Eagles – Cardinals Odds Breakdown

Posted on October 26, 2014 by Brent

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

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Brent

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).

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

Posted on October 12, 2014 by Brent

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

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Brent

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.

Eagles – 49ers

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Brent

A few thoughts for today’s game:

– At some point, you figure the Eagles injuries and inconsistent offense have to cost them. Today looks like a prime opportunity to drop a game. Here’s the good news: the Eagles took care of business over an easy start to the season, and have some room for error now. So my overview today focuses on one point: this is a relatively unimportant game for the Eagles. It might come into play for the wild card, but it’s pretty clear that the Eagles best opportunity for a playoff spot will come from winning the division. The worst they can do after today is a tie with Dallas. Meanwhile, the Cowboys are underdogs against New Orleans and the Giants (bye week) already have 2 losses.

So today is all about upside. A win puts the Eagles in a strong position to make a run at a top conference seed, but a loss doesn’t cost them much.

– Colin Kaepernick scares me today. The Eagles are down their most athletic LB (Kendricks), and I don’t know who is going to chase down the 49ers QB. Billy Davis likes sending A-gap pressure, but if the Eagles have nobody to contain a roll-out it will be a huge day for Kaepernick on the ground. The good news is that the 49ers passing attack isn’t that potent, so we should see Fletcher and Allen get a slight reprieve from last week, at least in coverage. They might still be called on to take down a runner…

– The 49ers have a mediocre STs unit, at least thus far. While there aren’t as many glaring holes as we saw against the Redskins, there should be some opportunity in the kick return game. In a close matchup, a field position advantage could easily swing the game.

– The 49ers, despite my misgivings, are not as good right now as they have been over the past few seasons. Particularly important for the Eagles is the 49ers pass-rush struggles. Last year, the 49ers had a sack rate of 7.16%. This year, they’ve recorded sacks on just 3.67% of drop-backs. Hopefully this is significant, and not just a short-term blip. If it is, then things won’t be quite as dire for the Eagles’ O-Line as many expect.

More thoughts below in my BGN piece, but today is a good day to not think too much. A win is very meaningful, a loss is not. We’re essentially playing out a free option, so enjoy it.

——–

My picks record to date:

Line: 2 – 1

O/U: 1 – 2

Reader record:

Line: 2 – 1

O/U: 3 – 0

This week’s lines:

Eagles +4.5 (-115)

49ers -4.5 (-105)

Over 51 (-105)

Under 51 (-115)

Reviewing last week:

Enough is enough, I’ve learned my lesson. With Chip Kelly’s offense and Billy Davis’ defense, it looks as though you really can’t make the O/U high enough. The Eagles have hit the over in 6 of the last 8 games, and 8 of the last 10 road games. Regarding my analysis, I made one very big mistake. I significantly underrated Kirk Cousins. That didn’t hurt me on the line breakdown, but it definitely played into the Under pick.

This week’s matchup:

I’m thinking of this game as a pure bonus. The Eagles face a very tough matchup on the road against a 49ers team that is pretty desperate for a win (at least as desperate as a team can be 3 games in). Moreover, Colin Kaepernick is particularly troublesome given Mychael Kendricks’ absence. Throw in the offensive line injuries, and you can see why the Eagles are 4.5 point underdogs against a team with 1 win and a negative point differential. So, while you’re watching, try to keep that in perspective. The Eagles took care of business over an easy first 3 games and the team doesn’t really “need” this game. Now, to the FO rankings:

Eagles overall DVOA: 20.9% (8th)

49ers Overall DVOA: -1.9% (18th)

Eagles Offense DVOA: 5.1% (12st)

49ers Defense DVOA: 4.8% (21st)

Eagles Defense DVOA: -7.0% (7th)

49ers Offense DVOA: 5.4% (10th)

It’s also worth noting that the Eagles rank 3rd overall in STs DVOA, while the 49ers rank 22nd. Lastly, FiveThirtyEight.com has started putting out weekly ELO ratings and using them to create “true” point spreads. This week, the site has the same line as Bovada (49ers -4.5).

So, what the hell is going on? On paper, the Eagles have been a much better team. As you can see above, the Eagles rank better in each phase of the game, yet they’re still 4.5 point underdogs. Even if we assume 3 points for home field advantage (unless it’s Seattle I usually use 2), that still leaves the 49ers as the favored team on a neutral field. As I mentioned above, the 49ers have a negative point differential (-6), while the Eagles rank 3rd overall with a +23 PD.

We know the Eagles resume. Here’s what the 49ers have done thus far:

Beat the Cowboys in 28 – 17 (Road)

Lost to the Bears 20 – 28 (Home)

Lost to the Cardinals 14 – 23 (Road)

And there it is. The Bears are 5th in DVOA, the Cardinals are 12th. Clearly, the 49ers have played a much tougher schedule than the Eagles have. The Bears and Cardinals both rank in the top ten on defense, which might explain why the 49ers scoring output has been so poor (just 20.7 ppg). Despite a 7th defensive DVOA ranking, I’m not willing to put the Eagles defense on that level. That means we can expect the 49ers to outperform their average output so far. If we factor in home field and use the Cowboys as a comp (a little worse than the Eagles), we’re in a scoring range of 25 – 31 points. With the Kendricks’ injury, I think they’ll be at the high end of that range, so lets say 28-31 points for the 49ers.

