.  Foles needs to dial back the interceptions a bit, but the rest of his game isn’t nearly as bad is it seems.  Much of the decline can be attributed to the decline in the WR talent.  Additionally, the lack of the run game hasn’t helped.  Last season, teams were loading up the box on McCoy nearly every play, leaving a lot of room for Foles to take clear shots downfield.  That’s not happening as much this year.  Watch closely as Kelce and Mathis return.  If McCoy really is healthy, I think we’ll see a pretty big jump in Foles’ passing performance once those guys get back. Foles isn’t the type of QB who is going to win the game by himself, but I still believe he’s good enough to win consistently when he has a little help.

Let’s also not forget that the team is 5-1.

That’s all for now.  I’ll post my odds breakdown article tomorrow, but the short story is: if Darren Sproles plays, I see a narrow Eagles victory.  If he doesn’t, a narrow loss.  In any case, the teams appear to be pretty evenly matched, so a single big play could swing the outcome.

Eagles – Giants Pregame Thoughts

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I went a little overboard with the odds breakdown this week, so I’ll mostly let that speak for itself.  However, I’m going to do a higher level check-in post later this week in an effort to get back into broader strategic analysis.  Not that you care, but I decided to take the bulk of the Wharton core through accelerated classes (I’ve got four finals this week).  That hasn’t left much time for anything else, but it should pay off (i.e. much more time) starting next week.  Until then, though, we’re stuck with previews.

For today’s game, here are some additional thoughts, some of which are elaborated on in the breakdown below:

– Very big game for the Eagles, but not because of the opponent.  I still haven’t seen anything from the Giants to change my ex-ante belief that they’re not a playoff-caliber team.  Given their schedule, it’s still possible they’re just the best team of the bottom third of the league.  Instead, the game is important because the Eagles schedule after the bye week is very difficult.  It looks like it’ll take at least 10 wins to win the NFC East.  So a win tonight and the Eagles only need to go 5-5 the rest of the way to hit the target.  In other words, things are going to get a bit ugly starting in two weeks and the team will likely need all the margin for error it can get.

– Much is being made about the Eagles potential for regression on D/STs, specifically regarding TDs.  That’s absolutely correct.  The Eagles will not keep scoring TDs on D/STs at such a high rate.  However, the Eagles offense is also primed for POSITIVE regression.  Hopefully it starts tonight.

A lot more below.  As I say at the end, I’m actually much more bullish about tonight’s game than my breakdown suggests.  I think the Giants’ statistics are very skewed by an easy schedule (moreso than the Eagles).  Still, I’d be lying if I said I was confident in the Eagles offense right now.  Just because they “should” improve doesn’t mean they will.

My picks record to date:

Line: 2 – 3

O/U: 2 – 3

Reader record:

Line: 2 – 3

O/U: 4 – 1

This week’s lines:

Eagles -3 (-105)

Giants +3 (-115)

Over 51 (-105)

Under 51 (-115)

Reviewing last week:

The Over hit comfortably, so that’s a win for everyone.  Unfortunately, Billy Davis and the DBs decided they didn’t like the idea of a dominating win.  Not only did they let the Ramstake the backdoor cover, they also gave them a chance to win outright.  I said I was very confident in the Eagles -7, but they only won by 6.  Of course, as soon as the lead was 13 I knew how it was going to end.  So it’s a loss for me on the line, but things aren’t all bad.  While I said I liked the Eagles, I also advised you to wait until close to kickoff before making any wagers (confirm Lane Johnson’s condition).  If you did that, you should’ve got the line at just -4.5, giving you a 2-0 week.  I still have no idea why the line dropped so much in just 24 hours (no major injuries), but I hope you took full advantage.

