MLB Best Bets – Free (Wednesday 5/15)
Josh Gross
Dvoa NFL Articles
NFL
DVOA
Jets vs. The Worst QB Situations Ever
To be a fly on the wall in the New York Jets’ quarterback room. They’re not content to just be the worst passing offense in football, with a -27.6% DVOA. Oh no. They’re not content to be pushing for the worst passing offense in franchise history, either, tied with the 1995 Boomer Esiason squad in […]
Bryan Knowles
NFL
DVOA
Week 13 NFL Picks
Welcome to Week 13 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]
Aaron Schatz
NFL
DVOA
Put Some Respect on the Jaguars’ Name … and Defense
The 2023 race for the AFC No. 1 seed might be up there for one of the most competitive in recent memory. The four teams leading their divisions right now – the Baltimore Ravens, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the Miami Dolphins – all currently sit at either 9-3 or 8-3. Headed into […]
Cale Clinton
NFL
DVOA
Route DVOA Through Week 12
You may remember that back in the preseason, I introduced a new concept called Route DVOA. I’ve been doing receiving DVOA for 20 years, but it’s always been based on value per target. Route DVOA is based on value per routes run, which accounts for the skill of getting open and earning targets. It’s probably […]
Aaron Schatz
NFL
DVOA
Are Eagles the Next DVOA Underdog Super Bowl Champions?
Will the Eagles keep winning starts with how the Eagles keep winning – and the answer is … well, complicated. They have by no means dominated their opponents, culminating in a 15.6% DVOA for the season. This kind of DVOA gives them an outlook that falls well below the average expectation level for us Philadelphia […]
Alex Blickle
NFL
DVOA
Breaking Down the 2023 Playoff Race
One benefit about the NFL’s bizarre 18-week, 17-game schedule is that it breaks the season nicely into three thirds. That’s aesthetically pleasing to me; every season is its own story, and a three-act structure is a fun way to view the year from 20,000 feet, as it were. You have all your important characters and […]
Bryan Knowles
NFL
DVOA
Week 12 NFL Picks
Welcome to Week 12 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]
Aaron Schatz
NFL
DVOA
Who is the 2023 Coach of the Year?
At the two-thirds mark of the NFL season, some end-of-year awards are much harder to decide than others. One of the hardest to currently predict: Coach of the Year. It’s one of the few awards that cannot truly be determined until the last weeks of the season, but there are a whole heap of candidates […]
Cale Clinton
NFL
DVOA
Thanksgiving Turkeys for 2023
How do you prepare your turkey? I’m a stickler for brining; the number one problem with a terrible turkey is having it dry out and brining it helps it absorb extra moisture and make a juicer, more flavorful bird. But there are dozens of ways to go about it. I’ve enjoyed deep-fried birds, spatchcocked birds, […]
Bryan Knowles
NFL
DVOA
Whatever Happened to the Class of 2021?
The 2021 draft’s quarterback class was supposed to be special. Five quarterbacks were selected in the first round, including the top three picks. In total, a record eight quarterbacks were selected in the first two days. The draft had everything: highly-revered generational talents, tried-and-true pocket passers, big-upside projects, backyard ballers, dual-threat scramblers. You name it, […]
Cale Clinton
NFL
DVOA
Week 11 NFL Picks
Welcome to Week 11 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]
Aaron Schatz
NFL
DVOA
C.J. Stroud and the DYAR Leaders
Things change fast in the NFL. Last week, as we broke down the midseason award leaders, we noted that, all else being equal, the default choice for MVP should be the player leading the league in passing DYAR. And that was one Patrick Joshua Allen. Yeah, so, about that… You might argue that take aged […]
Bryan Knowles
NFL
DVOA
Week 10 NFL Picks
Welcome to Week 10 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]
Aaron Schatz
NFL
DVOA
How the Chiefs Built a Top Defense
This has been an unusual season for the Kansas City Chiefs. Sure, the Andy Reid-coached offense is still good. Patrick Mahomes is performing toward the top of the league. Travis Kelce leads all tight ends in receiving DYAR. That’s all typical, but it hasn’t been the story dominating Kansas City’s season. For the first time […]
Cale Clinton
NFL
DVOA
2023 NFL Midseason Awards Leaders
It’s Week 10 in the NFL. Do you know where your MVP is? Handing out midseason awards isn’t about actual hardware or anything – no one celebrates being MVP in October. But it’s a good framework to reflect on what we’ve seen over the first 136 games of the season and try to figure out […]
Bryan Knowles
NFL
DVOA
Week 9 NFL Picks
Welcome to Week 9 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]
Aaron Schatz
NFL
DVOA
Defenses and Interception-Worthy Throws
Welcome back to our exploration of interception-worthy throws, a stat we collect with FTN Data charting. Last week, we looked at this stat in its proper context: analyzing quarterbacks. This is a quarterback passing stat used to count throws to well-defended receivers. I argued that this was a good way to cut out the noise and […]
