This week, as I worked on my game picks and confidence points, I looked at four separate DVOA numbers for each team: rush offense, rush defense, pass offense, and pass defense. I matched them up against each other and have considered teams’ recent rates of passing and running in order to create a formula to help me get a better sense of how teams match up against each other right now.
As I was doing this, I started writing out my thoughts on the games and it sort of turned into my first real writeup in quite some time. I’ve really missed writing about the NFL and have been looking for ways to get back into it and, for this week at least, I found a way to do so.
What follows are just a few key thoughts on each game. The teams I’ve picked to win are in bold.
Keep an ear out for tonight’s episode of The Sportsballers Podcast and check out tomorrow’s blog post for all picks and confidence points from me and my co-hosts, Eric and Evan. Thanks for reading!
Cowboys at Bears
The Bears passing attack has radically improved in the past two or three weeks with Mitchell Trubisky throwing with much better accuracy. Expect another solid game from him against a shoddy Dallas secondary.
Bad news for the Bears is that this is the only matchup in which they have a significant advantage. Chicago’s secondary will be no match for Dak Prescott and the Cowboys run defense should have no problem smothering David Montgomery and the Bears ground game. I can’t put too much confidence in them because of their recent struggles, but the Cowboys should win this one comfortably.
Panthers at Falcons
I think Carolina actually matches up very well with Atlanta on paper. Atlanta’s offense has a slight edge on Carolina’s defense, especially in the passing game, and Carolina’s offense has a slight edge on Atlanta’s defense on account of the Falcons abysmal pass defense. With the Panthers using the air attack more and more frequently as the season progresses so no doubt they’ll make the most of that matchup.
The problem here is that the Panthers interim head coach is their secondary coach. I have to imagine this will have a negative effect on their pass defense and give the Falcons a bigger edge on that side of the ball as Perry Fewell has to divide his attention. The offensive side should be business as usual with Norv Turner as the special assistant to the head coach and quarterbacks coach Scott Turner (Norv’s son) taking over as offensive coordinator.
Overall, I think this spells a win for the home team in a squeaker.
Colts at Buccaneers
The Colts have the advantage in DVOA, and even more so if you look at the weighted DVOA that gives more credit to recent performances. But the Bucs have a huge advantage in that their defense ranks first against the run. In a passing league, that doesn’t always mean much, but the Colts are one of five teams that average more than 30 rushing attempts per game and are one of just two of those five teams that has a QB who doesn’t have a propensity to run the ball himself.
In fact, as Brissett has become less and less effective as a passer, they’ve had to turn to the run even more heavily. In their last three games, 50.77% of the Colts’ offensive plays have been by ground, the fourth highest rate in the NFL over that span.
The Bucs do, as always, have to watch out for turnovers with Jameis Winston under center. But the Colts are not an opportunistic defense and rank just 21st in takeaways this season. With Winston’s fearlessness and the talent of Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, as well as a young running back in Peyton Barber who is running more effectively of late, this is a team that can easily absorb a turnover or two to pull out a home win and keep themselves in the NFC playoff picture.
Dolphins at Jets
One of the DVOA stats that jumps out immediately here is that the Jets rank second defending the run and the Dolphins have the worst success rate in the NFL on rushing attempts. But the Dolphins have run the ball on less than 30 percent of their offensive plays in the past three games, so the question is how much of an advantage does this actually give New York?
This should be an interesting test for the formula I’ve used this week to help me pick games and assign confidence points. Even with the run game accounting for such a small portion of Miami’s offense, the magnitude of New York's advantage in this aspect of the matchup may actually be the most significant determinant in how this game goes. I’ve learned better than to put too much confidence on one of two terrible teams facing each other, but I have to believe the Jets will win this one comfortably.
49ers at Saints
I mentioned at the top that I've been looking at four DVOA numbers for each team this week. The Saints rank among the top 10 in all four categories while the 49ers rank 17th in rush offense and 14th in rush defense.
While that might figure to give the Saints a sizable advantage in this game, especially given their home field advantage, I’m actually not convinced that’s the case. San Francisco’s weighted DVOA is 7.7 percent higher than the Saints'. The formula I’ve devised to help with my picks this week has given fairly similar numbers to the DVOA differences in the other games up until now, where my formula gives the 49ers an even bigger 18.52-percent advantage. I’d say that's more than enough to make up for being on the road so I’m picking the 49ers in a one-score game.