This week:

Huge game for the Eagles.  I’m actually not too worried about the Giants being a true division title contender, so that’s less of a factor for me than for most others.  Instead, I’m looking at the schedule after the bye week:

@Cardinals, @Texans, Panthers, @Green Bay

A win this week puts the Eagles at 5-1 heading into that stretch, meaning they could lose 3 out of those 4 and still be 6-4.  After that stretch above, the Eagles play the Titans at home before getting a Dallas, Seattle, Dallas sandwich.  In other words, the Eagles are probably going to lose a bunch of games over the next 8-9 weeks, so they need as many wins now as they can get.

The Breakdown:

First, the DVOA comparison:

Eagles Overall – 5.6% (13th)

Giants Overall – 9.8% (8th)

Eagles Offense – -5.5% (22nd)

Giants Defense – -8.8% (7th)

Eagles Defense – -1.0% (16th)

Giants Offense – 3.2% (14th)

On Special Teams, the Eagles have a very big advantage.  The Birds rank 1st in the league, and along with Atlanta and Buffalo are well ahead of everyone else.  Meanwhile, the Giants are 23rd.

Well that doesn’t look very good, does it?  The Giants have the better offense and the better defense. Naturally, they rank better overall, though not by a huge margin.  Regardless, the DVOA breakdown points towards the Giants, especially because they’re getting 3 points.

Now let’s look at actual results to make our score projection:

Of the teams the Eagles have played this year, the 49ers (8th) rank closest to the Giants (9th) on defense by DVOA.  The Eagles scored 21 points against San Francisco. However, all 3 touchdowns came from Defense and Special Teams.  That makes this a tough benchmark to use, since we really don’t want to be projecting D/ST scoring.  Of course, certain media members (cough…Bill Barnwell…cough) are writing off this factor too easily.  Start Tangent – Yes, the Eagles are unlikely to keep scoring on D/STs.  BUT, in games like this one, where there appears to be a huge STs advantage, the field position effects alone can have a significant effect on the offense.  Additionally, you can’t just write off one area as due for regression without looking for others.  I’m talking specifically about the Eagles offense.

Putting on my Bayesian hat for a moment, we have to remember our ex-ante expectations for the team.  It’s fairly unlikely that the Eagles went from one of the league’s best offenses to one of the league’s worst offenses in one offseason.  There are a few roster changes to account for (D-Jax and the injuries), but that’s it.  The Eagles weren’t particularly lucky last year, so that’s not a factor.  Put simply, the Eagles offense is more likely to improve a bit than it is to get worse or stay the same.  We diminish the weight we place on last season’s results, but we can’t forget them entirely; not without a very compelling and logical reason.  Even with the Mathis/Kelce injuries, the Eagles almost certainly are not as helpless on offense as the have seemed the past couple of games.  End tangent.

So the Eagles are averaging 31.2 ppg, but against the most comparable competition they scored just 21 points (none on offense).  Of course, that was a road game, so there’s some clawback factor there as well.  If we call that 3 points, we get to an expected output of 24.

From the opposite viewpoint, among the Giants opponents thus far, the Eagles rank closest on offense to Arizona (24th) and Detroit (20th).  Against the Lions on the road, the Giants allowed 35 points.  Against the Cardinals at home, the Giants allowed 25 points.  Together, that’s an average of 30 points allowed, which is fairly surprising given the Giants strong overall rank on defense.  Using that number with our Eagles-centric projection, we get a range of 24-30 points.  Taking the midpoints gives us 27 points for the Eagles.  That’s about 4 points beneath the Eagles season average

Quick aside, you’ll notice I’m doing a lot more manipulation of the DVOA numbers than in previous weeks.  As the year goes on, I tend to put more and more weight on these (as the sample increases).

Now, from the opposite side:

Of the Giants opponents to date, the Eagles defense (16th) ranks closest to Houston (15th) and Washington (18th).  Against Houston at home, the Giants scored 30 points.  Against Washington on the road, the Giants scored 45 points.  That’s pretty strong output.  Averaged, that comes to 37.5 points, which is ridiculous.  On the season, the Giants are averaging 26.6 ppg, which is still a very good rate, but a far cry from 37.  So what do we do?  Well we can’t ignore the comparison stats, but I also don’t feel comfortable projecting the Giants to score 10+ points above their season average.  Keeping it simple, let’s split the difference and call it 32 points. Also recall that Demeco Ryans might not play, so 30+ is very reasonable.

