Latest / The Favorites Sports Betting Podcast / NFL Luck Rankings Explained

Transcript

NFL Luck Rankings Explained · The Favorites Sports Betting Podcast

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome to The Favorites, the podcast presented by about three
0:12
Speaker 1: six five.
0:12
Speaker 2: We are part of the Action Network.
0:14
Speaker 1: I am Chadmillman, chief Content Officer of the Action Network,
0:17
Speaker 1: joining me today.
0:19
Speaker 2: Dude, this is such a big show.
0:21
Speaker 1: My co host, my companion, my compadre might BFF professional
0:24
Speaker 1: better Simon hunter Head.
0:27
Speaker 2: Oh so I'm in, Hello Chad?
0:29
Speaker 3: What are we? Six seven weeks out from the start
0:31
Speaker 3: of the season. Brother Rome was there?
0:33
Speaker 1: We are so close since we last spoke, Caleb Williams
0:39
Speaker 1: and Roman Dunesa. I've officially signed their contracts with the
0:43
Speaker 1: Chicago Bears.
0:44
Speaker 2: That's all I'm saying.
0:45
Speaker 1: Next week we begin our annual NFL Division previews, and
0:49
Speaker 1: so we want to seize the moment. Today is training
0:53
Speaker 1: camps open across the NFL. To bring on two of
0:58
Speaker 1: my favorite leagues could be Action Networks smartest people. They're
1:06
Speaker 1: going to discuss, Simon. I think you and I can agree.
1:11
Speaker 1: The luck rankings have revolutionized how we've looked at games
1:17
Speaker 1: the past couple of years. This is like, it's very
1:23
Speaker 1: infrequent that a new stat is created that has such
1:28
Speaker 1: a huge impact on how we look at the games,
1:32
Speaker 1: and that is so accurate in terms of reflecting quality
1:37
Speaker 1: of play, quality of teams, separating signals from the noise
1:43
Speaker 1: in how we do our jobs.
1:44
Speaker 2: You know, I love it. I know that you love it.
1:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, they've taken some of that stupid people like me.
1:49
Speaker 3: They say, well, I'm buying loan a team and actually
1:51
Speaker 3: put some math behind it. So for years I always
1:54
Speaker 3: talked about me and Chad love buying low on teams.
1:57
Speaker 3: I get embarrassed, especially in primetime games. And then he
2:00
Speaker 3: become a couple of geniuses that actually can put the
2:01
Speaker 3: data behind it. And uh, you know, even even when
2:04
Speaker 3: me and you don't even see an edge, they come
2:06
Speaker 3: to us of these luck rankings. We go, Okay, that's
2:08
Speaker 3: actually a pretty huge edge in that game. So yeah,
2:11
Speaker 3: we love it.
2:12
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, the engine of our predictive analytics team.
2:16
Speaker 1: Two of the most respected people in the industry, Sean
2:20
Speaker 1: Kerner and doctor Nick Giffen Fellas.
2:26
Speaker 4: Patty, what's going on. It's been a long off season.
2:31
Speaker 1: It has been a long off seas. I mean, you
2:33
Speaker 1: don't have an off season, no, doctor Nick.
2:36
Speaker 3: I don't.
2:36
Speaker 4: With basketball and NASCAR.
2:38
Speaker 1: And his true story, true story, I was interviewing a
2:42
Speaker 1: candidate for a job and this is always a really
2:45
Speaker 1: good indicator to me of whether or not someone knows
2:48
Speaker 1: our business, because everyone always like, I'm so excited about
2:52
Speaker 1: Action Network blah blah blah blah blah blah. And so
2:54
Speaker 1: I'll be like, tell me about your how did you
2:57
Speaker 1: find Action Network? And so he started telling me that
3:01
Speaker 1: originally he was betting a lot of hockey and was
3:06
Speaker 1: trying to make hockey models, but then discovered the Action
3:10
Speaker 1: Network app and started to bet Nascar, and he named
3:15
Speaker 1: not ass Like, tell me, you know, who do you
3:19
Speaker 1: like to follow in the app? The first person he
3:21
Speaker 1: named doctor Nick Giffen because of Nascar. That's how you
3:25
Speaker 1: know somebody loves Action And of course we immediately hired
3:30
Speaker 1: that person.
3:33
Speaker 4: I like it.
3:35
Speaker 1: Nick's a little low right now because he's he's injured.
3:39
Speaker 1: Otherwise I feel like he'd be jumping out of his
3:41
Speaker 1: seat with the recognition.
3:44
Speaker 4: I don't know it kind of yeah, I don't know.
3:47
Speaker 4: I get a little embarrassed on the recognition sometimes.
3:49
Speaker 3: I told you, my favorite Nick story is we're all
3:51
Speaker 3: in the office together, Chad and I think we hit
3:54
Speaker 3: It was like a seventeen to one or ten to
3:56
Speaker 3: one guy to score a touchdown and we're all going crazy,
3:59
Speaker 3: we're all celebrating, and Nick is just right back on
4:01
Speaker 3: his computer looking for the next guy to bet live.
4:03
Speaker 3: I was just like, this guy is a machine. Truly,
4:07
Speaker 3: you are a.
4:07
Speaker 2: Machine, Nick, You know what, Shawn Kerner's not that either.
4:11
Speaker 3: These are right.
4:12
Speaker 1: As a reminder, the Favorites Podcast is presented by Bet
4:15
Speaker 1: three sixty five Bet three six five. Doesn't you ordinary?
4:18
Speaker 1: That's why you get more boosts with them than with
4:19
Speaker 1: anyone else. Every day they pill out the odds one
4:22
Speaker 1: hundreds of bests to give you a chance to win more.
4:24
Speaker 1: Bet three sixty five boost specific markets, your winnings and
4:27
Speaker 1: even parlays, and they don't stop there, keeping at for
4:29
Speaker 1: their biggest and best odds with the incredible super Boost.
4:33
Speaker 1: Check out the boost and see why it's never ordinary
4:35
Speaker 1: at Bet three sixty five. Must be twenty one or
4:37
Speaker 1: older and present in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina,
4:41
Speaker 1: New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, or eighteen and older in Kentucky.
4:46
Speaker 1: Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or one eight
4:49
Speaker 1: hundred bets off in Iowa terms. Conditioned restrictions apply. Don't
4:52
Speaker 1: forget very important programming note for those listening and those watching,
4:59
Speaker 1: we're excited to share that are popular college sports betting brand,
5:04
Speaker 1: BBOC is launching its very own YouTube channel. Get every
5:11
Speaker 1: episode of the BBOC podcast, plus live shows and other
5:15
Speaker 1: exclusive content on the new BBOC channels starting this Thursday,
5:21
Speaker 1: July twenty fifth. Whether you're into college football, college basketball,
5:26
Speaker 1: college baseball, any other college sports, our new BBOC is
5:31
Speaker 1: the channel for you. Make sure to subscribe now so
5:35
Speaker 1: you don't miss any of the fun college football action
5:39
Speaker 1: this season. All right, Cerner, Yeah, we love the luck rankings.
5:48
Speaker 1: I remember exactly where we were when the idea for
5:53
Speaker 1: the luck rankings was hatched. Explain to people what the
5:59
Speaker 1: luck rankings are. Why you do all this work, why
6:02
Speaker 1: create these things?
