Sharky's NFL play of the week

[hitthat16]

I'm curious here, and to clarify in advance I am NOT knocking anyone or their methods at betting sports.

Is there a mathematical edge to be gained from betting these NFL picks, or is it still -EV and we're just taking our best guesses? I have never bet on sports so I don't know if you guys are trying to beat the bookies or just having some fun.

[Sharky]

I'm curious here, and to clarify in advance I am NOT knocking anyone or their methods at betting sports.

Is there a mathematical edge to be gained from betting these NFL picks, or is it still -EV and we're just taking our best guesses? I have never bet on sports so I don't know if you guys are trying to beat the bookies or just having some fun.

Absolutely, positively, unequivocally no mathematical +ev in sports betting

[hitthat16]

Absolutely, positively, unequivocally no mathematical +ev in sports betting

Guess that answers my question! Haha.

I guess I lied about never betting on sports. I remembered I'm in a paid fantasy football league this year. I'd say it's neutral EV because we are all at generally the same skill level and there is no "juice" taken.

[Three]

A tough week for picks. These are all fairly weak. Hopefully I picked the few good bets.
Week 9:
1) CLE -6 over TB
2) NE +4 over DEN
3) OAK +16.5 @ SEA
4) TB/CLE over 43
5) IND/NYG over 50.5
6) BAL/PIT over 47
7) DEN/NE under 56: I know people will disagree with me on this one but I don't think this will be the shootout everyone is billing it to be. Both teams will try to eat the clock to keep the opposing QB off the field. As long as the game is close look for run plays and short ball control passes which are effectively running plays.

Results for 2014 season:
Week 4: 5-2-0
Week 5: 2-1-0
Week 6: 2-4-0
Week 7: 4-2-1
Week 8: 1-3-0
Season: 14-12-1

[Exoter175]

A tough week for picks. These are all fairly weak. Hopefully I picked the few good bets.
Week 9:
1) CLE -6 over TB
2) NE +4 over DEN
3) OAK +16.5 @ SEA
4) TB/CLE over 43
5) IND/NYG over 50.5
6) BAL/PIT over 47
7) DEN/NE under 56: I know people will disagree with me on this one but I don't think this will be the shootout everyone is billing it to be. Both teams will try to eat the clock to keep the opposing QB off the field. As long as the game is close look for run plays and short ball control passes which are effectively running plays.

Results for 2014 season:
Week 4: 5-2-0
Week 5: 2-1-0
Week 6: 2-4-0
Week 7: 4-2-1
Week 8: 1-3-0
Season: 14-12-1

I'm curious, what is the math or algorithm behind your grading system here, specifically the letter grades?

I keep seeing the Chiefs pop up as an F, but they are statistically one of the best teams in football, and at or near the top of the league in their last 5 games both offensively and defensively.

Also, that TB/Cle game will almost guaranteed be an under game, and NE/DEN on the under? That's super risky considering the points these teams tend to put up against one another. Granted the last time they faced eachother it was certainly an "under" game in the AFC Championship, but in the regular season these games tend to be shootout games. Couple that with the fact that Tom Brady is 10-5 against Peyton Manning at this point, and Peyton's team is all but guaranteed to score 30 points in this game, Brady's going to have to put up huge numbers to win, though he has the historical advantage. I'd still take the over even if the line was set at 62.

[Gamblor]

MIA -1 vs sd - Travel. Miami is kind of an underrated team that teams sleep against. Rivers goes on these long streaks where he looks good, then bad, then good... Looks like he's in his bad phase.
stl +11 vs SF - Lot of points for a STL team that tends to get into slug it out low scoring affairs, and STL plays their NFC West rivals closely. Vengeance for blowout.
PIT PK vs Bal - Pit vs Bal should just default to -3 for the home team. Weakest of the 3 picks.

At the halfway mark, 17-15-3. 2-1 Stone Cold Locks.

