Don’t Overreact To Week 4 NFL Storylines

I’ve always viewed sports–and particularly the National Football League–from the prospective of a handicapper and sports bettor. By doing so, I tend to ignore all of the sports radio chatter and phony ESPN catch phrase debates. Instead, I focus on the statistical data and nuances of the betting marketplace. The idea is to ignore the name on the uniforms and all of the hype (good or bad) surrounding them and look at the numbers.

Among recreational bettors and casual fans the NFL has a reputation of being almost impossible to ‘beat’ on a regular basis. The numbers are ‘too tight’ it is argued and the linesmakers so sharp that it’s impossible for bettors to find an edge. That’s not really the case. I’ve been doing this for my entire adult life and I see recreational players–and some otherwise ‘sharp’ sports bettors–make the same mistakes year after year. The primary reason for these repeated mistakes is that they focus too much on the sports radio/ESPN narrative and too little on concrete statistical data.

On balance, it’s not a good idea to overreact to anything that happens in any single week or single game. The NFL football season is shorter than all other professional sports, but that doesn’t mean that things don’t even out over the course of the year. Week 4 brought some interesting outcomes to be sure, but it’s important not to overreact to this ‘short sample size’ or to misinterpret ‘data’ that isn’t significant:

—THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS ARE FINE: One insane narrative in the mainstream sports media on Monday debated whether or not Tom Brady could be the Patriots’ ‘savior’. Last time I looked, this team was 3-1 and not looking in need of serious ‘salvation’. Sure, Bill Belichick would have loved to go 4-0 during Tom Brady’s suspension just to wave the ‘extended middle finger’ in Roger Goodell’s face. If you’d asked him before the season and he were to give you an honest answer he would have said that 3-1 would be just fine. Brady is back and he might be rusty for a quarter or so. He’s a 15 year starter with a fistful of Super Bowl rings and knows his coach’s schemes like the back of his hand. The Patriots’ loss to the Buffalo Bills might be the best thing that happens to the Patriots. Winning without Brady had become too easy for them–when you reach the point that it doesn’t seem like a big deal that you might have to start a quarterback that hasn’t played the position since college it’s hard to maintain focus. The sum total is that Belichick will have a focused team for Brady’s return and two backup quarterbacks that have experience in a starting role. They’ve also got the #3 rushing offense in the NFL meaning this might be the most balance Patriots’ team in years.

—THE DENVER BRONCOS ARE FINE: Perhaps the biggest mistake that recreational bettors and the mainstream sports media make year after year is twofold: they overreact to injuries and overvalue the presence of the starting quarterback relative to his backups. The overreaction to injury is a betting phenomenon seen in every sport but the overvaluation of the starting quarterback is something unique to the NFL. The aforementioned New England Patriots are a good example of this–before the season started the sports media acted like there was no chance for them to enjoy any success without Brady. They actually acted shocked that Jimmy Garappolo and later Jacoby Brissett were able to capably move the offense. It happened to the Denver Broncos as well. The mainstream media joked all off season about Trevor Siemian and the dropoff in the Broncos’ QB fortunes from Peyton Manning to Brock Osweiler to Siemian. It turned out that Siemian was perfectly capable at running the Broncos’ offense. Sure, having one of the best defenses in football helps but Siemian has improved every week and most importantly quickly demonstrated an ability ‘not to beat himself’. Siemian left Sunday’s game during injury and there’s some degree of shock among the mainstream media types that the Broncos were able to win without him. They shouldn’t be. Denver moved up to select Paxton Lynch out of Memphis in the 2016 draft as they were impressed with his size and arm strength–as well as his maturity and poise. There’s a misguided belief that rookie quarterbacks thrown into action due to a starter injury will be cowering in fear at the prospect. Hardly. Any legit player on a well coached team will not only be ready to do his job but excited for the opportunity. Siemian says that he could have returned to the game had it been necessary and is listed as ‘day to day’ but that didn’t stop the sports media from breathlessly writing articles like ‘How Siemian’s injury could effect Broncos’ receivers’.

—THE CAROLINA PANTHERS’ STRUGGLES ARE NOT ‘UNPRECEDENTED’: Far from it. That statement could be expanded to say that Cam Newton’s struggles aren’t ‘unprecedented’ either. It’s obvious that its tough to repeat as champion in any sport, and particularly the NFL. There hasn’t been a back to back Super Bowl champion in over a decade (the Patriots won in 2004 and 2005). Many people don’t realize that since the Patriots’ went back to back only *one* team has played in the Super Bowl–win or lose–in consecutive years (Seattle in 2014 and 2015). The last time that a *losing* Super Bowl team returned to the game the following year win or lose was in 1994 when the Buffalo Bills played in the last of their record four straight losses in the ‘big game’. And a Super Bowl losing team coming back to win the game the next year? It’s happened twice–in Super Bowl VI and VII when Dallas and Miami avenged their defeats from the previous year. Success in football is no different than any other area of life–it usually doesn’t happen in a linear fashion and seldom happens without some ‘ups and downs’ along the way. Championship level teams often find themselves in the Panthers’ situations and make the necessary adjustments in personnel, tactics, and mindset to get ‘to the next level’. It seldom happens within the span of one season.