6:04
Speaker 5: Yeah? So, you know, Simon actually hit the nail on
6:06
Speaker 5: the head when he was saying, you know, we're looking
6:09
Speaker 5: for teams to buy low sell high on. So I
6:12
Speaker 5: had been using a similar concept to the luck rankings
6:16
Speaker 5: years ago when I was trying to attack you know,
6:18
Speaker 5: season long win totals and you know, the ideas that
6:22
Speaker 5: a team's record, you know, is a factual thing, but
6:25
Speaker 5: it can be misleading because there's a ton of other
6:28
Speaker 5: factors at play, a lot of which are due to luck.
6:32
Speaker 5: So I was just looking at more high level things
6:35
Speaker 5: like a team's one score records, strength of schedule, injury luck,
6:39
Speaker 5: opponent field goal luck, and other factors. So the idea
6:42
Speaker 5: was just to get a sense of which teams are
6:44
Speaker 5: probably over or underachieving and look to you know, buy
6:49
Speaker 5: or sell the upcoming season. During the season, you know,
6:53
Speaker 5: I would, I would kind of play around with it
6:55
Speaker 5: and you know, kind of use that for my spread bets.
6:59
Speaker 5: But you know, eventually I realized, you know, this is
7:01
Speaker 5: probably a really good idea that can be like formalized
7:05
Speaker 5: and used in season. And you know what better person,
7:08
Speaker 5: the genius that is Nick get him to come up
7:11
Speaker 5: with the formalized version of this. But that was kind
7:13
Speaker 5: of the overall idea of it. And I was just
7:15
Speaker 5: you know, rubbing two sticks together. And then Nick, you know,
7:18
Speaker 5: invented sort of the convention oven of like just making
7:21
Speaker 5: it work. But that was kind of the idea behind it,
7:23
Speaker 5: kind of because we all have our own perceptions of
7:26
Speaker 5: teams and stuff which can be skewed. So just a
7:28
Speaker 5: way to kind of look at the underlying data, underlying
7:31
Speaker 5: luck factors and kind of, you know, really gauge which
7:33
Speaker 5: teams we should be betting on or fading hearnery.
7:37
Speaker 1: You set up Nick so nicely, and I know he's
7:41
Speaker 1: super shy and doesn't like the attention, but Nick, please
7:46
Speaker 1: explain the actual mechanics. What are we talking about here?
7:52
Speaker 1: What do they quantify? How did you test these?
7:56
Speaker 4: Yeah? So obviously Sean approached me about this, and uh, I,
8:02
Speaker 4: you know have I basically got my start in sports
8:06
Speaker 4: analytics with college basketball and Ken Pomeroy has a luck
8:13
Speaker 4: column on his you know, his homepage there, and I've
8:18
Speaker 4: always been super interested in, you know, like the saber
8:20
Speaker 4: metrics behind sports, whether it's baseball or basketball or anything
8:24
Speaker 4: like that. And so there's something called Pythagorean expectation or
8:30
Speaker 4: Pythagorean wins, and very often that's used as a way of,
8:35
Speaker 4: you know, saying which teams were lucky or which teams
8:37
Speaker 4: were unlucky, which is based off of your point scored
8:41
Speaker 4: and your points allowed. However, points Gordon points allowed can
8:46
Speaker 4: be a little misleading, which is where we get to
8:49
Speaker 4: the idea of the luck ranking. So instead of doing
8:52
Speaker 4: points Gordon points allowed and just you know, taking that expectation,
8:56
Speaker 4: I went another level with it, and there's actually multiple
8:59
Speaker 4: levels you can go, and there's some called second order
9:01
Speaker 4: Pythagorean wins or third order Pythagoreon wins, and second order
9:05
Speaker 4: is basically saying, instead of using your point differential, we'll
9:08
Speaker 4: use your expected point differential, right, because if you get
9:13
Speaker 4: a lot of ninety nine yard touchdowns, that's not sustainable,
9:17
Speaker 4: but that shows up in your point differential, but it
9:20
Speaker 4: wouldn't really be your expected point differential. So that's kind
9:23
Speaker 4: of the idea. But instead of just using scoring plays
9:28
Speaker 4: or luck based plays, right, like maybe if you're on
9:33
Speaker 4: defense and you're the opposing team drops a wide open pass,
9:35
Speaker 4: yeah that's lucky or fumble luck, those kinds of things.
9:39
Speaker 4: Instead of just using those purely luck based plays, I
9:42
Speaker 4: use every single play in the whole game, and I say, okay,
9:46
Speaker 4: it's first and ten from the twenty five yard line.
9:51
Speaker 4: What does this team do against the opposing team on
9:55
Speaker 4: first and ten from the twenty five yard line? If
9:57
Speaker 4: we replayed this a million times, and then what happened
10:00
Speaker 4: on this specific play? Did that come over or under
10:03
Speaker 4: the average expectation? If we replayed that situation a million times?
10:06
Speaker 4: And the nice thing is it adjusts for the team's strength. Right,
10:09
Speaker 4: So we're talking about if it's the Eagles versus the
10:12
Speaker 4: New York Giants or something like that, you know, and
10:15
Speaker 4: the Eagles offense and the Giants defense, we're expecting the
10:17
Speaker 4: Eagles to have a better baseline than if it was
10:20
Speaker 4: the New York Giants offense versus the forty nine Ers
10:23
Speaker 4: defense or something like that. So it adjust relative to
10:25
Speaker 4: each team strength as well. So it's not just saying
10:28
Speaker 4: the average NFL play, saying the average NFL play based
10:31
Speaker 4: off these team strengths, and that automatically injury adjusts because
10:35
Speaker 4: if you have one of your best players injured, the
10:38
Speaker 4: expectation changes as well. So it really is a true
10:42
Speaker 4: measure of team luck. And it takes every single play
10:46
Speaker 4: from the whole NFL season and then produces an expected score.
10:50
Speaker 4: How many points should this team have scored in the
10:52
Speaker 4: game and how many points should they have allowed in
10:55
Speaker 4: this game? And you know, like I said, a lot
10:59
Speaker 4: of things go in to it every single play, team strengths,
11:02
Speaker 4: play volume, FUELD position, all that stuff goes into it,
11:06
Speaker 4: and we get an expected score and from there we
11:08
Speaker 4: can derive an expected win or loss percentage. Compare that
11:13
Speaker 4: to a team's actual women loss, and then we can
11:15
Speaker 4: get what we call our luck percentage.
11:18
Speaker 2: Samon, I know you want to jump in. Let me
11:19
Speaker 2: just ask Nick to do one thing.
11:22
Speaker 1: Explain to people why you're called doctor Nick, because I
11:26
Speaker 1: think it's worthwhile for them to understand the baseline from
11:32
Speaker 1: which you come to be able to do this kind
11:36
Speaker 1: of math.
11:37
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I have a background in mathematics. Both my
11:42
Speaker 4: parents were mathematics teachers at University of Virginia, and so
11:47
Speaker 4: naturally I fell into a math background as well. I
11:51
Speaker 4: got my undergrad in mathematics, but then I also got
11:54
Speaker 4: my PhD in mathematics, which is why I am a
11:57
Speaker 4: doctor of mathematics. So that's why you call me doctor Nick.
12:02
Speaker 3: And I'm sure Nick got sick of me and Chad
12:04
Speaker 3: couldn't anytime we lose a bet. I feel like every
12:06
Speaker 3: time chat, we're texting doctor Nick here and being like, hey,
12:09
Speaker 3: we're on the right side. Right the maths work didn't
12:11
Speaker 3: work out for us, but mathematically we were on the
12:13
Speaker 3: right side. Nick's just nicely, He's like, yeah, you guys
12:16
Speaker 3: probably had a seventy percent chance of covering that game.