[Exoter175]

The grading system takes the grades for team improvement at the start of the regular season when the roster is set over last years roster. The grades that I am using are not those grades. They are improvement grades from the start of the preseason. These picks are my picks not the grading system picks with the wrong grades. The grading system is supposed to flag lines that will be out of whack because of the huge change in the teams year to year. It doesn't even consider stats or the line. When using it you should obviously consider them though.



CLE/TB: The two ways I run the score I get 18-30 and the more reliable 21-33. That's totals of 48 and 54. Tampa Bay has played 3 away games. ATL 14-56, PIT 27-24 and NO 31-37 for totals of 70, 51 and 68. All 3 well over 43. The CLE game should be most like the PIT game. CLE has played 4 home games. NO 24-26, BAL 23-21, PIT 10-31, OAK 13-23 for totals of 50, 44, 41 and 34. 2 of the 4 over 43. TB has given up 56, 24, 37, 48 and 19 points this year. The fewest given up on the road is 24. CLE has scored 26, 21, 31 and 23 in home games You can figure CLE for 27-31 points or more. That means if TB can score 16 points I am good. CLE has given up 24, 23, 10 and 13 at home. TB has scored 14, 27 and 31 points on the road this year. Weather conditions will be nice with light winds tomorrow in CLE. I was aware I am not taking the popular bet but that often means you are getting a great line.

DEN/NE: The two ways I run the score I get 24-28 and 22-29 for totals of 52 and 51. DEN has played 2 away games this year and have the huge home field advantage of the thin air that skews their home field stats. SEA 20-26 in OT, NYJ 31-17 for totals of 46 and 48. NE at home OAK 9-16, CIN 17-43, NYJ 25-27 and CHI 23-51 for totals of 25, 60, 52 and 74. When teams play great QB's or scoring offenses they try to eat clock by running the football and using short ball control passes. This keeps the score lower as drives eat up more clock. Then you have a windy day that might even be raining and will have a wet field.
Wind has the biggest affect on scoring of any weather condition. You must be able to throw a tight spiral to be affective throwing longer passes. Peyton throws a wobbly ball and Brady doesn't throw a tight spiral either. That is further pressure on both offenses to throw shorter passes. A wet football is harder to grip and tough to put a tight spiral on even if you are good at throwing a tight spiral. If the rain lingers into the game that will even further pressure offensive plans to lean on the short passing game and avoid the longer passes. YAC will figure huge in passing yardage stats. The wind will mostly be lowing end zone to end zone making it a little easier on the QBs but the weather will affect both teams game plans. High wind lowers the number of passing TDs a lot. The winds are supposed to be in the mid 20MPH range with gusts into the 40's. Both teams have good to great passing defenses and don't turn the ball over much.
Both teams pass defenses pressure the QB and get interceptions. Peyton enjoys better pass protection but if they are getting at him he isn't as effective. He is old and doesn't want to take hits. If NE puts on the pressure Peyton will be throwing more short passes. MY score predictions indicate an under and everything else indicates a lower scoring game than anticipated. t is a high variance play because as the game unfolds if one team is running up the score the other will try to keep pace. The things listed make this less likely than they were earlier in the week. I knew I would be in the minority but this game will not be the shootout most people envision. Den has a top defense this year and isn't scoring as much because their most likely win comes by leaning on their defense more making scoring less important.

I am not as good at over/under bets. I knew both of these were higher variance. The scenarios for how the game would unfold that went contrary to the predictions had higher probabilities. I had scratched the NE/DEN pick as having too much variance until the weather lowered the probability of undesirable scenarios.

When it comes to these two very different types of games, you have to take a few things into consideration, as well as take a few things out of consideration. First thing to throw out in a Brady/Manning bowl is their performance for the year to date, on a total team effort. Whether they both come into this game averaging 27 points a game (arbitrary) or not, isn't going to matter. Both teams are going to throw the ball against each other. Did you notice this week that the Patriots kept throwing the ball even when they had a two score lead? Brady and Manning have an inherently good knack for extending the ability to score in a short period of time, namely inside the last 5 minutes of the 2nd and 3rd quarters. The very thing you keyed on for a low scoring game (short range routes in the passing game) is the very thing that both of these teams earn their bread and butter on in the scoring game. These two teams have an average or above average set of receivers and tight ends in the YAC department, as well as from their receiving backs. While short range passes are high percentage and effectively work as a running play and run down the clock, they also serve to setup screen and pick plays. The pick play is something that both New England and Denver have all but perfected in their short passing games, and in the red zone, more often than not, serve to put a higher than average number of points on the board. They also tend to substitute for running plays in the spread offense.