For the Eagles, we have a much tougher analysis. The injuries to the O-Line are ridiculous. If it were any other team, I’d project a severe diminution in scoring. Of course, this is Chip Kelly’s team, and he’s currently on an extremely prolific scoring streak as an offensive coach. The Eagles are averaging 33.7 ppg this season and have gone over 30 each time. Going back to last season, the Eagles have scored 30 or more in 7 of the past 11 regular season games (starting after the Matt Barkley Giants game). Over that same stretch, the lowest number of points the Eagles have scored is 24. So we’ve really got to give Chip the benefit of the doubt here. I do think the Eagles will struggle to move the ball on Sunday, but one way or another the team always finds way to put points on the board (even if it comes on STs or D).

Still, the road game against what I believe to be a decent defense (certainly better than JAX and IND, probably better than WAS despite what DVOA says) coupled with the injuries on offense means I’m projecting output BELOW the average thus far (33.7). I’m going to go even further than that and say the Eagles expected point production will be towards the bottom of the range we’ve seen over the past 11 games. That puts us in the 24-27 range.

Let’s do this in matrix form:

Green means the Eagles cover, Yellow means the 49ers cover. As you can see, there’s more green than yellow. So, if we’re using this matrix, we should take the Eagles +4.5. It’s also pretty obvious from the chart that we’re looking at an Over 51 pick. Also note that there are no negative numbers up there. The ranges don’t overlap, so even though I’m taking the Eagles, I still see this as a loss.

Eagles – Washington Pregame Thoughts

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Brent

As promised, below is my odds breakdown from BGN. Not much opportunity in this line (6.5), I think Vegas is dead-on. Beyond that, here are a few more pre-game thoughts:

– This is a big game. That’s pretty obvious. A win puts the Eagles at 3 – 0 and gives a divisional opponent a loss. Moreover, it sets the team up for a good chance at 5-1 as the next three games are home against the Rams and Giants and away against the 49ers. Also, don’t forget that Lane Johnson returns soon, and being 4-0 or 3-1 when he comes back would be a very good result over what could have been a tough stretch given the O-Line injuries/suspensions.

– Marcus Smith might play. That’s a big deal, at least for me. As I’ve said numerous times: the Eagles need high-impact players if they’re going to contend, and those players come disproportionately from the 1st round of the draft. I know Smith is a “project” and thus expectations are lower than usual, but I’d still like to see him get on the field. With Kendricks’ injury, the table is set for Smith to make a contribution. I actually think he fits well in that role, even though most have him pegged as an OLB. He’s athletic and should be able to rush the passer from the ILB position. Let’s hope he gets a chance.

– Darren Sproles is a very important piece today. Washington was terrible last year on STs and hasn’t played well this year either. Specifically, WAS ranks as the 2nd worst punting team this year by Football Outsiders. Last season, WAS was dead last in punting by a VERY large margin. That means Sproles has an opportunity to have a big impact in this game, without even considering offensive touches. Foles has struggled thus far, but great field position goes a long way towards making an offense look good. The Eagles should have that today, assuming the defense can force punts.

There are other points of emphasis, but those have all been covered well by others. It would be really nice to see Foles get in a groove. The O-Line has a tough test against Ryan Kerrigan. The D-Line needs to play well to take pressure of whoever the ILB ends up being. We’re all waiting for a “click” game, where the offense hits a lot of the big plays it has left on the field the last two weeks. Today would be a great time to see it.

——–

My picks record to date:

Line: 1 – 1

O/U: 1 – 1

Poll Record:

Line: 2 – 0

O/U: 2 – 0

This week’s lines:

Eagles -6.5 (-110)

Redskins +6.5 (-110)

Over 50 (-110)

Under 50 (-110)

Note: A few sportsbooks have this line at 7 points, but Bovada is 6.5. That’s a very important half point.

Reviewing last week:

Another strange game, but the results were very similar to my projections here. From last week: “I think this game shakes out in the 27-24 range, one way or the other.” Both teams exceeded expectations by 3 points. Unfortunately, Parkey’s winning FG pushed the point total above the O/U line, leaving me with another split game. Meanwhile, you readers are perfect so far. Of course, I doubt picking the Eagles and the Over in every game will keep working. However, given how difficult I believe early season betting to be, I’m happy with an even split so far.

This week:

Big game for the Eagles overall. A win puts them at 3 – 0, with home games against theGiants and Rams over the next three games. So…how do things look?

We know what the Eagles have done over the past two weeks. Over the same timeframe, Washington has lost to Houston (in Houston) 17 – 6 and destroyed Jacksonville at home, 41 – 10. Neither resume is very impressive. Yes, the Eagles are 2 – 0 and scoring a lot of points, but the Colts and Jags are also both 0 – 2.