12:18
Speaker 3: You really shouldn't and Yeah, that's that's why we love
12:22
Speaker 3: throwing in and we talk about the time, it's probability,
12:25
Speaker 3: all the math behind this. I mean, it's just so
12:27
Speaker 3: heavy and people get annoyed abyt the like you guys
12:30
Speaker 3: talk about the numbers so much and trust in your system.
12:32
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, you can't always go against the numbers, right.
12:36
Speaker 3: There's like there's times here me and Chat talking on
12:37
Speaker 3: the show, we like a side. If these guys are
12:39
Speaker 3: on the other side their luck rankings and a couple
12:41
Speaker 3: of other stuff, the trends on the other side of it,
12:43
Speaker 3: Me and Chat will walk away from those bets, right,
12:45
Speaker 3: And more often than not, it's worked out from us.
12:47
Speaker 3: So I know it sounds crazy for people, but there
12:49
Speaker 3: really is. There's a rhythm behind this. So just to
12:52
Speaker 3: follow up one and Nick, there's a difference right between
12:55
Speaker 3: what you guys are doing here in DVOA.
12:57
Speaker 4: Correct, absolutely, And you know that was one of the
13:00
Speaker 4: things I like to talk about. So DVOA measures and
13:02
Speaker 4: it's a great metric. I love DVOA. We use it
13:05
Speaker 4: all the time, but it measures.
13:06
Speaker 3: What happened on man's numbers, right, Yeah.
13:09
Speaker 4: It's it's I mean, there's a lot of high level
13:12
Speaker 4: map that goes into that as well, but it measures
13:15
Speaker 4: what happened on the field, so it doesn't measure luck.
13:20
Speaker 4: It is saying, this is what happened. And if you're
13:22
Speaker 4: the luckiest team in the world and every bounce your
13:24
Speaker 4: way and every ninety nine yard play was a touchdown,
13:27
Speaker 4: it would say you're the greatest team in the history
13:29
Speaker 4: of the world. But you'd be expected to regress, and
13:32
Speaker 4: it doesn't tell you that, right, So it's a wonderful metric.
13:36
Speaker 4: It tells you how teams have performed, but it doesn't
13:39
Speaker 4: tell you how teams are probably going to perform going forward.
13:44
Speaker 4: And I think that's one of the nice things about
13:45
Speaker 4: the Luck rankings is it's forward looking. You mentioned simon
13:48
Speaker 4: buying high or buying low or selling high on a team, Well,
13:52
Speaker 4: you can buy low in a couple different ways. If
13:55
Speaker 4: a team wins barely wins, you wouldn't really consider that
13:59
Speaker 4: a buy low. But what they should have won by
14:00
Speaker 4: twenty right, and they won by one point. That's a
14:05
Speaker 4: way to buy low on a team, and people don't
14:07
Speaker 4: often see that way. And I think that's something that's
14:10
Speaker 4: really cool about the Luck rankings is we now have
14:13
Speaker 4: a way to see that we have a way to
14:15
Speaker 4: see we can buy low even if the team is
14:18
Speaker 4: three and oh. You know, maybe they're three and oh,
14:21
Speaker 4: and they should be three and oh with a plus
14:23
Speaker 4: fifty point differential instead of three and oh with a
14:25
Speaker 4: plus five point differential or something like that, just based
14:28
Speaker 4: off the way the bounces have gone. And conversely, there
14:31
Speaker 4: could be an oh and three team that we actually
14:33
Speaker 4: don't want to buy low on because they should be
14:35
Speaker 4: zero and three.
14:36
Speaker 3: Right.
14:36
Speaker 4: So, uh, this is now a way for us to
14:39
Speaker 4: really see how teams are doing compared to their record
14:43
Speaker 4: or compared to their point differentials, you know, versus what
14:46
Speaker 4: they actually should be.
14:48
Speaker 2: So Simon is right.
14:52
Speaker 1: I would say over the past two years since we
14:56
Speaker 1: launched Luck Rankings, the number of times we have both
15:01
Speaker 1: liked the side that we thought was against the numbers
15:05
Speaker 1: that years past we definitely would have bet that game.
15:08
Speaker 1: Since the Luck Rankings, we'll look at and like, by Thursday,
15:12
Speaker 1: when the Luck Rankings have come out and like this
15:14
Speaker 1: game would have been one of our top five games,
15:16
Speaker 1: We'll be like, ah, fuck, the Luck Rankings.
15:19
Speaker 2: Don't like it and like it changes. It makes us
15:22
Speaker 2: so upset.
15:23
Speaker 1: Sean, Yeah, last year's unluckiest teams and describe sort of
15:31
Speaker 1: the teams and then how you're defining the percentage in
15:35
Speaker 1: like how you're using percentages to define the luck and unlucky.
15:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, so let's just talk three unluckiest teams, and I
15:42
Speaker 5: guess it's kind of ironic they're all from the NSC South.
15:45
Speaker 5: The unluckiest team from last season was the Carolina Panthers.
15:50
Speaker 5: You know, they only won two games, but they were
15:53
Speaker 5: expected to win around four and a half, which I
15:56
Speaker 5: believe is their current win total right now. But you know,
15:59
Speaker 5: they were arguably the worsting league and had quite a
16:02
Speaker 5: bit of bout luck. So I think it's fair for
16:05
Speaker 5: us to be down on them. But I think just
16:07
Speaker 5: due to a lot of the underlying factors we've discussed,
16:09
Speaker 5: maybe they weren't as bad as we thought. You know,
16:13
Speaker 5: they went two and six and one score games. And
16:16
Speaker 5: the thing with one score games is you would expect
16:18
Speaker 5: most teams to be around five hundred when a game falls,
16:22
Speaker 5: but within you know, one score, it's kind of lucky
16:25
Speaker 5: when you win versus you know, if you were to
16:27
Speaker 5: blow a team out of the water and win by
16:28
Speaker 5: ten plus, it's less luck in that case. So you know,
16:32
Speaker 5: they were on two wins fewer just looking at their
16:35
Speaker 5: one score record. Plus you know, opponents made ninety six
16:39
Speaker 5: percent of their field goals against them. That's something that's
16:42
Speaker 5: kind of outside of the control and probably contributed to
16:45
Speaker 5: them losing so many, you know, close games. They were
16:48
Speaker 5: third worst in injury luck, which is kind of outside
16:51
Speaker 5: of the luck rankings. But when it comes to looking
16:54
Speaker 5: at their you know, twenty twenty four outlook, this is
16:56
Speaker 5: a team that checks all the boxes of a team
16:59
Speaker 5: that I think webably by on. I think they're going, oh,
17:01
Speaker 5: you're shaking your head already. Oh, it's just.
17:04
Speaker 2: Because I can't believe you're doing this to us.
17:06
Speaker 1: We bet the Carolina Panthers so often last year, so
17:11
Speaker 1: many times.
17:12
Speaker 3: Whose we oh you guys end of the season though,
17:16
Speaker 3: end of season towards.
17:18
Speaker 1: Das towards the end of season, like we were on
17:21
Speaker 1: them constantly because a because of luck ranks, but be like,
17:24
Speaker 1: at that point in the.
17:25
Speaker 2: Year, they were so undervalued.
17:29
Speaker 3: We're getting free by points every week.
17:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so like we were constantly betting them and
17:34
Speaker 1: constantly losing on the pad and like.
17:39
Speaker 3: The worst ugliest fashion you can even imagine, though every
17:42
Speaker 3: time it was pure heartbreak.