Together, that gives us a projection of Giants 32 – Eagles 27.  As is customary by now, we’re taking the over 51. Sticking with out projections, we also get a fairly strong signal towards Giants +3. I hate given that as a recommendation, but it is what it is.

I do want to mention something important though.  As much as the Eagles have benefited from an easy strength of schedule, the Giants have benefited more.  Let’s play a little transitive property game.  We’re going to look at what I will call transitive wins.  Basically, you get credit for the wins of all the opponents you’ve beaten.  It will give us a good look at just how impressive each resume is.

The Giants have wins against 3 teams this year, Houston, Washington, and Atlanta.  Here are the transitive wins, along with each team’s overall DVOA:

Washington – 23rd, (beaten by Houston)

Oakland – 30th, (beaten by Houston)

Buffalo – 15th, (beaten by Houston)

Jacksonville – 32nd, (beaten by Washington)

New Orleans – 25th, (beaten by Atlanta)

Tampa Bay – 31st , (beaten by Atlanta)

15th, 23rd, 25th, 30th, 31st, 32nd.

The Eagles have beaten four teams this year, Jacksonville, Indy, Washington, and St. Louis. Here are the Eagles’ transitive wins:

Jacksonville – 32nd, (beaten by both Indy and Was)

Tennessee – 26th, (Indy)

Baltimore – 4th, (Indy)

Houston – 24th, (Indy)

Tampa Bay – 31st, (St. Louis)

4th, 24th, 26th, 31st, 32nd, 32nd.

Basically, the only thing the Eagles and Giants have proven thus far is that neither of them are among the worst 6-7 teams in the league.  Depending on your preseason NYG outlook, that might be new information.  For the Eagles, though, it doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know.  The upshot is that, while I have to make picks for this column, I wouldn’t actually touch the line on this game.  We don’t actually KNOW that much about either team by virtue of how the schedule has shaped up so far.

I always like to end with a hopeful note, so here it is:

The Eagles might be the best team the Giants have faced thus far this season.  I don’t think you can say the same in reverse (both Indy and San Fran are better in my opinion).  Given the Eagles relatively strong performance against those teams, I’m actually more hopeful heading into this game than my breakdown above suggests.

Eagles – Rams: Pregame Thoughts

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Breakdown is below, but here are some brief thoughts for today:

– Remember how I said last week didn’t really matter?  Well today’s game is the opposite. It doesn’t feel like an early season game against a non-divisional, mediocre-bad team should be meaningful, but it is.  Home games against teams clearly worse than you need to be converted to wins.  Doing so gives you the margin for error you need heading down the stretch.  Andy Reid’s team often dropped these games, which is why the late-season runs were so stressful.  Take care of business today (and for all of these games) and the end of season divisional stretch becomes much easier.

– I hate to be obvious, but today really is about Nick Foles, Shady, and Lane Johnson.  The Rams have just 1 sack in three games, so the stage is set for an Eagles offensive rebound.   I’ll be paying close attention to Johnson and the interior of the o-line.  If that part of the team performs, Foles will be fine.

– Look for the deep ball.  That was a big part of Foles’ success last season, and he’s struggling with it this year.  Not a surprise given the Eagles lost the best deep threat in the game, but there have still be opportunities for big plays.  Foles has overthrown Maclin and Cooper on a number of occasions.  If he can’t dial it in and adjust to their speed, the Eagles become a much less dangerous team to play against.

– Austin Davis is an unknown.  I screwed up earlier this year by underestimating Kirk Cousins, and this feels like a similar situation….but it’s not.  Where Cousins had Alfred Morries, Pierre Garcon, and D-Jax…Davis has Zach Stacy, Jared Cook, Brian Quick, Kenny Britt, etc… This should be a much easier matchup for the Eagles’ defense.