Look at the box score for the team touch splits. These two QB's combined for 110 pass attempts, yet only 42 rushes. Surprising to some, not to me, this game is ALWAYS a shootout game because both teams abandon the run early on in an even game, and only jump to the run in the latter half of the first and second halves of the game to limit the drives of the other team. Had this been an AFC Championship game like last year, I'd have taken the under and you'd see a 45ish point game for sure, but in the regular season, these guys are going to take a lot of chances they shouldn't, like the Broncos going 0 for 4 on 4th downs, not trusting the leg of their kicker and eventually being down 3 scores.

As for the Cleveland game, come on, its Tampa Bay, that teams RARELY scores 20 points without a healthy Doug Martin rolling. Tampa Bay is a shaky team with a shaky defense, and Cleveland plays a type of "ball" most similar to Kansas City's, a bend but don't break, get a lead and protect it type of game. Those games RARELY set themselves up to surpass the over/under line, as witnessed today by KC themselves, who beat the spread, but scored significantly below the line. Cleveland's a pretty tough running team on both ends of the ball, with stats slightly skewed for and against them based on opponents, but you've got to believe they won't look to Hoyer to win this game against Tampa Bay because they knew they had a traveling Bucs team on their heels from the start. Cleveland just had to play NOT to lose the game, and they are one of the best teams to be in that situation, next to Kansas City, Indy, and Baltimore.

All in all, I'm happy to go 3-0 on my implied picks, (KC over NYJ, Cleveland/TB Under, and Ne/Den Over). I'm no sharky, but I'd put my seasonal and historical play on over/under records against anyone in the business

[Exoter175]

NE used the exact plan of attack I said both teams should. Run and short passes. DEN kept trying to throw longer passes and overthrew receivers with the wind and underthrew receivers into the wind The two QBs threw for a combined 3 INT combined today. The game was decided by 3 unexpected TDs. 2 Peyton INT resulting in very short field opportunities for NE (remember Peyton has averaged less than .43 INT a game) and a punt return for a TD by NE. Without those we are talking a 21-22 game. Of course the game would have played out differently so I doubt that would have been the score. That score is 13 points under the total. It was a risky pick. Not a wise one but the team that used the game plan they both should have used given the conditions won by a huge margin.

As for the CLE game the Browns were the ones that underperformed my model not TB. The Browns were figured for one more TD. Not being able to watch the game I won't comment on it in detail. There were 2 INT by each team. Turnovers can add to a total or take points off the board or have no real affect. I can't say what these turnovers did.

They were both marginal (weak) O/U picks that barely made the minimum for an O/U play. The closer of the two score predictions I use made it by 0.5 point and 1.5 points. I had scratched the DEN/NE over until the weather forecast which meant to be successful both team's needed to run and throw short passes. The team that didn't do this didn't score much but the result of their ineffective for the weather game plan drove the opponents team score very high.

The picks were weak picks and the game results weren't surprising. Those turnovers that can change O/U fortunes so easily did just that. Who would have though that these great QB's would throw almost as many INT as they did in the other 8 weeks combined?


Congrats on your success. I am historically not that good at O/U bets. I only use them in teasers and that only helped in the CLE game. Sometimes it seems I could do about as good flipping a coin.

Its almost historical fact by now that one of the two QB's will throw a pair of INT's in these games. Like I said earlier, there are a handful of stats you almost have to throw out the window, included in those is INT ratios, Passes per INT, so on and so forth. There's so much disguised coverage on both ends with so many defenders dropping back into coverage that its nearly impossible to not have 2 interceptions in these games.