17:44
Speaker 4: But that's the thing is, like, you know, when teams
17:46
Speaker 4: are unlucky and we bet on them, there's still only
17:50
Speaker 4: a you know, I wouldn't say fifty to fifty chance,
17:52
Speaker 4: but like there's they're undervalued in the market, but there's
17:55
Speaker 4: still a chance they don't improve. Right, we expect regression,
17:59
Speaker 4: but it they'lln't always happen. So that's the whole point. Like,
18:02
Speaker 4: we haven't even talked about the record of the luck rankings,
18:05
Speaker 4: but luck rankings hit it over a sixty rate, over
18:09
Speaker 4: a long, big second size.
18:11
Speaker 1: We're going to get there. That is the That is
18:14
Speaker 1: the kicker. That's what's going to keep people sticking around.
18:17
Speaker 1: Is you tellent talking about the threshold and the percentage,
18:20
Speaker 1: the win percentage against the spread, the luck rankings. We've
18:24
Speaker 1: already talked about how the Panthers are going to be
18:25
Speaker 1: a team. Simon and I have said this that we're
18:28
Speaker 1: practically on every week and we can't believe we're going
18:30
Speaker 1: to ask our listeners to do that again.
18:33
Speaker 3: So the most expensive they have the most expensive line
18:35
Speaker 3: on football now chats. So I'm moving it's going to
18:36
Speaker 3: eat people's pain. I'm like, hey, there's there's some logic
18:38
Speaker 3: behind this, Uh parent Panthers love this year.
18:41
Speaker 2: So now we know was wearing the Panthers hat.
18:44
Speaker 3: Yep, yeph.
18:47
Speaker 2: Who else? Who else? Is the bottom of the list.
18:49
Speaker 2: You mentioned three teams.
18:51
Speaker 5: So the second unluckiest were the New Orleans Saints. You know,
18:56
Speaker 5: they they did win nine games, but they're expected wintles
18:59
Speaker 5: closer to eleven and a half similar situation where they
19:02
Speaker 5: were three and six in one score games, so a
19:05
Speaker 5: bit of you know, unluckiness there. But they had a
19:08
Speaker 5: plus seventy five point differential. Just for reference, you know,
19:12
Speaker 5: the Chiefs had a plus seventy seven point differential. You know,
19:16
Speaker 5: they finished with eleven wins. The Lions had a plus
19:19
Speaker 5: sixty six point differential. They had twelve wins. So you know,
19:22
Speaker 5: the Saints played much better than the record. Now, having
19:26
Speaker 5: said that, you know, they did have the seventh best
19:29
Speaker 5: injury luck and they had the easiest schedule, so I'm
19:31
Speaker 5: not saying that we can necessarily bank on them to
19:34
Speaker 5: have more wins this year. So, out of the three
19:36
Speaker 5: teams from the MC South that were the unluckiest teams,
19:40
Speaker 5: they're probably the least likely team for me personally to
19:43
Speaker 5: back their over because we can't bet on the over
19:45
Speaker 5: on everybody in the NFC South. So they're a team
19:48
Speaker 5: where they were certainly unlucky, but they didn't really check
19:51
Speaker 5: the boxes for me of you know, twenty twenty four
19:53
Speaker 5: bounce back or success or an improvement in win total.
19:57
Speaker 5: I think it was just based on last year. They
19:59
Speaker 5: played much better than their nine one record indicated, but again,
20:03
Speaker 5: were there were other factors around that outside of luck.
20:06
Speaker 3: Chad, you know, I'm a Derek Carr truther. I'll just
20:08
Speaker 3: say this really quick. From week eleven to week eighteen,
20:12
Speaker 3: number two quarterback and Pro Football Focus Derek Carr. So
20:16
Speaker 3: I know it's not saying much because Derek Carr, they
20:19
Speaker 3: didn't really win that many games in the stretch, but
20:21
Speaker 3: he didn't play as bad as people perceived last year
20:23
Speaker 3: once he got comfortable in the offense. That's kind of
20:25
Speaker 3: my whole point with then just going to this year,
20:27
Speaker 3: people should know bookmakers say right now they're the least
20:31
Speaker 3: beat team in the futures market and win total Super
20:34
Speaker 3: Bowl Divisional odds. No one believes in the Saints in
20:37
Speaker 3: this upcoming season.
20:38
Speaker 1: Well, you know what the problem is, and this is
20:40
Speaker 1: something that's interesting to me about the luck rankings that
20:42
Speaker 1: I don't want to go too deeply in now because
20:45
Speaker 1: I want to give full context. But we don't like
20:48
Speaker 1: the Saints because we think Dennis Allen is a terrible coach,
20:52
Speaker 1: And what Sean is saying to me supports the idea
20:58
Speaker 1: that their luck is partially driven by really bad strategy
21:04
Speaker 1: and decision making and not putting them in a position
21:08
Speaker 1: to succeed and to have any luck. So the Panthers
21:11
Speaker 1: makes more sense, whereas the Saints it makes sense that
21:15
Speaker 1: their luck ranking is so low because Dennis Allen is
21:18
Speaker 1: just not very good at his job, Sean, who else?
21:24
Speaker 5: So the third unluckiest team again signing at the NF
21:26
Speaker 5: his South, is the Atlanta Falcons. You know, they they
21:30
Speaker 5: ended up only winning seven games, but they were expected
21:34
Speaker 5: to win around eight and a half, which wasn't any
21:36
Speaker 5: good for my over eight and a half win total
21:39
Speaker 5: ticket for them last year. So I guess this is
21:40
Speaker 5: one of those situations where Nick would agree that, you know,
21:43
Speaker 5: maybe I was a bit unlucky backing their over last year.
21:47
Speaker 5: But they're a team where there were certainly a ton
21:49
Speaker 5: of signals of bad luck, you know, four and six
21:51
Speaker 5: record one score games, opponents made ninety five percent of
21:54
Speaker 5: field goals against them, so similar thing where you know
21:57
Speaker 5: a lot of those close games maybe was driven by
22:00
Speaker 5: bad field goal luck. You know, I think it's safe
22:03
Speaker 5: to say that one of the drivers of the Falcons
22:06
Speaker 5: seven win season was his poor quarterback play. You know,
22:09
Speaker 5: Desmond Ridder was sort of certifiably bad. And if your
22:13
Speaker 5: called the first time I actually walked the plank betting
22:16
Speaker 5: on the Panthers wasn't till Week fifteen when they played
22:18
Speaker 5: the Falcons, and I watched that entire game. It was awful,
22:21
Speaker 5: and I would say Desmond Ridder literally lost that game,
22:24
Speaker 5: Like if they had any other quarterback, they win that game.
22:27
Speaker 5: So looking ahead to twenty twenty four, they are absolutely
22:31
Speaker 5: correcting that by bringing in a veteran like Kirk Cousins.
22:34
Speaker 5: They have all the pieces there, but just bring in,
22:36
Speaker 5: you know, a quarterback like Kirk Cousins and that can
22:39
Speaker 5: just really boost the incoming regression anyway. So that's why
22:43
Speaker 5: I do like them. But they did make the bizarre move,
22:46
Speaker 5: you know, in terms of short term prospects by drafting
22:49
Speaker 5: Michael Pennix in the top ten. But you could argue
22:53
Speaker 5: that they had one of the potentially better backup quarterbacks,
22:57
Speaker 5: which can you know, raise their team's floor or whatnot.
23:00
Speaker 5: They're a team similar to the Panthers where I'm definitely
23:03
Speaker 5: interested investing twenty twenty four. I think they check all
23:07
Speaker 5: the boxes of a team that you know will bounce back.
23:10
Speaker 5: And I know the market's probably higher on them than
23:12
Speaker 5: the Panthers, but they're one of those teams that I
23:15
Speaker 5: think is they definitely have a lot of signals of
23:18
Speaker 5: bouncing back and exceeding expectations this season.
23:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, They're fascinating to me, and you know, our listeners
23:26
Speaker 1: know we're an Atlanta Falcons podcast. We cannot quit the
23:29
Speaker 1: Atlanta Falcons. And I feel badly for Arthur Smith. I
23:33
Speaker 1: think the guy kind of got shafted. They didn't give
23:35
Speaker 1: him any players to really run that offense, and so
23:40
Speaker 1: how can he be blamed for not being able to
23:42
Speaker 1: utilize Jon or Kyle Pitts or even Drake London to
23:47
Speaker 1: the extent that he's able to And they've got nobody
23:50
Speaker 1: who can throw the ball and is constantly losing you games. Simon,
23:56
Speaker 1: We're going to be betting a lot of the most irrelevant
24:00
Speaker 1: division in all of football this year.
24:02
Speaker 3: We'll see because I as much as I do like
24:05
Speaker 3: what Atlanta's done offensively, they lost their DC who I love.
24:09
Speaker 3: I mean obviously their head coach. He's specialty is defense,
24:12
Speaker 3: But that's a big deal to me. And their D line,
24:14
Speaker 3: Chad I got them the greatt my third worst D
24:16
Speaker 3: line head into the season. So yeah, they might be
24:19
Speaker 3: one of the easiest teams to run the ball against
24:21
Speaker 3: this upcoming season. I mean, I think their top two
24:23
Speaker 3: pass rushers left, so it is a big deal. Like
24:26
Speaker 3: it is a big deal Atlanta. Atlanta's defense might be bad,
24:29
Speaker 3: but again, if we're talking fantasy and offense, that's even
24:32
Speaker 3: better if you like the Atlanta offense. So Nick, give
24:35
Speaker 3: it to us man. Who is you know the twenty
24:38
Speaker 3: twenty three luckiest teams? We just went from the worst
24:41
Speaker 3: two were the luckiest. I already know one. I'll stop
24:43
Speaker 3: my head. Let's break it all down real quick.
24:47
Speaker 4: If you all remember, not last year, but the year before,
24:50
Speaker 4: who was one of the luckiest teams that was the
24:54
Speaker 4: Kirk Cousins led Minnesota Vikings. Right right now, he's with Atlanta,
24:58
Speaker 4: so you know, I got you guys mentioned coaching. I
25:02
Speaker 4: think there could be a little bit to the style
25:04
Speaker 4: of quarterback play that also can lend itself to being
25:06
Speaker 4: high or lower, and the luck rankings, we'll talk about that.
25:08
Speaker 4: But the luckiest team from last year was the Pittsburgh Steelers.
25:14
Speaker 4: They topped our luck rankings almost weekly last year. Not
25:19
Speaker 4: every week, but a lot of the weeks. They were
25:21
Speaker 4: the luckiest team if we look prior to to week eighteen, right,
25:26
Speaker 4: because in Week eighteen they played the Baltimore Ravens with
25:29
Speaker 4: Aul Lamar Jackson. But prior to Week eighteen, the Steelers
25:32
Speaker 4: had a minus twenty seven point differential. It was even
25:35
Speaker 4: lower in expected point differential. And the Steelers went overall
25:40
Speaker 4: last year nine and two in one score games nine
25:44
Speaker 4: and two. That's yeah, that's crazy. That's completely unsustainable. And
25:49
Speaker 4: another thing that was unsustainable was the way they scored.
25:52
Speaker 4: And this is part of why they were so lucky.
25:54
Speaker 4: When we you know, I talk about all those ninety
25:56
Speaker 4: nine yard touchdowns, I wasn't exaggerating almost with the Steelers, beak,
26:00
Speaker 4: they had the fourth highest touchdown rate off of explosive plays.
26:04
Speaker 4: If you look at all their touchdowns and then take
26:07
Speaker 4: the ones that were from explosive plays, they had the
26:09
Speaker 4: fourth highest rate of that. But they had the highest
26:12
Speaker 4: rate of touchdowns that came from sixty plus yard plays,
26:17
Speaker 4: number one in the NFL. And that's crazy because as
26:20
Speaker 4: far as their overall explosive play rate, they were just
26:22
Speaker 4: a mid pack team. So that's way above their expectation.
26:26
Speaker 4: That's something you would absolutely expect to regress and completely
26:29
Speaker 4: unsustainable way of scoring. And I remember through the first
26:33
Speaker 4: like six or seven weeks of the season, they only
26:36
Speaker 4: had one like normal touchdown. Everything else was either a
26:39
Speaker 4: defensive touchdown, a sixty plus yard touchdown, or like a
26:43
Speaker 4: fifty plus yard field goal. I mean, you can't sustain
26:47
Speaker 4: winning that way, especially.
26:49
Speaker 1: Like this was a team who all season, like the
26:53
Speaker 1: knock was on how bad their offense was, like just dreadful.
26:57
Speaker 1: So that's stat which I didn't even know, is so
27:01
Speaker 1: reflective of luck and opportunity that comes in a flash
27:07
Speaker 1: that you cannot count on. And it's the exact reflection
27:11
Speaker 1: of a team like the Steelers being lucky.
27:13
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly. And you know I mentioned they.
27:16
Speaker 2: Go freaking brilliant.
27:18
Speaker 4: Oh my god, they got a backup quarterback in the
27:20
Speaker 4: last week of the rego season. Well other six divisional games,
27:23
Speaker 4: four of them came against backup quarterbacks. Now, that's not
27:26
Speaker 4: particularly lucky in terms of the luck rankings because it
27:29
Speaker 4: adjusts for that, right you're playing a worst quarterback or
27:31
Speaker 4: something like that, that's already accounted for. But that's just
27:34
Speaker 4: something else that kind of inflates their record compared to
27:37
Speaker 4: what it could have been, you know. So it's something
27:40
Speaker 4: to consider when we're talking about maybe potential future win totals.
27:44
Speaker 4: So the Pittsburgh Steelers the unluckiest or sorry, the luckiest
27:48
Speaker 4: team in the NFL last year. Simon knows where I'm
27:51
Speaker 4: going to go with the next one.
27:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna say, pretty shocking, chat Mike. This
27:54
Speaker 3: has been my twelfth or thirteenth year as a career
27:57
Speaker 3: professional better and this is the first time I've ever
28:00
Speaker 3: read a summer of talking to pros taking the under
28:03
Speaker 3: on Pittsburgh, Like wait to we get into the later
28:06
Speaker 3: in the season. Their schedule Chad brutal this upcoming year,
28:09
Speaker 3: and Nick just touched on it. They had so much
28:11
Speaker 3: injury luck last year in their division that Joe Burrow
28:14
Speaker 3: was down. They called Lamar with a back when the
28:16
Speaker 3: Ravens had a backup, and even if you remember that
28:18
Speaker 3: game against the Ravens, they're losing the entire game. I
28:21
Speaker 3: think there was like a turnover or pick or something
28:23
Speaker 3: like that. All a sudden they're up seventeen to ten
28:24
Speaker 3: with two minutes ago against the Ravens. It's just things
28:27
Speaker 3: always bounced their way, and I think the pros are
28:29
Speaker 3: finally going against them this upcoming season.
28:31
Speaker 4: Chad uh Nick, who was number two, number two, let's
28:35
Speaker 4: stay in the state of Pennsylvania and go to Simon
28:37
Speaker 4: Hunter's Philadelphia Eagles. And I mean, Simon knows they were
28:42
Speaker 4: definitely a lucky team. Last year started ten and one,
28:46
Speaker 4: ended eleven and six, losing five to the last year predictalous.
