NFL Regular Season Win Totals, Modern Golf Strategy

Aug 01, 2023

Scrambling

I lost a lot of money betting on the NFL during the 2021-22 season. I made it all back and more in the 2022-23 NFL season. The improved results are probably best explained by two things: luck and learning a few lessons. The most important lesson I learned was to never underestimate the value of mobility at quarterback.

Mobility at quarterback is like short game prowess in professional golf. When the play goes according to plan, you may not need to scramble. But when a blocking assignment or a green is missed, scrambling becomes invaluable.

This cross-sport comparison sort of works, but I would not assign mobility at quarterback and short game talent equal value. Unless a golfer chips in, which requires some luck, elite chipping typically gives you the opportunity to turn negative holes into neutral or slightly positive holes. Mobility at quarterback, on the other hand, gives you the opportunity to turn terrible plays into enormously positive plays.

A lot of this is obvious. Anyone who watches the NFL can observe the trend towards mobile quarterbacks without the need to reference data. The data is enlightening, though, and paints a clear picture of the modern-day NFL landscape. The Ringer’s Ben Solak wrote a wonderful article last October that leverages data to convey the value of mobile quarterbacks.

From the article,

Across all quarterbacks this season, scrambles are producing 0.508 EPA per play…In comparison: The EPA per play of a league-average pass attempt (no spikes, no throwaways) is .212.

The quote indicates that scrambles are worth more than double the value of a standard pass attempt. For those who are unfamiliar, EPA stands for Expected Points Added. It measures how many points you are expected to score on a possession both before and after a play, providing an objective measure for how much value the play created. Golf fans: it is basically synonymous with Strokes Gained in golf, which measures how many strokes you gained or lost against the field on a given shot.

Solak goes on to make an important point. When considering the value of a quarterback scramble, you cannot just consider the EPA compared to a play with an EPA of zero; you must consider the alternative. You must consider the EPA of the result the scramble replaces. Often, quarterbacks scramble when faced with defensive pressure. Under those conditions, a scramble replaces a sack, one of the most destructive plays in football.

Escaping a sack and turning dysfunction into a positive play is one of the most valuable skills in the sport. Strong, mobile quarterbacks give their offenses multiple opportunities for production on each snap. When pressure does not arrive, mobile QBs can execute within the structure of the play. When pressure arrives, they have an additional skill to generate production. Golfers don’t get credit for their short games when they hit a green in regulation, but that doesn’t mean their short game provided no value; it just means they didn’t need to use it.

It is easy to talk about quarterback mobility and how talented a particular team is, but everyone will likely agree on the points you make. It’s much more engaging to sort out the extent to which these concepts matter and how much you believe in them. Betting is an appropriate mechanism for expressing strongly-held opinions and experiencing the feedback. Betting also introduces accountability, which I welcome.

I want to make it clear that I do not encourage anyone to gamble. The way gambling is marketed and glorified makes me uneasy, so I want to acknowledge that within the context of discussing the bets I’m placing. I don’t take discussions of gambling lightly. This is not a recommendation to follow my picks. This is an opportunity to test interesting concepts against a relatively efficient marketplace and watch the concepts play out in real time. It’s also an opportunity for you to scrutinize my problem solving abilities, which I also welcome.

So without further ado, here are two opinions I’m expressing* in the market this season.

*These bets are not investment advice

Bears Over 7.5 Wins (-115)

I have both micro and macro reasons for betting on the Bears to win at least eight games this upcoming season. Let’s focus primarily on the macro reasons.

We are firmly in the Age of Competitive Parity across all sports. Information travels rapidly throughout professional sports organizations. Intelligent concepts beat outdated concepts, and those ideas get shared and stolen. If you fail to adapt to modern trends, you will lose and you will be replaced. Franchises hire coaches from successful coaching trees and invest in analytical resources to maximize their chances of winning. The New England Patriots might have been early to identify savvy roster-building techniques in the 2000s, but their informational advantage is not as large as it used to be. Other teams know how to build and develop a team now too. Franchises don’t sign running backs to massive contracts anymore, for example. Information sharing promotes parity.

