Game Flowbotics: Week 11 Picks Against the Spread
The season continues to roll along, and we’re on to Week 11. I’ve updated the Game Flowbotics worksheet to show actual Weighted DVOA for teams instead of DAVE in the “Wt’d DVOA” cells. If you’re unfamiliar with these metrics from Football Outsiders, Weighted DVOA assigns more value to a team’s recent performance, while DAVE combines DVOA for the full season with preseason projections. At this point in the season, our sample size of in-season data is now large enough to outweigh the impressions of preseason projections, so DAVE has less value to us when evaluating over/under and against the spread picks. Ultimately, it’s a minor change but still worth announcing for any of you who might be deep-diving into the spreadsheet each week. With that out of the way, let’s review how last week’s article fared before blasting off into my best bets for Week 11.
Accountability
Last week, I went 3-2 with my picks for a gain of 0.75 units. Year to date, my record is 45-36-1 (55.6%) and I’m up 5.871 units overall. On the plus side, my best bets went 3-0. Unfortunately, my rapid-fire picks went 0-2 and gave most of the best bets’ profits right back to the books. A winning week is a winning week, but I might go back to more half-unit bets on the lines where I’m less confident.
With that said, picking last week’s Atlanta-Dallas game to go over 54.5 points wasn’t an angle where I lacked conviction. The Cowboys did their part, piling up 43 points, but the Falcons failed to hold up their end of the bargain. Perhaps I should have seen more value in the team total for Dallas than the game total, but expecting Atlanta to post 12 or more points didn’t seem too tall an order, especially considering how much garbage time they had to work with. I’m chalking that loss up as a bad beat, but it does serve as a good reminder to consider team totals rather than game totals in certain situations.
On the other hand, picking the over for the Rams-49ers game was an instance where my confidence level was low. I said as much in my brief write-up, indicating that a pivot to the under might make sense if the game total moved north of 50 points. The line closed at 50.5—I hope you took that advice. Still, the fact I was wishy-washy on the bet in the first place means I either shouldn’t have recommended it or risked only half a unit on it. Lesson learned for future weeks and apologies to any of you who went down with me on that o48.5 ship.
Week 11 Game Flowbotics
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Here’s this week’s worksheet:
For background on Game Flowbotics and information on how to use the spreadsheet, check out my first article in this series and the Game Flowbotics primer.
As always, this tool is not a model. It isn’t going to tell us who to pick. Instead, it’s a visualization resource to help us gather information and compare opposing forces in NFL matchups. It’s up to us to translate those considerations into picks on our own. With that in mind, let’s get to my favorite angles this week.
Week 11 Best Bets
New England Patriots at Atlanta Falcons
Atlanta sports a bottom-five offense by DVOA, and they might be without one of their key playmakers in Cordarrelle Patterson on Thursday night. On the other side of the ball, New England has a top-five defense by DVOA, and they’ve allowed an average of only 17.7 points per game to opponents. On offense, the Patriots should be able to efficiently churn clock against the Falcons’ 31st-ranked defense, which will limit the Dirty Birds’ opportunities to score points. We can bet this lopsided matchup in a lot of different ways, but with New England perhaps taking it easy on a short week against a weak opponent, the safest way is probably the under on Atlanta’s team total.
Pick: ATL Team Total Under (20.5) -125 at DraftKings, risk 1.25 units to win 1 unit.
Green Bay Packers at Minnesota Vikings
Process play alert! The Vikings rank slightly better than the Packers in DVOA and Weighted DVOA, but the purple team is getting points at home. Granted, these teams are close, and 2.5 points isn’t much, but the line has already dropped to MIN (+2) at most other books. A key comparison between these two teams are the pass rush matchups. In terms of adjusted sack rate, Minnesota's fourth-ranked pass rush should find some success against Green Bay’s 15th-ranked offensive line, while Green Bay’s 20th-ranked pass rush might struggle against Minnesota’s second-ranked offensive line.