28:50
Speaker 3: So you guys, you said it for You and Sean
28:51
Speaker 3: were both saying it for about three four weeks. We're like,
28:53
Speaker 3: they're gonna go off a cliff here. Eventually they're gonna
28:55
Speaker 3: off the cliff, and Boyd and me and Chad ride
28:58
Speaker 3: that and going off that cliff. We needed it to
29:00
Speaker 3: finish a buff five.
29:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, you remember when that Do you remember when they
29:02
Speaker 4: started going off the cliff. It was when we were
29:04
Speaker 4: all together. Yeah, when we're all together for.
29:10
Speaker 1: They went off the cliff that forty nine Ers Eagles game,
29:13
Speaker 1: and we were all on the Niners. But it was
29:16
Speaker 1: the week before they had an overtime game against the Bills,
29:21
Speaker 1: and that, to me and Simon and I did our
29:24
Speaker 1: show that night, that was the beginning of the end.
29:27
Speaker 1: Like they were getting beat up, they were exhausted. It's
29:30
Speaker 1: also when like you know, you could see their defensive
29:34
Speaker 1: line starting a crater, like that's when we lost our
29:37
Speaker 1: Rookie of the Year bet with was it Jordan Davis?
29:40
Speaker 1: Like right right, So.
29:47
Speaker 2: You're so right. That was the beginning of the end.
29:49
Speaker 3: That's the greater point with the luck rankings is like
29:52
Speaker 3: these guys saw through all the bullshit and they were
29:54
Speaker 3: like telling you for weeks this team isn't as good
29:57
Speaker 3: as people perceived. The public is overrating this team, and
29:59
Speaker 3: that again we're trying to hammer home here is that
30:02
Speaker 3: this the luck ranking is look at it differently than
30:04
Speaker 3: you and I can ever look at it.
30:06
Speaker 2: Well. I do want to talk a little bit about Nick.
30:08
Speaker 1: I want you to give give your third team before
30:11
Speaker 1: I ask my follow up question.
30:13
Speaker 4: Sure, so the third team, and you know there's kind
30:17
Speaker 4: of a third and a fourth team, but we'll just
30:18
Speaker 4: stick with the Indianapolis Colts as the third team. They
30:22
Speaker 4: were six and three and one score games. They were
30:25
Speaker 4: two and one in overtime games, so definitely some close
30:27
Speaker 4: game luck if we exclude week eighteen, because Week eighteen
30:31
Speaker 4: always has the weird, weird stuff going on with players
30:33
Speaker 4: being arrested, et cetera, motivations. Through week seventeen, Indianapolis had
30:38
Speaker 4: a minus fifteen point differential, but they were nine and seven.
30:41
Speaker 4: You'd expect them to be more like seven and nine,
30:43
Speaker 4: so they're kind of two wins above expectation and they're
30:47
Speaker 4: expected point differential. They had a minus fifteen, but they're
30:51
Speaker 4: expected was minus forty five, and a lot of that
30:53
Speaker 4: just comes from it was little things. It was a
30:56
Speaker 4: lot of little things. They were twenty second in offensive
31:00
Speaker 4: success rate through week seventeen and only twenty first in
31:03
Speaker 4: defensive success rate, so bottom half, almost bottom ten, and
31:06
Speaker 4: both offensive and defensive success rates through week seventeen, yet
31:11
Speaker 4: they were nine and seven. That's just not a again,
31:13
Speaker 4: not a sustainable formula for a winning team. They also
31:17
Speaker 4: had the third most defensive touchdowns, which you know, again
31:21
Speaker 4: defensive return touchdowns, interceptions for tds, pick sixes, strip sack sixes,
31:27
Speaker 4: those kinds of things. They're nice and there are teams
31:31
Speaker 4: that are better at it, but they still were a
31:33
Speaker 4: little unsustainably high this past year, I think so. I
31:36
Speaker 4: think that was mostly but honestly, it was just a
31:38
Speaker 4: lot of little things. They didn't really stand out in
31:41
Speaker 4: a bunch of categories that were like super lucky. I
31:43
Speaker 4: think it was just a lot of little luck adding
31:45
Speaker 4: up for the innate. It is min you magic, that's right,
31:48
Speaker 4: Garner Michell, That's.
31:49
Speaker 3: All what it was.
31:50
Speaker 1: Well, I will say What's interesting to me and sort
31:53
Speaker 1: of a theme that I've been trying to that this
31:55
Speaker 1: has been leading us to is coaching. And if you
31:59
Speaker 1: look at the teams from last year, Nick, I'm glad
32:01
Speaker 1: you went to the Colts Steelers. Mike Tomlin, traditionally a
32:08
Speaker 1: coach who motivates his teams wins in underdog situations, has
32:11
Speaker 1: never been under five hundred in his career.
32:14
Speaker 2: Eagles a team last year that.
32:17
Speaker 1: A lot of folks thought Nick Sirianni was in over
32:19
Speaker 1: his head, especially because he was without his two coordinators
32:23
Speaker 1: offensively and defensively. One of those coordinators, Shane Steichen, went
32:28
Speaker 1: to the Colts. And so what I'm wondering is are
32:32
Speaker 1: the luck rankings a good representation of coaching factor. Dennis
32:39
Speaker 1: Allen is at the bottom. His team outscored opponents by
32:42
Speaker 1: sixty six points. The other teams that did that had
32:45
Speaker 1: significantly more wins and went into the playoffs.
32:49
Speaker 2: Shane Steichen, his.
32:50
Speaker 1: Team is underperforming in terms of points allowed and points scored,
32:54
Speaker 1: yet they were overachievers. Do coaches have a play affect
33:00
Speaker 1: in putting their teams in position to be lucky, lucky
33:03
Speaker 1: or unlucky? Sean, I don't want to get your take
33:06
Speaker 1: on that first.
33:07
Speaker 5: I think that's that's a great point, and that's certainly,
33:10
Speaker 5: you know, probably an underlying variable that's kind of hard
33:13
Speaker 5: to quantify. But if a team is constantly overachieving, what
33:17
Speaker 5: better reason than the coaching staff. So I do take
33:20
Speaker 5: that into account, and if your call, I was more
33:23
Speaker 5: comfortable backing the Panthers and Falcons heading into the season
33:26
Speaker 5: because they replaced their coaching staffs with with people that
33:30
Speaker 5: I think are there to kind of correct what the
33:33
Speaker 5: problems are, whereas the Saints they still have Dani Sallen,
33:36
Speaker 5: So that could still be an underlying factor. So that's
33:39
Speaker 5: something that Nick and I we talked about throughout the
33:41
Speaker 5: season a lot. We're aware of it. But again Nick's
33:46
Speaker 5: done so much back testing on it that if you
33:47
Speaker 5: were just blindly bet these I don't know if he's
33:51
Speaker 5: gone over all the numbers yet, you'd be doing really good.
33:54
Speaker 5: So we, you know, certainly trust in these. But I
33:57
Speaker 5: think that is one thing that we're we're always kind
34:00
Speaker 5: of cognizant of, is yes, some of these teams that
34:03
Speaker 5: are really unlucky could be to do bad coaching and
34:06
Speaker 5: the lucky team's good coaching. It's just hard to really quantify,
34:09
Speaker 5: but that is something that we're always aware of.
34:12
Speaker 1: Can you name the fastest growing ticketing app in the
34:15
Speaker 1: United States?
34:16
Speaker 3: Game Time?