And I wouldn't exactly say they "followed" your game plan, considering they both played their exact same styles of offense that they have all year, including deep passes with and against the wind, despite it being a windy day. Saying Tom Brady and Peyton Manning will throw short routes all game long is almost as close to saying that one team will win this week, because they both make their bread and butter off the pick plays and screen games to their wr's and te's.

I'm still really curious about that letter grade system though, because its got some really big question marks from me on a number of those teams.

[Exoter175]

Peyton vs Brady prior history concerning INT:
1/19/14 NE@DEN playoff game: Brady 0 INT, Manning 0 INT, total 0 INT
11/24/13 DEN@NE in OT: Brady 0 INT, Manning 1 INT, total 1 INT
10/7/12 DEN@NE: Brady 0 INT, Manning 0 INT, total 0 INT
Prior games Manning was with the Colts which is a different team.I am not going to bother pulling them up because:
I don't think Brady INT against a different teams defense is a relevant stat just because Manning was under center for the Colts. Nor do I think Manning with a different offense around him while playing on another team against the Pats to be relevant. The trouble with stats is you can't BS about them. They are easily checked.

So in the 3 games that Manning and the Broncos played NE D he threw a total of 1 INT and Brady vs Broncos D and Manning he never threw an INT for an average of .33 INT/game between 2 of them combined. At that rate they would need to play 9 games to combine for the 3 INT that happened yesterday.


We must have been watching a different game. Brady passes were almost all short of 10 yards with a few unsuccessful longer passes thrown in to keep the D honest. Longer yardage plays were the result of YAC. Manning on the other hand tended to throw medium length and long passes. The long passes tended to fail and he was quite successful at throwing 10-15 yards to his receivers.He threw shorter passes and used running plays to keep the D honest not as a staple. Manning's INT were not a result of the wind from what I can tell. One bounced of his receivers chest and it was a personnel in the area INT. The other was a jumped route which does happen more often on medium to long passes in the wind but I wouldn't say that it was caused by the wind. Once you get to medium long (which this was) and long passes the wind has a big impact on the balls flight on a windy day. That impact is minimized by a tight spiral. Manning doesn't throw a tight spiral. Much to the contrary his passes are usually described as wobbly. D-backs look to jump routes under these conditions. They know that these longer passes are very vulnerable to jumping the route under these conditions due to a loss in accuracy of the pass. I saw Brady working 12 yards and in, mostly much shorter than that and Peyton working 11 yards and out with a good mix of longer and medium length passes despite the terrible success rate on them. He was very effective at the 11 to 15 yard passes. The glaring thing was despite the stats giving DEN a big rushing advantage the didn't run much and were not effective when they did. The Patriots had 50% more rushing plays than DEN. Their average per rush was almost identical to the Broncos but they stuck with it anyway as an integral part of their game plan.

Despite a game plan designed to keep Manning off the field the Broncos had a slight edge in time of possession. Despite Mannings 2 INTs only giving the Pats 14 gimme points rather than took points off the board for DEN, Manning only scored 21 points. Add the punt return for a TD and you have 21 unexpected points. NE had 1 special teams TD prior this year and hadn't given up any special teams TDs. The Broncos sealed their own fate as they kept holding an eligible receiver in the backfield to buy time against the tough Pats pass rush to buy him time so he could throw ineffective long passes. When he threw just passed the sticks for a first he was very effective. I don't have a clear memory of Brady's INT pass. I am guessing it had no affect on the score or I would remember it.

The under pick was probably not a good one but without those 21 unexpected points it would have won easily to a total of 43 points if all the rest was the same which it wouldn't have been. In a closer game TDs may have been field goals and turning the ball over on downs may have been field goals. Game plans and plays called would have been different. Who knows what the final score would have been. Turnovers put high variance in O/U picks because they can either take points away or give easy points. These teams were not expected to be turning the ball over. The high variance I spoke of in the pick was due to the likelihood of various scenarios playing out that would have a big impact on the score. I knew the wind would either make the game resemble more the stats of a running game by having more high percentage short passes or one or both teams would play ineffective strategies. Despite the call being right the game went over anyway largely due to the 21 unexpected points. Without these points DEN gad 21 and NE had 22 points. NE looked very good executing the proper game plan but that only got them 22 of their 43 points.