If the Vikings do manage to keep this game within three points or win outright, Dalvin Cook figures to be featured prominently against a Packers defense ranked 24th in DVOA against the run and 30th in adjusted line yards. Or maybe Green Bay will try to mitigate their pass-blocking disadvantage by leaning on their ninth-ranked rushing offense with A.J. Dillon against a Minnesota defense ranked dead last against the run. In either case, the team with the upper hand will no doubt try to play slow and limit scoring opportunities for the opposing side. And both teams rate below the NFL average in situation neutral pace (with the Packers ranked bottom-five), so expecting 50+ total points in this matchup is a stretch.
Pick: MIN (+2.5) -115 at FanDuel, risk 1.15 units to win 1 unit.
Pick: Under (49.5) -110 at PointsBet, risk 1.1 units to win 1 unit.
Arizona Cardinals at Seattle Seahawks
Full disclosure, you might want to hold off betting this game until we have a clearer picture of Kyler Murray’s availability, but on the chance he could play, getting the Cardinals (-2.5) +100 at DraftKings or (-2) -110 at PointsBet could be a huge value based on the matchup statistics. Despite missing Murray for a couple of weeks, Arizona still ranks top-five in DVOA, while Seattle rates closer to league average. The fact the books have juiced the lines in favor of Seattle makes me worry they know something about Murray we don’t, or perhaps it’s simply speculation Murray should sit given the Cardinals are on bye next week. But if the books assume Murray will sit, then why is the over/under set so high at 49.5 points? It doesn’t make sense.
One way or another, there will be value to mine in this matchup. If you decide to wait it out and hope for actionable news on Murray’s availability, be ready to move quickly. If he’s deemed ready to play, jump on the Cardinals against the spread. If he’s ruled out, jump on the under. In the meantime, I’m taking a stand with Arizona because—no matter what—the Cardinals have a shot to cover thanks to their top-five defense against a quarterback in Russell Wilson who still needs to prove he can throw accurately post-injury.
Pick: ARI (-2) -110 at PointsBet, risk 1.1 units to win 1 unit. Bet up to ARI (-3).
Week 11 Rapid-Fire Picks
Cincinnati Bengals at Las Vegas Raiders
There’s shootout potential in this matchup. The Bengals have combined with their opponents for more than 50 points in each of their past three games, and the Raiders have done so in three of their past four games. I expect the trend to continue in Week 11 under the Las Vegas dome, as both defenses rate below average in DVOA and are notably worse against the pass than against the run.
Pick: Over (49.5) -110 at DraftKings/Caesars, risk 1.1 units to win 1 unit.
Dallas Cowboys at Kansas City Chiefs
The team total for Dallas is set at 27.5, and I’m a little nervous about my lean toward the over (-110) because there’s been more action on the under (-120). It could have to do with the Chiefs’ recent run of limiting opponents to 27 points or fewer in five straight games, but none of those opposing offenses are comparable to the Cowboys. Maybe it’s partly due to weather concerns, as this game currently projects for one of the higher wind speeds among Week 11 games. Whether the forecast gets worse or not, these teams admittedly have incentive to play ball control and keep the other offense off the field. In spite of all these factors, I can't envision a script where Kansas City's 30th-ranked defense holds this Cowboys offense—averaging 31.6 points per game—to fewer than 28 points.
Pick: DAL Team Total Over (27.5) -110 at DraftKings, risk 0.55 units to win 0.5 unit.
Good luck, everyone!
Please follow @GameFlowbotics on Twitter to get each week’s Game Flowbotics spreadsheet as soon as it’s available, and feel free to contact me there or @gregsauce to discuss the spreadsheet or my picks. For the most up-to-date picks subscribe to 4for4’s Discord. This sheet, from Dan Rivera, tracks all my betting picks (and those from the rest of the betting staff). Just click on the tab with my name on it for the results.
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