We’re now in a bit of a no man’s land as far as Football Outsiders’ ratings go. Last year’s performances mean less and less but we still have a very small sample from this year to work with. Properly weighting the two sources is the key to making a good projection. Before putting that together, let’s look at the overall numbers:

Eagles 2014 Overall DVOA: 16.7% (10th)

Eagles 2013 Overall DVOA: 15.2% (8th)

Redkins 2014 Overall DVOA: 40.4% (2nd)

Redskins 2013 Overall DVOA: -26.2% (29th)

As you can see, the Redskins’ performance this year has been a lot more surprising than the Eagles’. More important, though, is the magnitude of Washington’s performance swing. It’s extremely unlikely that Washington has gone from one of the worst teams in the league to one of the best teams in one season. Rather, Washington is benefiting from last week’s annihilation of Jacksonville, as well as it’s strong defensive performance thus far. By FO’s metrics, Washington has had the best defensive performance in the league so far, by a very big margin.

Maybe the team really is that good, but I’m very skeptical. Instead, I think Washington just hasn’t faced a decent offense yet. Obviously, that’s about to change.

Despite the small sample of games, we do actually have one that would seem to have decent informational value. Both the Eagles and Redskins have played the Jaguars. The Redskins performed much better against them than the Eagles did. That’s the biggest note of caution heading into this game. From a handicapping perspective, we also have to deal with two major sources of uncertainty: Kirk Cousins and Mychal Kendricks.

Cousins will start, Kendricks has been ruled out. Of the two, I’m much more worried about Kendricks’ absence. With an Eagles hole at ILB, Washington has a clear invitation to put the game in Alfred Morris‘ hands. That could make things very difficult for the Eagles. Not only could Morris gash the middle of the defense, but a strong running performance would also keep the Eagles offense off the field. In the first two games, the Eagles started slowly but figured things out. Unfortunately, that method requires a lot of possessions. I’m not that confident they’ll get them tomorrow.

That brings us to what I believe is the biggest question for tomorrow’s game:

Can the Eagles offense click early?

If it can, then I don’t think Jay Gruden will have the discipline to stick with the running game. Despite what Washington fans want to believe, Kirk Cousins is probably not a great QB, and putting the game in his hands versus Morris’ would be great for the Eagles.

From a personnel perspective, Ryan Kerrigan is the only player that stands out as a potential headache for the Eagles on offense. He’s had 8.5 sacks in each of the past two seasons and already has 4 this season. At 26 years old, Kerrigan might be starting a “breakthrough” season, and the Eagles patchwork O-Line probably isn’t going to stand-up too well against him. This is really up to Chip Kelly. So far, I don’t think Kelly has done a good job of playing to his personnel. Many of his play calls appear to be straight from the gameplan as it looked when the O-Line was completely healthy. He’s gotten away with it because neither the Colts nor the Jaguars have any real pass rushers.

So, second question: Do you think Chip will adjust his game plan this week?

Call me an optimist, by I think the answer is yes. Chip has hopefully been scared straight by the back to back close games and inconsistent offense. Moreover, it’s a divisional game, meaning “win at all costs” really is the mindset.

Given that assumption, I think the Eagles put up 25-30 points. For a specific prediction, that gives us 27.5. I’ll round down to 27 to make things simpler. I’m counting a lot on the Redskins from last year reappearing on defense and for Kerrigan to be somewhat contained. If Foles can remember how to complete open passes, mid-high twenties seems like the most likely outcome. Additionally, Washington’s special teams has not been good this year, ranking 28th by FO. While I would normally caution against relying on a 2 game sample, we can be more confident here because Washington ranked 32nd in the league last year. With Sproles’ strong performance as a punt returner so far, the Eagles should be looking at good field position most of th day, meaning it won’t take much to get in scoring range, even if it’s for FGs instead of TDs.

On the other side, it really comes down to whether or not the Eagles LBs can stand up without Kendricks’ athleticism. In general, though, I’d much rather lose him against a power rushing team than against a passing offense or one with a strong TE threat. While I’m worried about Morris, I really don’t believe in Cousins. He’s only thrown 236 passes in the NFL, so we can’t be sure of anything with him. However, a 57.6% completion rate is worrisome. So is a 10 – 10 TD/INT ratio and a 74.3 Rating. Those aren’t terrible numbers for a rookie as far as future projection goes, but for a one week projection, they don’t scream “offensive explosion”.

With the Eagles D-Line looking strong, I’m projecting Washington for 21 points.

Putting it together, that means I’ve got a projection of Eagles 27, Redkins 21. BUT, remember my projection before rounding off was for the Eagles to score 27.5. Unfortunately, that puts us right on the 6.5 line. In other words, I think Vegas has this one right. So my official stance is Redskins +6, but that’s a low confidence bet. For the over/under, I’m taking the Under 50. Not too much wiggle-room in this one either, and a backdoor over is clearly in play, but that’s where we’re at.

Lastly, post-merger, teams favored by 6.5 at home have won the game 65% of the time (n=291).