Lions at Vikings
David Blough gave the Lions a huge lift on Thanksgiving. He got the start due to an injury to Jeff Driskel and in my opinion earned his keep in the NFL, for the time being at least. He recorded a 92 DYAR, just three less than Matt Stafford was averaging over his eight starts this season. Blough also recorded a very similar DVOA to Stafford, so for the time being I’m treating him as similar to Stafford, though I am nerfing the numbers just a bit since we have no idea how consistent or reliable he will be.
Even giving Blough that type of credit isn’t enough for me to give the Lions much chance in this game. The Vikings passing offense will overwhelm the Lions poor secondary and that affect may be amplified if the Vikings continue to increase their rate of passing as they had been even before Dalvin Cook suffered an injury on Monday night.
Broncos at Texans
Both of these teams have been running relatively balanced offenses over their past three games with the Texans running the ball 40 percent of the time and the Broncos running on 43 percent of their offensive plays. The Broncos will do a good job of making sure Houston continues to display a woeful rushing attack, but that won’t be the most significant factor in this game.
Even with the Broncos ranking 11th in the league over the past three games by sacking the quarterback on 9.18 percent of drop backs and Deshaun Watson taking sacks on 11.34 percent of his drop backs (the fifth worst rate in the league over the past three games), Houston has a huge advantage against Denver’s pass defense. If the Broncos can make sure most of their sacks come on third downs, they’ll keep this game close. But Watson is one of few quarterbacks in the NFL that can take a big loss on first or second down and rebound to move the chains on a consistent basis.
Ravens at Bills
This is one of only a few games where my formula either goes completely against or at least gives away some of the advantage DVOA hands one of the teams. Baltimore’s weighted DVOA is 37.4 percent higher than Buffalo’s but my formula nerfs that advantage to 29.77 percent.
I think it’s time to truly recognize the Bills as a legitimately good team. Josh Allen has been throwing the ball much better and he is still a serious threat with his legs. Their defense is for real and deserves more respect than it gets from those who want to point to a relatively weak slate of opponents.
That said, in no way can I give them a serious shot at beating the Ravens. Baltimore has an absurd 25 percent success rate running the ball thanks to Lamar Jackson’s shiftiness and Mark Ingram’s still-elite status. I don’t see the Bills getting absolutely blown out, but this should be a double-digit victory for the Ravens.
Bengals at Browns
My formula almost perfectly coincides with the DVOA spread on this game, even while giving the Bengals a -8.8% passing offense DVOA, which reflects Andy Dalton’s slightly better score than the team’s passing DVOA for the season as a whole.
This is the only game in which one team has the advantage in all four matchups I’m looking at this week, so I have to put high confidence in the Browns to win this game. Last week the Bengals got their first win of the season. While I got that game wrong, I only put three confidence points on the Jets, five fewer than Eric and eight fewer than Evan. I absolutely saw the Jets as a team Cincinnati could potentially knock off. I don’t see that happening to Cleveland.
Redskins at Packers
Where the Bengals don’t have the advantage in any of our four primary matchups with the Browns, the Redskins at least have an advantage with their run defense against the Packers run offense; according to DVOA, anyway.
A lot of that, though, is because of the Packers' underutilization of Aaron Jones, who ranks 14th in DYAR among running backs with at least 20 carries and 11th in DVOA among running backs with at least 100 carries. If Green Bay gives Jones more touches in the run game, I’m not convinced Washington’s run defense is actually better than the Packers run offense.
Green Bay has sizeable advantages in every other aspect of this matchup and they have home field advantage. This is certainly a game I’m toying with putting max confidence points on.
Chargers at Jaguars
Leonard Fournette is 7th in the NFL in rushing yards but he ranks just 19th in DYAR among backs with at least 100 carries this season. He’s probably a better player than he’s been in the past, but he’s still far from elite.
That might be why Jacksonville has been dropping back to pass on an NFL-high 73.37 percent of their offensive plays over their past three games. Perhaps ironically, two of Fournette’s three rushing touchdowns on the season have come in that stretch.
Minshew Mania is back in northern Florida and there’s little question in my mind that he’s better than Nick Foles is, at least right now. I really hoped Foles would work out in Jacksonville, and despite the situation being objectively humorous I never want to see a team waste as much money as the Jaguars may have wasted on Foles. There’s still the hope that BDN simply isn’t fully recovered from the broken left clavicle he suffered back in Week 1, but for now Minshew is the only legitimate hope the Jaguars have of competing.