– The Rams have been lucky so far recovering fumbles.  They’ve put the ball on the ground 7 times in 3 games this year, and they’ve recovered 6 of them.  That doesn’t tell us anything about what will happen today, but it does suggest that the Rams are even worse than their record/point differential suggests.  This is just not a good team.

That’s all for now but see the breakdown below for a bit more.   I’m very confident about this game, but even a 7 point favorite loses about 20% of the time.

My picks record to date:

Line: 2 – 2

O/U: 1 – 3

Reader record:

Line: 2 – 2

O/U: 3 – 1

This week’s lines:

Eagles -7 (-110)

Rams +7 (-110)

Over 47.5 (-110)

Under 47.5 (-110)

Reviewing last week:

That was a tough one.  The Eagles were 2 yards from a probable win, and readers here probably realized they were also 2 yards from covering the spread AND hitting the over.  Close doesn’t count, though, so rather than my first perfect week, I had my first winless one.  The injuries on the O-Line finally affected the offense in a big way.  Lest anyone forget, the Eagles’ offense is heavily dependent on the run game.  They get a lot of big plays through the air, but that’s mostly via play-action and doesn’t work without the rushing threat.  When Chip Kelly won’t even try running the ball from 2 yards out, you can be damn sure the offensive line is having an awful game.  Still, aside from the hit to my record, the loss really doesn’t hurt the Eagles that much.

This week’s game:

The Eagles are big favorites, as they should be.  The Rams rank 29th overall by DVOA, compared to 9th for the Eagles.  Most importantly, the Rams defense ranks 30th.  They’ve only played 3 games (bye last week), but gave up 34 points in two of them (Vikings andCowboys, both at home).  With Lane Johnson back in the lineup, I expect big things from the Eagles offense this week.  I know the Eagles’ offense looked terrible last week, so forecasting a big day might seem foolish.  However, it’s really hard to exaggerate just how bad the O-Line struggled.  The fact that Herremans can slide back to G means the team has potentially made two BIG upgrades.  Along with a bad defense, that’s a recipe for a strong rebound.

The Eagles are averaging 30.5 points per game this season, and given what I said above I see no reason to expect them to perform below average.  30-31 points for is our floor.

On the other side, the Eagles defense is allowing 26 points per game.  However, the team ranks 11th overall in defensive DVOA.  3 of the four offenses the Eagles have faced can be considered mediocre (by DVOA).  The fourth, Jacksonville, is just bad (last in the league).  The Rams currently rank much closer to Jacksonville than they do to WAS, SF, or IND.  If we assume the Rams will be better than Jacksonville, but worse than the Eagles average opposition thus far, we get a range of 17-26 points against. On the season, the Rams are averaging just 18.7 points per game, and have played all three games against defenses currently ranked in the bottom third by DVOA.  Accounting for the competition, we’ve got a much narrower range of 17-19 points against for the Eagles.

There is, of course, one last complication.  The Rams are coming off a bye week, which has to count for something.  At most, I’m willing to credit them 1-2 points.  However, we can give them a full FG for the bye, bring the high end of their range to 22, and still have the Eagles winning by 8.

Thus, take the Eagles -7. Note that this is the first game I’m willing to assign high confidence to.  That’ll probably come back to bite me in the ass, but since I’m picking every Eagles game, regardless of confidence level, I think it’s important to note when I think there’s actually an attractive wagering option.  Maybe I’ll think of some catchy name for it, but for now it’s just “High Confidence Pick”.

On the O/U side, we can add the low ends of the expected output ranges to get 47 points.  If we add the high ends we get 50 points.  Unfortunately, the line is set at 47.5, within our range.  Remember, though, that I said 30-31 points is really the low end of our projection.  So while I can’t assign as high a level of confidence to this pick, we still have a clear signal to take the over 47.5.

I’d probably wait to make sure Lane Johnson is definitely suiting up, but if he is, take a shot.