Eagles – Colts Odds

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Brent

As some of you know, I write a weekly odds column for Bleeding Green Nation. I’ll be posting it here as well from here on in. It’s a fairly rough analysis, so keep in mind that its intended for a slightly different audience.

——

My Picks Record to Date:

Line: 0 – 1

Over/Under: 1 – 0

Poll Record (whichever choices got the most votes):

Line: 1 – 0

Over/Under: 1 – 0

This week’s lines:

Eagles +3 (-105)

Colts -3 (-115)

Over 54 (-115)

Under 54 (-105)

Notes: The line opened at Colts -2.5. Market is probably reacting to the Eagles injuries and first-half performance against the Jags. Probably some recency effect here but, given the injury complications, not enough to give a strong signal one way or the other.

Reviewing last week:

The game didn’t play out exactly as we though it would, but it’s hard to be too disappointed with the results. Yes, the Eagles delivered one of the most ridiculous back-door covers I’ve ever seen, but at least the good guys won. Above all else, the game did a good job of underlining the main point I made last week: The first couple of weeks are very difficult to analyze. There is a lot of uncertainty, and until you see a team play a few times against a variety of competition, it’s impossible to get a really good read on its true strength.

Moving forward, note that the Eagles almost hit the over as well, despite scoring 0 points in the first half. This team can score VERY quickly, so expect to see a lit of high lines this season. That might provide some opportunities, but it will also lead to some late-game nail-biting for those of you who do wager.

This week:

As shown above, the Eagles face their first test as an underdog this season. The Colts are favored by 3 points, meaning Vegas sees the teams as relative equals (2-3 points are given for home field). We already know what the Eagles did last week. Meanwhile, the Colts lost by a touchdown (31-24) to the Broncos in Denver. Note, the game wasn’t as close as the final score suggests. Denver led 24-0 at one point.

Lets look at some data. One week isn’t a very good sample, so we’re still reaching back to last season for indications of each team’s strengths/weaknesses.

From last season:

Eagles Overall DVOA: 15.2% (8th overall).

Colts Overall DVOA: 3.2% (13th overall).

Eagles Offense: 22.9% (3rd)

Colts Defense: 0.9% (16th)

Eagles Defense: 4.9% (23rd)

Colts Offense: 4.3% (13th)

Special teams were not significantly different.

The numbers above give the Eagles the advantage. However, these are obviously a bit out of date. After last week, my concerns about the offense remain. Yes, the team scored 34 points, but is anyone out there confident? The good news is that the Colts defense isn’t great. In fact, the one player that would really worry me, Robert Mathis, won’t play (suspension + Injury). How big of a loss is that? Well last season the Colts had 42 sacks. Mathis had 19.5 of them (46%). Also, the Colts had a sack rate of 7.04% last season, good for 9th overall. In their first game, against a very immobile QB (Manning), the team recored just one sack and registered a rate of 2.7%. For reference, the Jaguars had a sack rate of 10% against the Eagles this past week. In other words, with the Eagles injury problems on the O-Line, the team is pretty fortunate to be going against the Colts. Overall, the matchup looks pretty good for the offense.

On the flip side, the Eagles defense and the Colts offense look like a fairly even matchup. I’m a very big fan of Andrew Luck, and if the Eagles have DB breakdowns like they did last week, he’ll take advantage of them. However, the cast around him isn’t great. The Colts’ RB corps shouldn’t scare anyone (Ahmad Bradshaw and Trent Richardson). At WR, Reggie Wayne is still playing at a relatively high level, at least when he’s on the field (he missed 9 games last season). We’re all familiar with Hakeem Nicks. The one player that really does scare me is T.Y. Hilton. In his second year in the league (last season), Hilton had 1000+ receiving yards and 5 touchdowns. He also ran a 4.34 40 when he entered the league, and at 24 years old probably hasn’t lost a step. As I said last season, with the Eagles issues at Safety, speed scares me a lot more than size. If Fletcher Cox and Mychael Kendricks play as well as they did last week, though, the Eagles should be able to focus heavily on stopping the passing game.

Lastly, since 2004 there have been 21 home teams that were favored by 3 points in a Monday Night game. 8 of them covered. That’s not statistically significant, but if we expand the data set, the trend persists.

Post-merger, just 22 of 57 teams that were favored by 3 points at home in a Monday Night game covered the spread. Meanwhile, over the past 10 years, road teams favored on Monday Night by 3 points have covered the spread 14 out of 19 times.

To reiterate: that doesn’t lead us to any conclusions, and if we play with the data enough we can make it say whatever we want. However, it suggests that MAYBE home field advantage doesn’t mean as much in Monday Night games as it does in Sunday games, at least not when teams are evenly matched.

Coming into this breakdown, I expected to end up picking the Colts. However, after looking at the data, injuries, recent results, etc., I’m going the other way. This is a tough game for the Eagles, and I’m not very confident in a win (it’s a tossup), but since it looks like a close matchup and a lot of uncertainty remains, take the points. With the 3 point line, we also have some protection against a late FG to win for the Colts.

I’m taking the Eagles +3. The fact that it’s against the crowd makes me feel even better about it.