Cale Clinton
NFL
DVOA
The 10 Best NFL International Games
Set your alarm clocks and break out the coffee, because the best game in the NFL this week comes to you from Frankfurt. It was never the league’s explicit plan to give Germany the best game of the week, and one of the best games of the year, when they scheduled the Kansas City Chiefs […]
Bryan Knowles
NFL
DVOA
The Hottest Teams of Weeks 5-8
NFL teams talk often about peaking heading into the playoffs, but the truth is that they often show their true colors far earlier in the season. Now eight weeks in, we can compare teams’ last four weeks to their first four to get a great sense of who is surging into contention. There are five […]
Alex Blickle
NFL
DVOA
Week 8 NFL Picks
Welcome to Week 8 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]
Aaron Schatz
NFL
DVOA
Lessons from Interception-Worthy Throws
Our understanding of football is constantly evolving. With growth in analytics spaces, the increasing ubiquity of data literacy, and the continued work of game-charting teams, data-literate NFL fans are finding new ways to process and interpret the game we love. While quarterbacks are by far the most visible position in football, our tools for evaluating […]
Cale Clinton
NFL
DVOA
All Those Sam Howell Sacks
We need to talk about Sam Howell. But before we do, we need to talk about David Carr. Since 2002, the record for most times sacked in a season has belonged to Carr and the Houston Texans. Behind a legendarily bad expansion line, with a top-pick pedigree and no one worth starting behind him, Carr […]
Bryan Knowles
NFL
DVOA
Week 7 NFL Picks
Welcome to Week 7 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]
Aaron Schatz
NFL
DVOA
The End of the Patriots Dynasty
The New England Patriots spent the 2023 offseason seemingly wiping their hands clean of the nightmare that was 2022. For how bad the season may have felt, an 8-9 record with a No. 15 total DVOA and a Week 18 playoff elimination seemed easy to come back from. The Patriots chalked their offensive woes up […]
Cale Clinton
NFL
DVOA
Route DVOA for Defenses
Last week, I took a look at Route DVOA for receivers. This is DVOA based on value per route run rather than value per target, to account for the fact that earning targets by getting open is a skill. Now we’re going to flip that around and look at our DVOA vs. Types of Receivers […]
Aaron Schatz
NFL
DVOA
Why Does Something Feel Off in Kansas City?
The world champion Kansas City Chiefs are 5-1. If the season ended today, they would be the No. 1 seed in the AFC. So why does it feel like they are … kinda meh this year? Most of the high-level data points don’t support that feeling. As we said above, they are sitting pretty in […]
Tyler Loechner
NFL
DVOA
Players Who Should Be Moved at the Trade Deadline
The NFL trade deadline falls on Halloween this year, which is fitting because the dead walk amongst us. Don’t be confused if they’re still technically upright, shuffling their way listlessly through the season. Don’t be alarmed if they cause a contender or two to trip over their lifeless corpses. Don’t even be shocked if you […]
Bryan Knowles
NFL
DVOA
Week 6 NFL Picks
Welcome to Week 6 of our DVOA-based picks. Each week, I pick (almost) every game straight up and against the spread, as well as over-under totals. This does not make this advice to bet every single game! You’ve got to pick and choose and be smart about it. But for people in office pools, we […]
Aaron Schatz
NFL
DVOA
Detroit Lions Culture Transformation Turns into On-Field Performance
“Culture” is a word that gets thrown around pretty flippantly in NFL circles. Not the idea of “culture,” of course not. Every team strives to have a cohesive locker room full of players sharing the same mindset, abiding by the same code. While most coaches emphasize it to the media and toss it around like […]
Cale Clinton
NFL
DVOA
Rashee Rice an Early Chiefs Surprise in Route DVOA
You may remember that back in the preseason, I introduced a new concept called Route DVOA. I’ve been doing receiving DVOA for 20 years, but it’s always been based on value per target. Route DVOA is based on value per routes run, which accounts for the skill of getting open and earning targets. It’s probably […]
Aaron Schatz
NFL
DVOA
The Biggest Revenge Games in DVOA History
For most, revenge games are about the motivation rather than the execution. Sean Payton told USA Today reporter Jarrett Bell that Nathaniel Hackett did “one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL” in 2022, and Hackett naturally circled the Week 5 Jets-Broncos matchup on his calendar. Hackett’s players mobbed and […]
Scott Spratt
NFL
DVOA
When Will the 49ers Get Their First Loss?
The San Francisco 49ers will lose a game. Eventually. Probably. It doesn’t feel like that at the moment, as the 5-0 49ers were crowned king of all power rankings on Sunday night. What was pegged as a battle of two of the top Super Bowl contenders in the league quickly became a laugher, the latest […]
Bryan Knowles