Back to football…
Welcome to the Final Four of the 2015 NFL season! We’re
blessed to have the number one seed facing the number two seed in both
conferences this coming Sunday. That hasn’t happened since the 2004 season. Only
nine times in NFL history has the number one seed from each conference faced
each other in the Super Bowl, suggesting that fate is against both the Panthers
and the Broncos winning.
I’ve broken down both games through the lens of tournament
plays here.
I also want to add some additional thoughts, particularly from a contrarian
perspective, i.e., a Broncos’ perspective.
The more narrative that surrounds Peyton Manning and Co.,
the more I’m starting to think the Broncos offense provides a bounty of fantasy
points, and everyone is fading them. Everything from the game temperature falling
few degrees below Manning’s apparent threshold as a quarterback:
Peyton Manning has never won a playoff game (0-4) when kickoff temperature is under 40 degrees. Forecast for Denver is 41 degrees at kick
— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) January 17, 2016
to the line moving a
half point more in favor of the Patriots:
Offshore money trending in that direction as well, with 80% of spread money currently on the #Patriots. https://t.co/6oIQOfdJ7L
— Sports Insights (@SportsInsights) January 22, 2016
has folks are blindly ignoring the Broncos skill position
players and loading up on Patriots and Panthers. But something about the crowd
all piling up on the same game script leads me to think the sharp move is to
build rosters around Manning and a few his receivers. Let’s, in fact, inject
more narratives to this game:
This could be Manning’s
last game. Win or lose, I just don’t think it’s realistic to expect him to
come back next season. And the last thing he or the Broncos want, obviously, is
to end his career with another loss in the playoffs, especially at home, and
especially against Tom Brady. Talk about motivation.
He has a financial
incentive to win. Hey, it’s a narrative, so we’re going to bring it up. I’m
fairly confident Manning’s bank account is in good shape. I mean, his 21 Papa John’s seem to be flourishing. Regardless, an AFC Championship win awards him an extra $2 million, as long as he plays 70 percent of offensive snaps.
The game script
favors Broncos receivers. Getting back to a more logical approach to DFS,
one that ignores narratives, it makes sense to expect Manning’s receivers to
catch lots of passes. If you’re buying into the Vegas lines and jumping onto
the bandwagon, then you’re expecting the Broncos to be playing from behind,
which would lead us to believe they’ll abandon the run. It also suggests more
passing. Both of those beliefs filter to the weakest part of the Patriots’
defense: their secondary. During the regular season, only the Steelers allowed
more yards to wide receivers than the Patriots. And while they were stingy in
the end zone, their 12 interceptions were below the league average.
Now, for all you Patriots fans, I’m not saying their defense
is bad. I’m saying it’s more exploitable
via the pass than the run, and the game script might force it that direction
anyway. But given what we saw last week from the Broncos offense, it’s likely
the Patriots defense will press receivers and attempt to shut down all those
short throws Manning makes. Here is a great write up of his pass attempts against the Steelers from Adam Bogdan. I think it’s logical
to expect a similar approach this Sunday given Manning’s inability to throw
deep. Or…
We should ignore last
week’s game completely. The Broncos offense, frankly, looked like shit. They
dropped seven passes and struggled to move the ball against a terrible
secondary. If not for a forced fumble late in the game, we’re writing about the
Steelers here instead. But with a little thought, it’s not hard to explain why the Broncos’ offense was so bad.
First of all, it was Manning’s first full game since Week 9.
That’s two months of missed time. Naturally there is going to be some rust. And
if his receivers play a little better, he might be a lot more popular this
week. I expect things to look and flow a little smoother this Sunday.
Manning’s health, another concern, isn’t an issue. He has
practiced in full all week and looked fine last week. He’s not going to be
rolling out on bootlegs and scrambling when the protection breaks down, but his
ability to read the defense and execute the offense is not something to worry
about. He made some great throws in tight windows last week. If the Patriots
are going to play man coverage, without fear of a deep ball, one little mistake
will lead to ton of yards-after-the-catch. And I would expect a decent amount
of bubble screens—something both Emmanuel Sanders and Demaryius Thomas can turn
into huge plays.
Putting this altogether, the crowd is off Manning and Co. because
Manning is old and not playing well. But if you zoom out and consider all of
the matchups for the weekend, the Broncos offense has the best one on the board.
The Cardinals, Panthers and Broncos defenses are all elite. The Patriots
defense, though above average, is soft compared to the other three. Then, when
you consider the home team, a huge advantage for the playoffs, especially in
Denver, is a 3.5-point underdog (and growing), stacking up on a pass-friendly
game script seems logical.
It’s especially advantageous in big tournaments when
everyone else is loading their rosters sans Broncos. So we get a twofold
contrarian play: the Broncos offense, and the Patriots/Broncos game. Manning is
the cheapest quarterback on the board, which gives us the flexibility of
stacking him with one of his receivers and still plugging in Rob Gronkowski and
Julian Edelman. On the other side, we can plug in the Panthers defense and
Graham Gano, essentially doubling down on our expected game script, and fading the crowd entirely.
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