34:17
Speaker 1: That's right, It's game Time. I love Game Time for
34:19
Speaker 1: two reasons. First, they still sponsor their show. Second, I
34:21
Speaker 1: actually use game Time all the time. They have amazing
34:24
Speaker 1: last minute deals including pro and college basketball and football,
34:28
Speaker 1: speaking of which, I'm actually opening the game Time app
34:31
Speaker 1: right now from my home here in Connecticut. And guess
34:34
Speaker 1: what I can get in to see New York Yankees
34:37
Speaker 1: baseball tomorrow night in the Bronx for less than sixty bucks.
34:41
Speaker 1: No matter where you live, download the game Time app,
34:43
Speaker 1: get out have some fun this week.
34:44
Speaker 4: You deserve it.
34:45
Speaker 1: You can redeem code favorites for twenty dollars off your
34:48
Speaker 1: first purchase. Terms apply again. Just download the game Time
34:50
Speaker 1: app and use code Favorites for twenty dollars off your
34:52
Speaker 1: first purchase. Last minute tickets most prices gair run Tee. Well,
34:59
Speaker 1: I do want to get to the record for luck
35:02
Speaker 1: rankings and luck rankings last year was really revolvatory when
35:06
Speaker 1: it came to totals over unders. The one more thing
35:11
Speaker 1: I'll say about coaching is the Packers were minus one
35:18
Speaker 1: percent in terms of luck, the Rams minus two percent,
35:24
Speaker 1: the Ravens minus two percent. The Chiefs and the Niners
35:28
Speaker 1: were both bottom ten. These are all playoff teams that
35:31
Speaker 1: have some of the best coaches in the NFL that
35:34
Speaker 1: overcame bad luck to put themselves in positions to go
35:38
Speaker 1: all the way to the Super Bowl in the case
35:40
Speaker 1: of the Chief of the Niners, and then win the
35:41
Speaker 1: Super Bowl. That to me says a lot about how
35:44
Speaker 1: good Matt Lafleur, Sean McVay, John Harbaugh, Andy Reid, and
35:52
Speaker 1: Kyle Shanahan are as coaches. Those continue to be safe bets.
35:58
Speaker 4: To me, Yeah, it's interesting plot. You know, over the
36:02
Speaker 4: last let's say six years of the luck rankings times
36:05
Speaker 4: teams end up in the top quarter or top third
36:08
Speaker 4: or top two or three. We would expect one team
36:13
Speaker 4: to have made the top three of the luck rankings
36:16
Speaker 4: in something like four or five out of the six years,
36:19
Speaker 4: and there's one team that has done it is the
36:20
Speaker 4: Pittsburgh Steelers, and of course that's Mike Tomlin. Now is
36:24
Speaker 4: that coaching I don't know, because that's exactly the number
36:28
Speaker 4: of teams we'd expect. Is it just randomly Mike Tomlin?
36:32
Speaker 4: Or is it the one team because it's Mike Tomlin.
36:35
Speaker 4: And then we do the same thing for unlucky teams,
36:38
Speaker 4: and we see there's one team that's done it for
36:40
Speaker 4: out of the six years in terms of being really unlucky.
36:43
Speaker 4: So the distribution almost fits perfectly where you'd expect these
36:46
Speaker 4: things by random chance. But it still feels like there
36:49
Speaker 4: is a coaching element that comes into play. I also
36:52
Speaker 4: think there's a little bit of a quarterback play style
36:58
Speaker 4: that comes into play. We look at some of the
36:59
Speaker 4: unlucky teams Atlanta Falcons, Desmond Ritter, Chicago Bears justin fields,
37:05
Speaker 4: they're really good with their legs, but they aren't necessarily
37:09
Speaker 4: as good throwing the ball, and they were really unlucky teams.
37:12
Speaker 4: Then we look at the really lucky teams a lot
37:15
Speaker 4: more pocket passing type quarterbacks. We've seen Kirk Cousins in
37:18
Speaker 4: the past, all the Steelers, different quarterbacks they had. Last year,
37:22
Speaker 4: Baker Mayfield was fourth in Gardner Minshew. You know, obviously
37:27
Speaker 4: the Eagles could be a little bit of an exceptions.
37:32
Speaker 3: As much second half of the year, So I'm agree
37:34
Speaker 3: with you on that.
37:35
Speaker 4: So there could be a little bit of quarterback archetype
37:38
Speaker 4: in there as well in terms of lucky versus unlucky,
37:41
Speaker 4: a little bit of coaching, but it's hard to like
37:44
Speaker 4: tease all that out, so I mostly just ignore which
37:48
Speaker 4: who the coach is, who the quarterback is, because over
37:51
Speaker 4: a long enough time period, you know, the distributions have
37:55
Speaker 4: played out to fall into exactly the ways we'd expect them.
37:58
Speaker 1: Give us the thresholds, what are the you know, the
38:02
Speaker 1: percentages at which you cover against the spread based on
38:06
Speaker 1: the luck percentage.
38:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we'll just real quick. So in our luck
38:12
Speaker 4: rankings rank one to thirty two, and if there's at
38:15
Speaker 4: least a twenty four place difference in that ordinal luck ranking,
38:20
Speaker 4: we can say the unlucky team is a team we
38:23
Speaker 4: might back to cover the spread, or if the luck
38:26
Speaker 4: percentage number that we have the difference between those two
38:30
Speaker 4: teams is at least fifty percent. Again, we can back
38:32
Speaker 4: the unlucky team here, and last year those sides went
38:36
Speaker 4: sixty percent against the spread fourteen, nine and two. And
38:42
Speaker 4: for totals, we have three different factors we can look
38:45
Speaker 4: at if a luck total and we haven't really talked
38:48
Speaker 4: about luck totals, right, We've only talked about backing unlucky
38:51
Speaker 4: teams or lucky teams. But if teams are scoring more
38:54
Speaker 4: or allowing more points than expected, we would expect that
38:58
Speaker 4: to regress, and vice versa. Teams are not scoring enough
39:01
Speaker 4: or having really lucky defensive stands or things like that,
39:05
Speaker 4: we'd expect them to regress towards more higher scoring games.
39:09
Speaker 4: So we can bet on totals using the luck rankings,
39:11
Speaker 4: and we have three luck total thresholds. A luck total
39:15
Speaker 4: above positive ten after week three, a luck total above
39:19
Speaker 4: positive five after week eleven, or a luck total below
39:23
Speaker 4: minus five anytime after week three, So three different criteria,
39:28
Speaker 4: and luck totals last year went thirty five, nineteen and
39:32
Speaker 4: one in the direction of which we'd expect, which is
39:36
Speaker 4: sixty four and a half percent. So overall prior to
39:39
Speaker 4: week eighteen, forty nine, twenty eight and three on our
39:43
Speaker 4: luck based bets, which just clears sixty three percent. And
39:49
Speaker 4: every year we've had the Luck Rankings, even just back
39:51
Speaker 4: testing the luck rankings have had positive years in all
39:54
Speaker 4: but one and the other one was barely losing year.
39:57
Speaker 4: And that's what we would expect. We're not gonna just
39:59
Speaker 4: blind betting. The luck rankings isn't always going to win.
40:02
Speaker 4: You're going to have years that where unlucky teams stay
40:06
Speaker 4: unlucky and lucky teams stay lucky and things like that.
40:09
Speaker 4: But overall, you know, the Luck Rankings have a very
40:13
Speaker 4: positive record over sixty percent both on you know, backing
40:16
Speaker 4: sides in on totals.
40:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a genius stat And the beauty of everything
40:24
Speaker 1: you've just said is if you go to Action Network
40:29
Speaker 1: and these things really start to kick into gear once
40:31
Speaker 1: we've got about a month of the season under our belt.
40:35
Speaker 1: So as we get into the season, you want to
40:39
Speaker 1: be going to Action Network, checking it out in the app,
40:41
Speaker 1: checking it out in the web, and finding the luck rankings.