Another way the NFL facilitates parity is through the NFL scheduling methodology. Here is how each NFL team’s 17-game schedule is set:

Play each other team in your four-team division both at home and away (6 games)
Play each team in an assigned AFC division (4)
Play each team in an assigned NFC division (4)
Play three other non-divisional teams who finished in the same position in their division last year (3)

The fourth bullet is significant. If you finish fourth in your division for a season, you get to play three games against other teams who finished fourth in their division the next year. Add this to the list of reasons it benefits teams to tank once they can no longer qualify for the playoffs; losing now makes it easier to win next year.

For a multitude of reasons, we’re seeing an increase in competitive parity across sports. A record number of teams contended for playoff spots in the NFL last year. Similar data points exist in other sports too. With that in mind, I’m more interested in betting the over on a low win total or the under on a high win total than I am in taking the opposite sides of those bets. In other words, I’m more inclined to bet on teams to trend towards winning 50% of their games as opposed to betting on them to be well above league average or well below league average. Ride the parity tide.

With all of this in mind, I’m betting on the Chicago Bears to win at least eight games this season.

The Bears are led by third-year quarterback Justin Fields, one of the most versatile runners in the NFL. The Bears offensive line features four returning starters plus the 10th overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. With the addition of wide receiver DJ Moore, the Bears should have a strong offense this season. I believe in Justin Fields and his ability to play at a high level this season, especially behind a decent offensive line and new offensive weaponry.

The Bears were bad last year, but a bunch of their losses came in close games. With modest improvement year over year, the Bears can flip a couple of those close losses into wins. The benefit of being the worst team in their division last year is that this year they get to play three other teams (Commanders, Browns, Cardinals) who finished last in their respective divisions. Predicting strength of schedule is always a bit of a fool’s errand, but the Bears schedule should not be very difficult.

In the Age of Competitive Parity and quarterback mobility, I feel good betting on the Bears to finish the season at 8-9 or better.

Lions Under 9.5 Wins (+100)

I intend this newsletter to be more about concepts than specific details, so I’ll keep this explanation fairly short.

The Lions have $31M of their $240M payroll tied up in Jared Goff, an immobile quarterback that depends on a clean pocket to make plays. To be fair, the Lions have one of the best offensive lines in the NFL, so Goff will see his fair share of clean pockets. Experienced, talented offensive lines come at a price, which means much of the Lions salary cap is tied up in Goff and the offensive line.

Part of the reason the Lions can afford to pay Goff and the offensive line is that they don’t have an elite defensive secondary to pay. Unsurprisingly, the Lions had one of the worst secondaries in the NFL last year.

A huge part of the modern NFL is creating space with speed on offense and covering that speed on defense. I respect the Lions and their coaching staff, but it is difficult to go 10-7 in the Age of Competitive Parity, especially with a questionable secondary and an immobile quarterback. In terms of scheduling, it doesn’t help that the Lions finished second in their division last year, which puts the Seahawks, Ravens, and Cowboys on their calendar this year. On paper, those three teams are much stiffer competition than what the Bears will face with the Commanders, Browns, and Cardinals.

Outside of those three games, the Bears and the Lions have a similar schedule because they are in the same division. You could make a good faith argument that the Bears are not much worse than the Lions on paper, yet they are separated by two full games in the betting market despite having an easier schedule. The teams being in the same division also means my bets are pretty highly correlated. The Bears and the Lions will face each other twice during the season. Those games will have a significant bearing on my future kids’ ability to attend college.

After each Bears-Lions game, I ask that you do not text or email me if the Lions win. Please respect my privacy at that time.

Modern Golf Strategy

Imagine a scenario in which you aren’t allowed to play a particular golf hole from the tee box. Instead, your first shot must be hit from the middle of the fairway on a 480-yard par 4. Oh, and you must hit the first shot with a putter and you’re not allowed to hit the shot more than 20 yards. After your opening shot with putter, you can play the hole however you’d like.

You can imagine that, under these circumstances, you’d want to take note of the pin location before hitting your first shot. If the flag is on the right side of the green and protected by a green side bunker, you may want to aim your first shot down the left side of the fairway, leaving an advantageous angle to the flag.

The story of modern golf is that you don’t hit your first shot with a putter, nor do you hit a 250-yard drive like the golfers from 100 years ago. Aided by modern technology, you hit 310-yard drives with a high launch angle. On your next shot, you’ll hit another high-lofted shot and try to get it to stop on the green as quickly as possible. Without wind, that is the state of most modern professional golf.