The over/under is set at 54 points. That’s really high. The only other line above 50 this week is Denver-KC (51). To cover, each team would need to score 27 points. Last season, the Eagles scored 27 or more points 9 times. The Colts also hit the mark 9 times.

However, last week the Colts “held” Denver to 31 points in Denver. The Eagles offense is not as good as the Broncos’ offense. The Eagles put up 34 points, but did so against a Jaguars defense that will probably finish in the bottom third of the league (maybe worse).

Data-wise, over the past 10 years Monday Night Dome games have hit the over just 22 times in 64 games. Small sample of course, but suggestive. We don’t know if the roof will be open or closed, but right now the forecast calls for a chance of rain.

What this really comes down to is: Do you have faith in either team to score 30+ points? If not, take the under. After last week’s performance, I’m not banking on the Eagles. If the Eagles defense really has improved from last season, it should also be tough for the Colts to hit that mark. In all, I think this game shakes out in the 27-24 range one way or the other.

Hence, take the under.

So, we’re still in rather uncertain territory, but I’m taking the Eagles +3 and the Under.

Eagles – Jaguars: Review

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Brent

That’s why it’s important to focus on areas for potential regression….

As I said in yesterday’s season projection, two major areas of concern this season are Nick Foles turnover regression and health, particularly along the O-Line. My guess is, after yesterday, those issues are no longer under any fan’s radar. To reiterate, my theme for this season is: similar results as last season (at least record-wise), but very mixed feelings. Yesterday fit that perfectly. Fortunately, the Eagles were able to pull through, largely on the strength of excellent Special Teams (fairly big surprise) and a strong defensive performance outside of a few early breakdowns.

Now for a few individual factors I’m looking at/thinking about. As usual, I’m going to try to avoid the “obvious” story lines, you can get that elsewhere, unless they’re really important and I think I have something to add to the discussion.

Blue Chips – Pulling from yesterday, this is the most important aspect of this season. The Eagles will not become a consistent SB contender without developing a few high-impact players. Fortunately, things were fairly positive on this front for the team. Mychal Kendricks looked like one of the best players on the field. He had 6 tackles, a sack, and a pass defensed. Fletcher Cox also looked very good (despite having his best play erased by a bogus penalty.) He also had 6 tackles, plus the spread-beating fumble recovery and TD run. On the flip side, Foles obviously struggled. More on him in a second. Boykin looked good when he was on the field…but only played 23 defensive snaps. That’s less than 1/3 of all defensive plays. Hopefully one of the beat writers will ferret out the reasoning for Boykin’s lack of PT, but until then we’re left watching to see if it becomes a trend. Zach Ertz has 3 catches on 5 targets, hitting a couple of big plays on seam routes. I’d be very surprised if his role in the passing game doesn’t get bigger soon. Jordan Matthews also had strong debut with 2 catches (4 targets) for 37 yards. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but remember that rookie WRs very rarely make significant contributions. If Matthews can grab 2-3 balls each game, he’ll have done really well.

Overall, the game itself was ugly, but the long-term factors I’m paying attention to were mostly good. I say “mostly” because…

Nick Foles – I’m not going to dwell too much on Foles since every other writer will cover him. I did, however, want to toss a theory out there. Foles was pretty clearly gun-shy yesterday. Lots of double-clutching and hesitation. There are a lot of potential explanations, but I think it’s likely the whole “turnover avoidance” storyline got to him. If you had spent all offseason hearing about how great you were at not throwing interceptions, it’s probably natural for you to start trying to avoid them more consciously. Hopefully this is just a one-week issue. If he gets too far into his own head, though, things are going to get ugly.

Cody Parkey – That was an excellent performance, far beyond anything I expected. The 51 yard FG was perfect, even moreso because it was the first real NFL kick of his career. Just as important, though, were the touchbacks. Parkey kicked off 7 times. 5 of them were touchbacks (or 72%). For reference, Alex Henery recorded a touchback on 41.5% of his kicks last season. It must be noted that conditions yesterday were very good, so we shouldn’t expect Parkey to maintain that touchback rate through the fall/winter. Still, it’s an area I highlighted for potential improvement for the Eagles, and so far that’s what we’ve seen.

Marcus Smith – Not much to say here, the guy didn’t play. It’s too early to be concerned, but I’m keeping a close eye on this one. I realize he’s a “project”, but he dressed for the game and couldn’t get a single snap? That’s worrisome, especially because the Jaguars, despite the first half, are one of the more benign offenses the Eagles will face all year. If there was a time to get Smith a few live reps with relatively little risk, yesterday was it. Maybe the big deficit changed the plans. Even so, it’s hard to stomach having a healthy first round pick on the sidelines and not being able to find him a single live rep.

Special Teams – I mentioned Parkey, but it’s important to note that the entire unit was fantastic yesterday. Sproles provided a big spark as a punt returner, averaging 15.5 yards per attempt. Donnie Jones’ net average was just 33.7 yards, but that’s because he put 5 punts inside the 20 yard line. There just wasn’t room to kick it farther, and he did a great job of keeping the ball out of the end zone (with some help from the coverage team). I’ve said before that Special Teams plays a relatively small role when compared to Offense and Defense. That, however, assumes somewhat normal play from the unit. A great STs performance can have a much larger impact, as it did yesterday for the Eagles.