Maybe I should have left it a scratched play but I don't think it was that bad of a pick all things considered. The wind was not extremely strong but certainly strong more than enough to negate a long passing game and trim some points from the total.

I'm going to skip a lot of that reading and key on two points.

You absolutely have to include every single game Manning and Brady have started against one another, not just New England vs. Denver, that's too small a sample size and is only the new rendition of the Brady Manning bowl. You have to look at the historical, "all time" records of Manning as a Colt and Bronco, vs. Brady as a Patriot, otherwise you get anomalies like the one you posted, and you get some crazy idea that those interceptions weren't expected in a WINDY game, which is a statistical expectation. Hell, two of those games they both combined for 5 or more interceptions. That's a 1/8th chance that this game might have 5+ interceptions , let alone 3. You have to take every single snap into account in such a rivalry like this one, instead of breaking it down to just the Broncos game, or you simply DO NOT get the big picture of this matchup and you end up picking wrong, like the Under in this game due to "weather". Do you not remember when Brady and the Pats in 2007 or 2012ish put up like 500 yards and 5 or 6 td's in a foot of snow at Foxborough? You can't apply "weather" to Tom Brady lol.

As for "unexpected" points, you can't just claim "unexpected" points for the reason why your pick was wrong, justifying this reason or that for why you WOULD have been close otherwise. Offense is only 1/3rd of the equation in football. Defense is also 1/3rd, put special teams is another. First of all, Edelman now has what? 4 career punt returns for a touchdown in 6 seasons? I wouldn't call that far from unexpected, and he routinely puts up very high average punt return yardage numbers. Now apply that to a game where the punting units might accidentally outkick the coverage, or underkick the coverage depending on which way the wind is blowing, and these games have a HIGHER tendency to yield a long punt return. The error you made, Tthree, was only factoring into your thought process, how the offenses might work. You didn't factor in Defense and Special Teams scoring potentials with the wind, while you undercut the offenses for the very same reasons prior. That's a big no-no in this game when the teams have a tendency to throw the ball more frequently, regardless of weather.

[Exoter175]

1. They might not face each other on the field, but they are certainly facing the results of the other, on the field. If Manning turns it over, there's more "Fire" in Brady to go and score on it, and likely a better opportunity in terms of morale. Likewise, if Brady goes and scores after a Manning Turnover, there's more pressure on Manning the next time to go out and score to make up for the gap. This is why the common buzzword for this game is "chess match" because of some of the choices an interactions these guys make that raises and lowers the pressures on the individual to perform in these games, which leads me to my next point.

2. If you comb through the statistics of every Brady vs. Manning bowl there's ever been, you're going to find out that not only are there far more interceptions thrown in these games, leading to more "unexpected" points as you call them (hello, Ty Law vs. Peyton Manning), but the scoring tends to be higher because of a lot of these unexpected points, as well as the "heightened" level of play that these guys tend to produce (Branch, Moss vs. Colts).

I get your point that if these things wouldn't have happened, the "takeaway" of the points shows that the game is much closer, but in all honesty, wouldn't have changed the scoring outcome all that much, these games have a higher scoring standard than any "common" game because of the propensity for these guys to abandon the run and go pass heavy to compete. Passing = Scoring in this league, name me a time where they combined for less than 65 attempts in this type of game, and then tell me how many times they combined for 80+.

You'd be surprised by the statistics. I'm not saying you're wrong so much for the pick, but wrong for omitting some of the results of prior games from "different" teams.