Strategic value has been minimized by the aerial nature of professional golf. In past generations, finding the correct side of the fairway mattered more because approach shots were hit from longer distances. The shot entered the green on a lower trajectory and with less spin, leading to more roll. Your angle to the flag mattered more than it does today.

The takeaway is not that angles don’t matter in the professional game. They do. For PGA Tour players, an advantageous angle is typically worth about 0.1 strokes on a long iron from the fairway. The takeaway is that the value of an advantageous angle is dwarfed by the value of finding the fairway. To some left pins, would you rather be on the right side of the fairway than the left side of the fairway? Yes. But you’d much rather be on the left side of the fairway than in the right-hand rough. Therefore, to optimize on scoring, players take strategies to maximize their chance of finding the fairway and minimize their chance of finding a penalty hazard. They don’t really try to find the proper side of the fairway. The benefit of an advantageous angle is not worth the cost of missing the fairway.

Consider the sixth hole at Oak Hill, site of the 2023 PGA Championship. It’s a well-designed long par 4 with a penalty area lining the right side of the hole. The hazard winds across the middle of the hole and snakes its way around the left side of the green. In theory, players would rather hit shots from the right side of the fairway into the green. On a direct line from your ball to the flag, you’d be hitting with more fairway and green on your path than if you played from the left side of the fairway.

In practice? Smart players are never intentionally challenging the hazard down the right side to gain a small edge from the better angle. It’s too dangerous. Scottie Scheffler is one of the most strategically-sound players on the PGA Tour. To borrow a blackjack term, he plays by the book. Here is Scottie’s shot trail to a left pin from his Thursday round at the PGA.

In one of his post round interviews, Scheffler explained that with the water down the right, his target off the tee was the left center of the fairway. He never mentioned the pin location. He’s not worrying about angles. Did he hit this tee shot exactly where he wanted to? No, he hit it a little bit left and into a fairway bunker. However, this is a much better outcome than aiming down the middle of the fairway and pushing a tee shot right and into the penalty area. Smart players understand and leverage their dispersion patterns.

Modern strategy is unemotional. It doesn’t make a statement about how golf courses should be played. It reflects the reality of the sport in its current form. That doesn’t mean the current form is the best form. In fact, I’d argue that professional golf is certainly not in its best form currently.

The distances at which shots travel in the modern game compromise fundamental principles of golf course architecture and strategy. The farther a ball flies and the quicker it stops on the green, the less thought is required in playing the sport. The sport becomes less complex and less cerebral.

Would a five percent reduction in distance force Scottie Scheffler to challenge the right side of the sixth hole at Oak Hill? No, not really. But if he had to hit a 4-iron into the green instead of a 7-iron, his positioning off the tee would be more important.

I’m not advocating for a version of the sport where players hit 25-yard putts off the tee, but allowing distance to go unchecked is grossly irresponsible. Of course, there are environmental (“How much water does this course require?”) and practical (“We have no land left on this golf course to extend tee boxes”) reasons to place controls around distance, but even leaving that aside: Is the best version of the sport a version that trends away from complexity?

According to the PGA Tour, yes. Last week, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan issued a memo on the current state of the sport and reconciliation efforts with LIV Golf. The memo makes it clear that the PGA Tour will reject the USGA’s proposal and will not support using a Modified Local Rule golf ball on the PGA Tour. Distance will remain unchecked on the PGA Tour indefinitely.

I’m currently reading Golf Architecture in America by George C. Thomas, Jr., a brilliant architect and golf mind. He is the architect responsible for Riviera Country Club and Los Angeles Country Club (North), among other fabulous designs like Bel-Air Country Club. In the foreword, Thomas writes that the “pro knows much better about the value of the holes played and, therefore, his opinions on construction matters are generally sound.”

From personal conversations with Tour players, I share Thomas’ sentiment. Pro golfers understand shot value. And yet, the modern Tour player would have trouble reading Golf Architecture in America and squaring the principles behind interesting strategy with the refusal to govern distance in the sport.

To the professional golfers who read this newsletter: do you believe that the golf ball traveling shorter distances would enhance strategy, diminish strategy, or have no impact?

As someone who respects your opinion, I’d be happy to publish a well-reasoned response in the next edition of Finding the Edge.

Contact/Feedback

Twitter: @JosephLaMagna

Email: Joseph.LaMagnaGolf@gmail.com

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