Finally, it’s pretty amazing that the Eagles could look so bad for so long and still win a game by 17 points. The competition probably wasn’t good, but having a 34 point swing during a game almost never happens. It could be a sign that the Eagles just weren’t ready to play or overlooked the Jaguars. Hopefully that’s the case. Even if it’s not, though, watching the Cowboys and Washington play should have reminded everyone that the Eagles don’t need to be anywhere near “great” to win the division.

Projecting the Eagles’ 2014 Record

Posted on September 7, 2014 by Brent

Just minutes to game time, so I’m coming in just under the wire with my full season projection. For reference, here is last year’s projection. Let’s first revisit that, then I’ll get to this year.

If you remember, I did a fairly basic expectations matrix using Points Scored and Points Against. With those values, I used the Pythagorean Win Expectation for each, then took the average of all scenarios, eventually arriving at a projection of 9.1 wins. Here is the chart from last season:

My base case projection was 421 points scored, 385 points against. In reality, the Eagles finished with 442 points scored and 382 points against. That’s an incredibly close result. I, of course, will almost certainly not be that accurate again this season (regression flag!). Still, it provides at least some evidence that I know what I’m talking about, so I like highlighting it.

Now, about this year:

First, we need to know the league average. Remember that we’re using that as a benchmark and using relative performance around that measure to arrive at our Points projections. Well, in 2013, there was an average of 23.29 points per game scored by each team. Over 16 games, that equates to 372.65 points per game. However, we need to adjust for inflation. Over the past decade, scoring has increased at a fairly steady rate of .2 points per game. Last season actually saw a much larger increase (.6 ppg jump), but without more data we need to stick with the longer term trend. Adjusting for inflation gets us to 23.49 points per game for each team. That gets us to an average of 375.84 ppg per team.

So how will the Eagles do?

Upside Case

As I’ve done before, I’m going to focus mainly on Offense and Defense. Special Teams does play a role, but it’s relatively small and, perhaps more importantly, very hard to predict.

On offense, things are pretty simple from where I sit. The Eagles upside for this year is their performance from last season. Some might argue there’s room for improvement, and there definitely is. However, so many things went right for the Eagles on offense last season, and the team was SO good, that it’s unreasonable to expect them to exceed that level this year. Additionally, the team lost DeSean, is likely to see a few more injuries this year, and will almost certainly suffer some INT regression. Therefore, meeting last year’s performance is within reason, but definitely optimistic. Since it’s an upside projection, we can allow for some improvement, but I just don’t see any way to objectively expect much. Last year the team finished +18.6%. For our upside this year, I’ll round that up to +20%. It’s somewhat unlikely, but within reason that the Eagles will be very slightly better this year than they were last year on offense.

On defense, our assignment is much less clear. There are a lot of young players that might grow into much better players this season. There’s also the fact that this is now year 2 of the 4-3 defense, which should lead to more comfort. The team added Malcolm Jenkins at Safety. While he’s not a great player, he should still be an upgrade (potentially large one). On the flip side, the older players can be expected to regress, but for the Eagles that’s not that big of a factor. It’s not as if Trent Cole was a star last season. I’m definitely worried about Demeco Ryans, but moreso regarding the injury risk he presents. If he or Barwin goes down, the Eagles are in trouble. For an upside case, though, we can assume they stay healthy. In light of that, some improvement from last season (-2.5%) is in order. For an upside assumption, I’ll set the defense at +10%. That’s definitely bullish, but it is an upside case, and if certain players develop I can absolutely see the Eagles hitting it.

Base Case

My base case on Offense sees the Eagles suffering a little regression. As I mentioned above, Foles really can’t be as good as he was last season, the loss of DeSean will hurt the PA game, and the offensive line won’t be as stable. The good news is that Chip Kelly is still the coach and Shady is still the running back. With those two on board, it really shouldn’t be difficult to field a good offense. Meeting last year’s performance (+18.6%) , though, is unlikely. Dialing that in a bit, I’m setting my base case offense at +13%.

On defense, last season is a good benchmark. The roster hasn’t changed too much, at least at the top. There’s better depth as well, though obviously still a few holes. Last year’s team wasn’t particularly lucky, so there’s not much regression to factor in. All together, modest improvement is our most reasonable expectation. That puts us just above league average. For an assumption, I’ll set the base case defense at +2.5% (a relative improvement of 5% over last season).

Downside Case

Now for the messy stuff. What could go wrong? Well…a lot. While we’re not concerned with true tail risk (Foles/Shady getting hurt), we do need to look for negative events/scenarios that are reasonably likely to occur. On offense, this means Foles regresses more than we’re hoping. Health regresses past the mean and the team suffers worse than expected. Jeremy Maclin doesn’t provide anywhere near the impact Jackson did and the young WRs/TEs aren’t quite ready to fill the void. Those are all very plausible outcomes, but they’re unlikely to all occur. One or two of them will leave the team worse off, but I still think that puts them above league average. Worse than that is definitely possible, but that’s too negative for our projection here. Hence, our downside case on offense will be +5%.