[Exoter175]

Actually if you comb through the stats in the colts days the turnovers tended to take points off the board more often than put more points on the board. In his first 5 years with or the Colts, 1998-2002, Manning threw 28, 15, 15, 23 and 19 INT in the regular season. Then he settled down to trow about than half that on average for the rest of his 16 years in the NFL Hello you talk about the matchups being so important Ty Law versus Manning specifically. Ty Law isn't on the team anymore so those matchup specific stats having to do with law can be thrown out and ignored. His last season with the Pats was in 2004. That makes all those high interception years specifically because of Ty Law's presence irrelevant. Peyton is a better QB and who takes care of the football better and plays for a different team. Since his near career ending neck injury Peyton gets rid of the ball before pressure reaches him more often. It has changed his style of play in a lot of ways for the better. More reasons why to put more weight on just the Broncos stats. You have Peyton different style after the injury. Peyton playing outdoors much more often with the Broncos, Peyton playing for a different team before the neck injury ended his tenure with the Colts in the 2010 season, troublesome matchups being ancient history and the simple fact that the most recent stats are the most applicable (Peyton had a total of only 1 INT in his three games where the Broncos played the Patriots).


We will have to agree to disagree on this one. The one valid point you made is that the teams O coordinator will react to production or the lack there of by the opposing offense. The Pats and Brady have traditionally been a short pass and run team. They usually get a lot of YAC to skew the statistics. Manning gets yards in the air with far less YAC. It was a given that if Manning didn't change his style in the wind that he would not score much. My calculation had him scoring 22 points, not that that actual total is likely meaning the Broncos will usually score 20 -24 points . They scored 212. I had the Pats scoring 29 points again not a likely score but 27- 31 garbs most close likely scores. They scored 43 with those "21 unexpected points". Without them they would have probably had a different game plan and the scoring would have been different. Who knows the score might have been higher.

As for being surprised by the stats, I have been well aware of the stats. That is why I was confident enough to make the losing play I did. The stats and conditions said it was a good play. Either both teams would adjust their O game plan to the wind conditions which would have them scoring fewer points or they would not which would also have them scoring fewer points as can be seen by the Broncos scoring only 21 points and the Pats offense only scoring 22 points without very short field opportunities from the INTs. You act like INT add to the point total automatically. More Interceptions happen on a short field than a long one on a per play basis. It isn't so much the points as the points/clock usage that is the difference. Now last year Peyton didn't trow an INT in the red zone so that stat may be less applicable but the Broncos fumbled 5.6% of red zone visits. The Broncos got TDs 77.8% of the visits in the red zone and got FG 16.7% to lead the league in red zone efficiency. The Pats on the other hand fumbled 3.1% and threw INT 4.6% of the time to be 4th highest in red zone turnovers. They scored TDs 55.4% of the time and 32.3% scoring field goals. Now teams in the NFL change a lot from year to year. Gronk missed most of last year and had been their big go to guy in the red zone. So that stat must be taken with a grain of salt.

T3, I didn't bring up Ty Law to make a historically representative point of each and every matchup, I brought it up because like the Brady Vs. Manning matchup, the Ty Law vs. Manning matchup, one where they actually get to play on the field at the same time (which is why I brought this up since you mentioned it earlier) has been another of the matchups in league history where Peyton Manning looks middling as a Quarterback when throwing in Ty Law's direction, especially in the playoffs.


The point here, that you seem to not be able to acknowledge, is that you picked this game for the under because you threw out a TON of stats on this matchup that would have helped you, and chose only to focus on the most recent years of the Brady vs. Manning matchups, the years in which Tom Brady had fewer receiving threats, a weaker defense, and the Broncos went full tilt on acquiring players to get them a super bowl before Peyton can no longer throw the ball. You literally looked at the stats from what many considered to be "anomaly" games in this historic matchup, and threw the rest of the matchups out, because Brady is no longer with the Colts, but with the Broncos, like that even mattered offensively, since Peyton is like having an extra Offensive Coordinator on the field. Do you know why the Broncos don't have a big name offensive coordinator on the team? Because Peyton has discretion over what happens on the field, and John Fox allows it.

As for you continuing to turn to "unexpected" points, how many punt, kick, and defensive returns were made this last week for touchdowns? How many blocked punts, blocked kicks, and safeties?

You might consider those "unexpected" points, but if they happen every single week of the NFL, and to just about every team at some point in the season, sometimes multiple times, how can you consider them to be unexpected?