This game is a tough one for me to pick and I certainly can’t put much confidence on either team. The Chargers have the advantage according to DVOA and according to my formula, but they’ve been so inconsistent and with neither advantage being all that significant, I’m going to go with the home team. I expect Minshew to play like he’s got another starting quarterback breathing down his neck trying to take his job back.
Steelers at Cardinals
I don’t think there’s much question at this point that Devlin Hodges is a better quarterback than Mason Rudolph. His 31.3 DVOA is absolutely unsustainable and one hopes that the small sample size is to blame for his NFL worst -4.3 ALEX (a stat that means that on third downs he is throwing the ball, on average, 4.3 yards short of the sticks).
I’m not at all in love with the Steelers offense. Their line is not what it was when they had Le’Veon Bell or even last year, and James Conner for his part is also not playing well at all this season.
But I think I’ve been sleeping a bit on Pittsburgh’s defense and it’s about time I wake up. They rank fifth in DVOA against the run and fourth defending the pass. No other team has defensive DVOAs in the top five in both categories. I’ve been riding the Cardinals a bit lately despite my disdain for Kliff Kingsbury, and I definitely like Arizona to completely take Pittsburgh’s ground game out of the equation on Sunday. But the Steelers have the advantage in the other three quarters of this matchup and I’m taking them to win in the desert.
Titans at Raiders
Derek Carr has been getting quite a bit of credit in the media for having a solid season, and he deserves it. This has been, no doubt, his best season since 2016 when he won 12 games in 15 starts.
But do you know who has been better than Carr since taking over as a starting quarterback in Week 7? Ryan Tannehill has been outstanding. His 72.7 completion percentage is likely unsustainable, but his passer rating is more than 20 points better than his previous career high and his QBR so far in 2019 sits only behind his 59.3 from 2014, half a decade ago!
Tennessee’s offense is as balanced as they come, which has only helped take the pressure off Tannehill and allowed him to remain relaxed. Only six teams in the NFL are closer to a 50/50 run/pass split than the Titans. One of them is the Raiders, but Tennessee should be able to corral Josh Jacobs and keep him in check. The Raiders hope Waller broke out of his funk last week because a solid connection between him and Carr may be their only chance of pulling this one out in their penultimate game in Oakland (barring an unlikely home playoff game).
Chiefs at Patriots
The Patriots defense played horribly on Sunday night against the Texans. Their run defense, unsurprisingly, had no problem with the Texans putrid tandem of Duke Johnson and Carlos Hyde. But their pass defense had been the best in the league and Deshaun Watson scored a touchdown in every quarter. Watson’s a great quarterback, but those are the guys great defenses are supposed to find ways to stop and New England couldn’t get it done in prime time.
With the bright lights off them and the predictable media casting doubt, this is a bounce back game for the Patriots to remind everybody that they are, in fact, still Super Bowl contenders. Bill Belichick wants to win the big game in the NFL’s 100th season.
No doubt, Patrick Mahomes will keep things interesting; he’s every bit as dynamic as Watson. But he’s going to have to do this in Foxboro and I think that makes a significant difference.
Seahawks at Rams
The Seahawks are for real. They have the best passing offense in the NFL according to DVOA. They’re running the most balanced offense in the NFL over the past three weeks with exactly half of their plays being runs. Lamar Jackson may be getting all the love, but Russell Wilson very well may still be the MVP.
The Vikings did everything they could to get back into Monday night’s game and they came pretty close; kudos to them. But the Seahawks won that game and now they face a less challenging opponent.
They’ll have to travel to the Coliseum, and they’re facing a quarterback in Jared Goff who will come into this game with a bit more confidence here in December than he had all of November thanks to a big game against Arizona. But even if Goff does take advantage of Seattle’s mediocre pass defense, Wilson should more than make up for it.
Giants at Eagles
The Eagles are not good. Carson Wentz is not good. The Eagles run game is subpar even with Miles Sanders playing decent football as a rookie.
None of that matters. Philadelphia is at home against a bad team and while I don’t feel comfortable maxing out on this game due to it being a division matchup, I’m pretty certain the Eagles will pull this one out in what amounts to a must-win game. They have to feel like Dallas is running away with the division even with the Cowboys losing their last two games.
If we don’t see the Eagles playing on Monday night as if that fact is foremost in their mind, the Redskins might not be the only coach killers in the NFC East.
-Cory Puffett