On defense, things are fairly static, for reasons explained above. Not much has changed. There are still a lot of weaknesses though, which means our downside case can’t be too rosy. There’s no guarantee that players like Cox, Kendricks, Logan, Boykin, etc. will get better. If they don’t, then a single injury could leave the Eagles worse off on defense than they were last season. Demeco Ryans is a prime candidate for decline, and depth behind him isn’t good. If those things happen, we’re not looking at the absolute catastrophe we saw in 2012, but it will still be pretty bad. Last year the Eagles were 2.5% worse than league average in Points Allowed. I’m setting the downside this year is -10%.

All together, this is what our projections look like:

For reference, this is what last year’s looked like:

The comparison is interesting, and really highlights the reasoning behind the projections. Offense is much more certain than last season. I might be too pessimistic in our downside scenario this year, but I really do see a lot of risks. I also think Jackson is a bigger loss than most fans realize. Time will tell if that’s correct. On defense, things look very similar. We’re expecting modest improvement across the board, and that is reflected in each one of our assumptions. Overall the range of outcomes on defense is very close to last year, but the mean expectation has improved.

Using our assumptions, we get the following potential outcomes. Remember that we’re using Pythagorean Wins here with an exponent of 2.67:

There it is. Your 2014 projections. The average outcome is 9.3 wins, which I think is still good enough for the division title. Note that there are a lot of very reasonable scenarios where the Eagles fail to win 9 games. As I’ve said previously, I think this season is going to be much less fun than last season, albeit with similar results. Expectations have shifted, and they’ve shifted too fast in my opinion. The team is still building and there are still a lot of holes to fill. I’d love to see a 12 win season where the Eagles run away with the division and make a deep playoff run, but that’s not an objectively reasonable expectation given what we know right now.

One last note: this is by no means a reflection of all potential outcomes (not even close). What I am really trying to do is provide an outline for the middle of the Eagles expected performance distribution. That way we can set our expectations and use it to guide our thinking as the season progresses. In light of this, an 8 win season really isn’t bad, but my guess is many people would be very disappointed by that. If Foles/Shady go down, 5-6 wins is a possibility. If the Eagles get lucky, 12-13 wins is doable. For a base-line expectation though, I’m sticking with what you see above.

With just minutes to spare, my season projection is:

9.3 wins, and a fan base with very mixed feelings.

Go Birds!

Season Overview

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Brent

It’s finally here. The season starts in less than 48 hours, which means it’s just about the last chance I’ll get to set expectations for the season before we start getting actual data. I still plan to release a Points For/Points Against “true” win forecast before Sunday at 1 pm, but today I wanted to take a much broader perspective.

Above all else, I wanted to stress the following:

This is just season 2 of what looks to be a 3-4 year roster construction phase.

Yes, it’d be nice to see the Eagles do really well this season, but I’m much more interested in the long-term development of the team. With Chip Kelly, it’s possible the Eagles can become a perennial contender. It’s also possible that he’ll flame out more quickly than anyone expects. In that sense, there are much more important things to watch for than just the win/loss record this season.

With that, let’s run through a few of the things I’ll be watching closely:

Blue Chips – This might be the most important aspect of this season. Put simply, the Eagles will not grow into a consistent SB threat unless they develop a few true “star” players. Moreover, signing star players is a very difficult way to go. First, you’ve got the winner’s curse, which means you will nearly always overpay in free agency. Second, free agents don’t always fit nearly as well as you think they will (cough…Nnamdi…cough….puke). High-level talent is a prerequisite for winning a Super Bowl, and drafting a player and developing him within your system remains the best way to source high-level talent.

So…do the Eagles have any?

Well McCoy obviously fits the bill. The concern here is whether anyone else will develop quickly enough to overlap with Shady’s “prime”. As I’ve demonstrated a number of times, top-level NFL talent comes almost exclusively from the 1st and 2nd round of the draft. Here are the recent Eagles picks from those rounds:

2014: Marcus Smith, Jordan Matthews

2013: Lane Johnson, Zach Ertz

2012: Fletcher Cox, Mychal Kendricks

2011: Danny Watkins, Jaiqwuan Jarrett (oh god)

It doesn’t make much sense to go farther back than that (not that it’d help anyway), since players who’ve been in the league since 2010 are most likely hitting their peak and so should already be stars if they’re that good. McCoy clearly is. I guess it’s possible Jeremy Maclin can become a star, but I’m very skeptical.

From above, we’re really left with six players to depend on. I was a big believer in Cox, but the transition to a 3-4 defense may have robbed him of his chance at high-impact status. Kendricks flashes star ability, but consistency is a huge problem (as is his tackling). Johnson – same story (plus he’s suspended). The other guys are too young to really judge. Beyond these guys, I it’s worth adding Foles and Boykin to the mix as well. Similar to the others, each appears to have the ability to be a true impact player, but we’re really far from being able to depend on it.

