Reviewing NFL Week 2: What We Learned
Who is a fraud, and who is for real so far in 2017?
Welcome to week 3 in the NFL, where most NFL pundits now think that they have seen enough from every NFL team to anoint the 2–0 teams legitimate contenders, and the 0–2 teams as roadkill looking toward 2018. No doubt if you watch shows like ‘Inside The NFL’ all you will hear about is how much the Giants stink or how “historically” (??) great the AFC West is- But to quote profound wisdom from another well-known pundit: “Not so fast my friend.” The truth is, two games is not nearly enough to evaluate how good a team is, as it is easy to get carried away with when dealing with the small sample size that the NFL provides. To see a good example of this, all we need to do is to look back to last season.
Just remember, here were the teams that were undefeated after week 3 in the NFL in 2016:
Patriots, Vikings, Eagles, Broncos, Ravens
How many of those teams made the playoffs? Yup, just one. (You know who.) Yet flashback to week 3 of last year, where everyone was in full blown “Wentzylvania” mode:
Of course looking back on it now, proclaiming “Carson Wentz and the Eagles are going to rule the NFC East for a long time ” or saying how the Broncos were “10 times better” on offense than the team that won the Superbowl in 2015 are absurd overstatements. Unfortunately, outlandish clickbait overstatements are what passes for analysis these days. Like most things we read now, it clearly ended up being fake news.
So which results have been an aberration so far, and what has been for real? That’s what I have been focused on this week, trying my best not to jump to conclusions. I looked at a couple of things. First, has the team played a home and a road game? Did they have divergent performances, or did both games look about the same? How well did their opponents play in their other game? Were they in a mismatch? In reviewing all 32 games this year, I put teams into two categories: Trust them, or Can’t Trust them.
Here are the teams with results (good or bad) that you should trust will continue:
Bills, Steelers, Browns, Redskins, Packers, Bears, Falcons, Panthers, Seahawks, 49ers
Every team in this group has played home and on the road, and their games ended up being in range of what reasonably was expected to happen. The Falcons and the Steelers played much better at home, which isn’t anything new. The Bills are again a “ground and pound” team, and the Seahawks are off to another slow start offensively. Based upon every team’s opponents, every one of these teams have records which were what we expected them to be, and more importantly, their games played out almost completely as expected as well.
Now here are the teams with results (good or bad) that you shouldn’t trust will continue:
Patriots, Jets, Jaguars, Titans, Bengals, Ravens, Chiefs, Raiders, Broncos, Chargers, Giants, Cowboys, Eagles, Lions, Saints, Cardinals, Rams, Colts, Texans, Dolphins, Vikings, Bucs
I will break down the “don’t trust” teams into different categories.
1st: Here are the abnormal results that you can more-or-less just throw out:
Week 1: Patriots-Chiefs, Rams-Colts, Ravens-Bengals, Jaguars-Texans
Week 2: Titans-Jaguars, Broncos-Cowboys
Hey, congratulations on the Jaguars for having two outlier games so far! (Perhaps we should be expecting divergent outcomes from them.) This means that for the Pats, Chiefs, Jags, Titans, Bengals, Rams, and Cowboys, they had outcomes that should not be counted on the rest of the year. I’ll go out on a limb and say the Pats won’t lose by 14 at home again, that the Chiefs can’t be expected to put up 40+ points, the Rams won’t have two pick-6’s in a game again, the Jags won’t have 10 sacks, the Bengals won’t have 5 turnovers and be shutout, and Zeke won’t rush for under 10 yards in a game again this year. (Maybe for the rest of his career.)
2nd: Here are the teams that haven’t played at home or on the road yet:
Broncos, Bengals, Cardinals, Jets, Rams, Eagles
So yes, as good as the Broncos have looked, they played both games at home so far, let’s slow our roll on them a bit. And yes, as much as the Cards have struggled, they haven’t played at home yet, so we should cut them some slack. As far as the Bengals, well they don’t have an excuse, as their two losses have come at home. But still, if you’re betting that the Bengals will be horrible on offense the rest of the year, I’m willing to bet against you. They are just too talented on offense to be terrible for long, and perhaps a QB change there will be the catalyst. And for the Jets? Well, they haven’t played at home yet, so I am open to the possibility that they aren’t as bad as it seems they are.
3rd: Here are the teams that have had results greatly affected by who they played:
Ravens, Raiders
Both these undefeated teams have home wins over underwhelming opponents. So does that mean that the Raiders and Ravens are good, or only that the Browns and Jets are bad? That there is no definitive answer to that question is the problem. This is not meant to disparage these teams, only to make you aware that even though they are 2–0 they have had bottom rung opponents and their results can’t be fully trusted.
4th: Here are the teams that are either better or worse than their records indicate:
Lions, Giants, Chargers, Saints
The classic overreaction is to judge 2–0 teams as having everything rolling, or 0–2 teams as the sky falling. We know that the Chargers are a fluke 0–2 team, but what about the Giants and Saints, who have looked bad? This is where the pedigree of their QBs come into play. Simply put, the body of work Brees and Eli have in their careers supersedes their last two games. I would have no problem believing each team will bounce back toward more expected results. As far as the Lions are concerned, they have had two great results, but both results were almost too great. As we did with the Saints and Giants, there also should be an expectation for the Lions to return to their historical median as well. The Lions defense looked pretty good against the Cardinals and Giants, but the Cardinals and Giants offense also looked sub-par against their other opponents, so it’s hard to say if that means the Lions defense is for real or not. (I think the Lions’ offense can be trusted though. They look exactly the same as they did last year.)
5th: Here are the teams that have had QB changes already:
Colts, Texans, Vikings
This group is pretty cut and dry: The teams on this list have had a QB change which makes one or more of their results basically irrelevant going forward.
And finally, here are the teams with only one game played:
Dolphins, Bucs
Obviously, having only played one game means there’s not enough to judge where these teams are yet.
So how can we use this info for week 3? There is only one matchup vs. two teams that have had trusted results so far: The Steelers vs the Bears. This means that there could be a ton of volatility this week everywhere else. Throw in the fact that there will be a handful of 0–2 teams with a lot of desperation, and it means that this week will be a tough one to predict. So be careful out there!
WONG TEASER ALERT: For anyone who has no idea what a Wong Teaser is, click here.
We have the possibility for the four leg Wong Teaser this week, maybe even 5 if you can find the Packers -8.5. Here are the four teams you can buy 6 points on to push them past key numbers:
Buying 6 points would give you a bet of Colts +7.5 at home against the Browns, The Steelers -1.5 at the Bears, the Vikings +8.5 at home vs the Bucs, and Seahawks +8.5 at Tennessee. And remember, a 4 team Wong has an expected return of 15%.
However, since there is only a 28% chance of winning all four legs, I would suggest a 4 leg round robin teaser. (For more info on what a round robin bet is, click here.) This will not only mitigate an all-or-nothing 4 team loss, but a 4 team win would equal a clean sweep on all the teasers anyway. Good luck!
Alex Brigandi has been a in-game reporter with STATS LLC since 2002 and has analyzed the NFL in Las Vegas since 2007. You can contact him on twitter with any questions or comments.