40:44
Speaker 1: I think we normally post them Wednesday and Thursday.
40:47
Speaker 4: Right Yeah, we usually have them up Tuesday, right after
40:52
Speaker 4: Monday Night football is done, and then I have them
40:54
Speaker 4: ready to go on Tuesday. But honestly, the luck rankings
40:58
Speaker 4: for betting sides kicks in a gear right away. Week two,
41:01
Speaker 4: we're ready to go. Two weeks two, three, and four
41:05
Speaker 4: have some very high win rates against the spread, and
41:07
Speaker 4: that also is when the most number of games occur
41:11
Speaker 4: in terms of the season, and the luck rankings are
41:14
Speaker 4: a little unlucky last year and that we had fewer
41:16
Speaker 4: games to bet on in terms of unlucky teams than
41:20
Speaker 4: we normally would have in the given years. So hopefully
41:23
Speaker 4: we get a lot more unlucky versus lucky matchups early
41:27
Speaker 4: in the season this year than we had last year.
41:30
Speaker 1: How can we use luck rankings to help us with
41:34
Speaker 1: win totals? Crooner, You talked a little bit about that
41:36
Speaker 1: earlier in the show.
41:38
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I usually have my win totals guide sometime
41:42
Speaker 5: in August, but I definitely leverage these along with some
41:46
Speaker 5: of the other factors I mentioned, like injury luck, like
41:49
Speaker 5: strength of schedule, jump or drop in strength of schedule,
41:54
Speaker 5: things like that, So I leverage these or coaching changes.
41:56
Speaker 5: Like I just said, I'm kind of with you where
41:58
Speaker 5: I think the coaching changes can certainly helped correct a
42:01
Speaker 5: lot of these things that the teams were unlucky in.
42:04
Speaker 5: So I'm factoring all that and when I'm kind of
42:06
Speaker 5: creating my power ratings, but this is a huge, huge
42:10
Speaker 5: part of that, and I kind of talk about that
42:12
Speaker 5: through each team. But again that'll be sometime in August.
42:15
Speaker 5: But I set all these up in my season sim
42:18
Speaker 5: to get you know, divisional odds, things like that, the
42:21
Speaker 5: last undefeated team that forty nine ers bet I had
42:24
Speaker 5: last year, fun markets like that. A lot of that
42:27
Speaker 5: is kind of fueled by this data that we have
42:29
Speaker 5: from last season.
42:33
Speaker 3: I'll give Sean a have the more props too. Is
42:34
Speaker 3: it do you and Chris start up the Fantasy Show
42:37
Speaker 3: this next week or has it already begun? Because last
42:39
Speaker 3: year before our guy Sean here was a number one
42:42
Speaker 3: ranker and all of Fantasy football number one.
42:45
Speaker 5: Our guy here, Sean, You're embarrassing, but now me and
42:49
Speaker 5: that I don't like to be embarrassed, and the Fantasy
42:52
Speaker 5: Flex is now underway as of Yes, let's go, We're back, baby.
42:56
Speaker 1: Go listen to Fantasy Flex with Raybond and Kroner.
43:00
Speaker 2: I believe.
43:03
Speaker 1: Last year the independent third party ranking service Fantasy Pros
43:12
Speaker 1: called Sean Kerner, who has now been number one, I
43:15
Speaker 1: think three or four times.
43:16
Speaker 3: The goat, the goat, the goat.
43:20
Speaker 2: What was it, Sean?
43:21
Speaker 5: Yeah, four times? Four times?
43:23
Speaker 1: Sorry for let's go By the way, Nick Nick would
43:26
Speaker 1: never correct me. He'd be like, I don't even want
43:27
Speaker 1: to talk about it.
43:29
Speaker 3: Shawn's a legend. I mean you go back and listen.
43:31
Speaker 3: Sean was Oliver Pooka. I mean there's just a bunch
43:33
Speaker 3: of times where like you've saved my ass.
43:34
Speaker 4: Especially it was something like the first year ever where
43:37
Speaker 4: Seawan was top ten in every position as well.
43:40
Speaker 5: Yeah you count kicker and defense, but I take those
43:46
Speaker 5: very seriously, so I you know, it was top ten
43:49
Speaker 5: in those as well.
43:50
Speaker 1: Also, by the way, for everybody who has watched Convince
43:53
Speaker 1: Me or should watch Convince Me our Sunday morning preview
43:58
Speaker 1: show that both Simon and Sewan are on, everybody knows
44:01
Speaker 1: Sean knows more about referee stats and how they can
44:05
Speaker 1: impact total. Yes, or anybody in the handicapping business.
44:10
Speaker 5: Or stat keepers when it comes to like adition out
44:13
Speaker 5: tackles things like that.
44:15
Speaker 1: Oh true, Oh my god, I had a mass Crosby
44:17
Speaker 1: over seven tackles prop last year only big on what
44:22
Speaker 1: you said, and I think he got on the first half.
44:24
Speaker 5: That was a fun one. Yeah, I forgot the game.
44:26
Speaker 5: He tackled the like it wasn't even a sack, he
44:28
Speaker 5: just tackled the quarterback in the backfill or something that.
44:30
Speaker 5: Those are always fun. Look for more of those this year.
44:32
Speaker 5: I'm going to find that model.
44:35
Speaker 2: Look for it all.
44:36
Speaker 1: Follow Sean Kerner in the Action Network app. Follow Nick
44:39
Speaker 1: Giffen in the Action Network app. You can listen to
44:42
Speaker 1: them on various shows. They're both on Green Dot Daily
44:47
Speaker 1: Fantasy Flex. Like Simon just mentioned, everywhere all over the app,
44:52
Speaker 1: Happens That What Happens Live absolutely my favorite show in
44:57
Speaker 1: the Action Network universe, starting Doctor Nick Giffim. As a reminder,
45:01
Speaker 1: the Favorites podcast is presented by Bet three sixty five.
45:04
Speaker 1: Bet three six five doesn't do ordinary. That's why you
45:06
Speaker 1: get more boosts with them than with anyone else. Every
45:08
Speaker 1: day they power up the odds one hundreds of bets
45:11
Speaker 1: to give you a chance to win more. Bet three
45:12
Speaker 1: six five boost specific markets, your winnings and even parlays.
45:15
Speaker 2: And they don't stop there.
45:17
Speaker 1: Keep an eye for the biggest and best odds with
45:18
Speaker 1: the incredible super Booze. Check out the boos and see
45:22
Speaker 1: why It's never ordinary at bet three six five. Must
45:25
Speaker 1: be twenty one or older present in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana,
45:29
Speaker 1: North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, or eighteen and older
45:32
Speaker 1: in Kentucky. Gambling problem a one eight hundred gambler or
45:35
Speaker 1: one eight hundred bets off in Iowa terms. Conditioning restrictions apply.
45:39
Speaker 1: Simon or I will return whether our next episode of
45:43
Speaker 1: the Favorites on the Action Network YouTube page Tuesday one
45:47
Speaker 1: forty five pm Eastern with our first Division preview. Download
45:53
Speaker 1: us from Spotify, Apple Pods wherever you get your pods,
45:55
Speaker 1: rate reviews, subscribe, leave us five stars, say whatever you want.
45:59
Speaker 2: Feedback is gift until next time.
46:01
Speaker 4: Love you. Action Network reminds you please gamble responsibly.
46:13
Speaker 2: If you or someone you care about has a gambling problem,
46:16
Speaker 2: help is available twenty four to seven at one eight
46:18
Speaker 2: hundred gambler