That’s why this year is so important. If you could only look for one thing this season, it should be the development of this core group. If a few of them become stars, the future is very bright. If not, the Eagles ceiling might be much lower than any of us are hoping for.

Nick Foles

I mentioned him above, but he deserves his own section. We don’t know how good/bad Nick Foles really is. Last season was amazing. It was so good, in fact, that it suggests the odds of Foles being a “fluke” are quite low. League-average looks to be the floor. Of course, league-average isn’t going to get anyone excited. After this season, we’ll have a big enough sample to start making some conclusions regarding Foles’ ability. In every sense of the phrase, this really is a “make or break year” for Nick.

Specifically, pay close attention to his ability to push the ball downfield. Last season, Foles benefitted tremendously from the attention Shady drew. Foles’ Play-Action numbers, in particular, were off the charts. For the Eagles to be effective, Foles must continue making defenses pay for loading up against McCoy. This is why losing DeSean Jackson is such a big deal. If the Eagles can’t take advantage of the attention McCoy draws, things will go downhill very quickly.

Cody Parkey

This is a relatively minor issue in terms of actual impact, but a huge issue in terms of my sanity. Remember David Akers? Wasn’t it nice to never have to worry about the kicker? Every kicker is going to miss field goals every once in a while, but being nervous for every single kick just isn’t healthy. I’m glad Henery is gone, it’s time to try someone new. However, I harbor no illusions that the Eagles have already solved their kicking issues. The field goals are obvious; you don’t need me to tell you to pay attention to those. Do look for the distance though. Henery is not a very strong kicker, and was therefore rarely trusted with a 50+ yard kick. In a perverse way, this may have actually forced the Eagles to make the correct decision (going for it instead of kicking) more often than they otherwise would. Or maybe Chip knows the math. Parkey’s usage will go a long way towards answering that question.

Less obvious are the touchbacks. Casual fans don’t pay much attention to them, but they’re important, especially with a defense that still has a lot of weaknesses. If Parkey can kick the ball through the end zone, he’ll already be giving the Eagles a boost.

Chip Kelly

One of the reasons Chip Kelly was such a risky hire was his complete lack of NFL experience. As with any other position, we should expect a learning curve at Coach, especially for someone with no previous time in the league. So, beyond watching the actual players for improvement, we should also be watching Chip. It’s a bit tougher to judge, but things like TO usage, game clock management, 4th down decision-making, etc., are all easily quantified and/or analyzed. He did some very good things last year, but has plenty of room to improve in each of the areas I mentioned, as well as in others I didn’t. Unfortunately, projecting a coach to improve isn’t nearly as easy as projecting a player to improve. As all Eagles fans know, just having experience doesn’t mean you’ll get better at managing the clock (this is, actually, a shocking feature of the NFL and coaching in general). My hope is that when Chip looks around for areas in which to get an edge over other teams, he’ll include himself.

Health

This ties into the last point above (segue!): the Eagles were a very healthy team last year. History says that’s mostly luck. Chip, though, has taken a much greater interest in the nutrition/conditioning side of the game. Hence, it’s reasonable to believe that the Eagles are more likely to remain healthy (relative to other teams) than pure luck would suggest. If that’s the case, it’s a very big advantage. Tremendous parity in the league means one or two injuries really can make the difference between winning a division/making a playoff run and missing the playoffs entirely.

This is especially true for the Eagles. Depth is much improved over last year, but there are still some glaring holes, at least from my point of view. In particular, I worry about the LBs and the Ss. If Ryans or Barwin goes down, for example, how confident are you in Najee Goode or Marcus Smith to fill in? The answer is not very. Similarly, many fans are banking on Malcolm Jenkins to make a big impact in the secondary. Beyond the fact that he’s not as good as his fame would suggest, if he goes down we’re looking at Chris Maragos? Did you even know he was on the team? If any of these backups have to play significant time, the hoped-for improvement in the Eagles defense will be much less likely to occur.

Conversely, if the Eagles have another relatively healthy year, then we can start ascribing more credit (slowly) to Chip Kelly’s #sportsscience.

That’s All

Those are the long-term keys to watch this season. Once things get going, it becomes much harder to take the long-view, which is why I highlight these issues now. Just remember, the Eagles are not really a SB contender right now. Granted, even mediocre teams can win (see NY Giants…), but the fact is the Eagles are still very much a developing team, and likely not ready to mount a strong challenge for the Super Bowl. I’m much more interested in a sustained run of high-performance (like the Andy Reid era) than I am in a 3 year supernova of Chip Kelly madness followed by another restart.

Eagles Rewind

Objective and Analytical Analysis of The Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL

Eagles – Cardinals Odds Breakdown

Eagles Bye Week Review

Eagles – Giants Pregame Thoughts

Eagles – Rams: Pregame Thoughts

Eagles – 49ers

Eagles – Washington Pregame Thoughts

Eagles – Colts Odds

Eagles – Jaguars: Review

Projecting the Eagles’ 2014 Record

Season Overview