And as for gronk being taken with a grain of salt, that's a joke, you're taking that one with a shot of tequila, a lime, some kleenex, and a pound of salt, he's half their receiving corps when healthy, and their only logical redzone threat, which is why the Patriots had to hing on Edelman so much last year.

[Three]

T3, I didn't bring up Ty Law to make a historically representative point of each and every matchup, I brought it up because like the Brady Vs. Manning matchup, the Ty Law vs. Manning matchup, one where they actually get to play on the field at the same time (which is why I brought this up since you mentioned it earlier) has been another of the matchups in league history where Peyton Manning looks middling as a Quarterback when throwing in Ty Law's direction, especially in the playoffs.

Yeah, Brady was afraid to throw the ball anywhere near Ed Reed. He had horrible stats against the Ravens. It is pretty easy to defend a QB he he automatically eliminates half the field when throwing the ball. Brady admitted it on more than one occasion. He said, I look to see where Reed is and then I throw the ball elsewhere.

you threw out a TON of stats on this matchup that would have helped you, and chose only to focus on the most recent years of the Brady vs. Manning matchups, the years in which Tom Brady had fewer receiving threats, a weaker defense, and the Broncos went full tilt on acquiring players to get them a super bowl before Peyton can no longer throw the ball.

Factoring in the fact that Denver went all in to field a great defense before Peyton retired so they could not just get to a SB but win one and the improvement in the Pats defense were considered and called for a lowering of scoring in a score prediction. You keep assuming I am not looking at things but any pick I pull and then put back up was looked at in great detail. The fact I pulled it means it probably isn't a strong pick but putting it back up means I looked at it from every angle and it panned out.

And as for gronk being taken with a grain of salt, that's a joke, you're taking that one with a shot of tequila, a lime, some kleenex, and a pound of salt, he's half their receiving corps when healthy, and their only logical redzone threat, which is why the Patriots had to hing on Edelman so much last year.

You need to reread my post. I tried to say take that years red zone stats with a grain of salt because Gronk was out or hurt most of the year. The point was with Gronk in as he is now that stat is not very useful. That is the kind of detail I look at stats with. I clearly stated that. The fact that you didn't understand shows you don't know what stats are applicable and what stats need a big grain of salt when looking at a play. I think we beat this horse to death. If you want to have the last word have at it. I doubt I will reply.

[Exoter175]

Yeah, Brady was afraid to throw the ball anywhere near Ed Reed. He had horrible stats against the Ravens. It is pretty easy to defend a QB he he automatically eliminates half the field when throwing the ball. Brady admitted it on more than one occasion. He said, I look to see where Reed is and then I throw the ball elsewhere.


Factoring in the fact that Denver went all in to field a great defense before Peyton retired so they could not just get to a SB but win one and the improvement in the Pats defense were considered and called for a lowering of scoring in a score prediction. You keep assuming I am not looking at things but any pick I pull and then put back up was looked at in great detail. The fact I pulled it means it probably isn't a strong pick but putting it back up means I looked at it from every angle and it panned out.


You need to reread my post. I tried to say take that years red zone stats with a grain of salt because Gronk was out or hurt most of the year. The point was with Gronk in as he is now that stat is not very useful. That is the kind of detail I look at stats with. I clearly stated that. The fact that you didn't understand shows you don't know what stats are applicable and what stats need a big grain of salt when looking at a play. I think we beat this horse to death. If you want to have the last word have at it. I doubt I will reply.

Its not that I didn't read your post about factoring details in or out in regards to Gronk, but you keep weighting certain statistics higher, while tossing much more important statistics out. The fact alone that you took the previous 12 match ups out of the equation for factoring your score almost negates the entirety of your equation for a game like this, yet you're hassling me about semantics and playing the "last word" card.

You could literally throw any bit of statistics that you wish at me, and in the hypothetical world, I'm sure they are absolutely on point, but the second you negate any matchup from previous encounters between Brady and Manning, you're going to lose any argument, or credibility of argument, then and there.