Advanced Football Analytics

How to Crunch Football Outsiders Analytics with Pro Football Focus Individual Player Grades into Actionable Betting Information

 

Football Outsiders does a great job of ranking individual units within each team: Passing offense, run blocking offensive line, run stopping defense, etc. Pro Football Focus does an amazing job of grading individual players based on their specific on-field duties.

 

It can be difficult to use all this info however. We’ve created a formula that makes it easy for you to “crunch” the data together.

 

That way, when handicapping games you get a glimpse into exactly how well each individual is doing (within the larger unit grade). This helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each team, especially as we navigate injury and replacement values.


See the process here:

 

FO also adjusts for opponent strength as well as game situations.

 

For instance, a 10 yard run on 3rd and 11 is far less valuable than a 3 yard run on 3rd and 2. Conventional stats will reward the 10 yard run, but in reality, that was an unsuccessful play from a real football perspective.

 

So using these type of constraints: on first down, a play is considered a success if it gains 45 percent of needed yards. On second down, a play needs to gain 60 percent of needed yards. On third or fourth down, only gaining a new first down is considered success.

 

Another interesting metric to use is the efficiency of each team on 1st and 2nd down.

 

Research that has suggested these “early down” metrics are one of the better predictors of future success.

 

The logic being that these plays are less influenced by 3rd down situations, and therefore are more of a true representation of a team’s independent ability before adjusting for unique game situations, such as being up or down multiple scores and having to change your game plan.

 

DBW Data Priority List:


EVERY GAME – EVERY WEEK: IN DETAIL

 

We dig deep into the advanced analytics for every matchup on Sunday. Projection charts that compile the best predictive metrics from football outsiders,  pro football focus,  and others.  The data is arranged so you can quickly identify unique unit vs unit mismatches along with directional and relational comparisons to help you spot value across the board on the spread, totals,  and daily fantasy this weekend.

 

Enter your email to get the content immediately upon release each week!

Live Betting Market

 

Live betting is especially interesting right now. There is an opportunity to find value inside the game when certain situations arise. This is evident based on the discrepancy of live betting lines within the various sportsbooks. It’s not uncommon to see differences of 1-2 full points, in both the spreads and totals. Live betting is new, and the sportsbooks algorithms are far from perfect at creating an accurate line for each spot within the game.

 

Within the Clear Data Sports community, we’ve started a live betting chat room during some of these games that we have our eye on. This way, we can help each other spot +EV spots within the contests.  It’s a fun way to watch the games with the community, along with some special guests to help break down the action live inside the game.

NFL Handicapping Philosophy

 

In general, we are looking for buy low, sell high spots, where the matchup fundamentals line up as well. Winning is not as simple as buy low sell high, you gotta also have an on-field reason for the play, especially when it come to OL and Defensive front 7 play.

 

The foundation of our projections are based on the offensive line, defensive front 7, and the defensive secondary. Basically everything fantasy football shows don’t talk about.

 

These core units have been overlooked in the past few years with the rise of fantasy football. Which is a good thing for us, because these core units are still what determine the actual game results, and if we can get a flood of “square” money on the spreads because of this, there is going to be an opportunity to find value and make a profit.

 

We’ve become so concerned with QB, RB, and WR production that it has become easy to overlook the line play, and keeping up on all the names and injuries in the secondary, especially when you have a limited time to analyze these games every week. So my goal is to help give you a better cheat sheet each week, with a core emphasis on OL and DL play, especially when it comes to navigating injuries each week and which are going to have a significant impact on the outcome.