Passing stats from prior to the '70s (the late '70s, in particular), look radically different from how they look today, for a bunch of reasons:
Offenses were largely run-first, and passing was used as a change-of-pace, for when the defense was keying too strongly on the run, or when trying to come back from behind.
Passes were typically mid-to-long routes, which are more likely to fall incomplete or be intercepted; the modern usage of short, high-percentage passes didn’t really come about until the advent of the “West Coast” offense in the 1970s.
The rules strongly favored the defense on passing plays, in particular, letting defensive backs get away with far more contact with the receiver prior to the catch.
This is a big one. We’ve seen big changes in those kinds of rules just in the past 15 years. The NFL realized fans like offense, they think it’s more exciting, so they want rules favorable to offenses.
Exactly. The “illegal contact” rule – which prevents a defensive back from making significant contact with a receiver beyond 5 yards of the line of scrimmage – didn’t even exist until 1978.
Also, related to interceptions: two clear HoF quarterbacks from the 1960s – Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas – barely threw more TDs than interceptions, and had career interception percentages (4.9% and 4.4%, respectively) which are pretty much unheard of now: such numbers would have put them pretty much at the bottom of the NFL this season, in J.J. McCarthy territory (he’s at a 5.5% rate; no other QB is above 4%).
Also, he was the big marketing star during the AFL-NFL merger, for what it’s worth. The guy was still making commercials in his 80s. (Not that that’s a qualification for the HoF…)
It’s funny watching any kind of NFL Films production about the Giants over Bills Superbowl in 1990. Belichick’s entire defensive plan was that instead of pressuring the quarterback, they would pressure the receivers down the field. The very concept isn’t even legal now, much less the execution.
Some odd favorites this week. Chiefs -4.5, Bills -1, Packers -2.5. I was talking with a coworker who does make some sports bets and he thinks that’s a pretty good parlay to take the points each time. Biggest question would be the Chargers because of Herbert and being on the road. I really don’t get both the Patriots and the Broncos being home dogs.
In particular, as a Packer fan, I’m not sure why the Broncos are dogs, either, especially at home.
My guesses:
Denver has a very good defense, but a middle-of-the-pack offense. Green Bay has (most weeks) a very good defense and a very good offense. (edit: looking at more stats, it looks like Denver and Green Bay are pretty close on offense, so maybe this isn’t accurate.)
Green Bay’s three losses have all been in very close games, and they seem to be surging right now. In the past two weeks, Denver had to go to overtime to beat Washington, and barely beat Las Vegas (two of the worst teams in the league).
There was an article in the Boston Globe about this today, and the reasoning provided - for the Pats line -from some Sportsbook people they spoke with boiled down to:
Patriots have played a soft schedule, so people think the Patriots record is partially a mirage
Bills have been dominating the AFC East for the past 5 years and everyone knows Josh Allen is great, so there’s some baked in bias from previous seasons
Bills rushing offense has been surging over the past weeks (#1 int he NFL) and the Patriots rushing defense has fallen off of a cliff without Milton Williams, who is still out on IR
Conversely, Patriots rushing offense is bad and their starting LT is still out
Let me say that I understand the spreads from a bookie getting even action to max the vig. I just think they’re all cases where the line is opposed to reality in terms of who should win.
In my OP, which I took from ESPNBet on Tuesday morning, the Chiefs were -3.5. You noted they were now -4.5. I just looked on DraftKings, and they are now -5.5, and it’s the same on ESPNBet. So the money is on KC, which is moving the line.
As I noted above, the Chiefs have been favored in their last 5 games and have won only one of them. I see no reason for this trend not to continue. Yes, Herbert is hurt, but he was good enough to lead the team to a win over the Eagles on Monday.
Steelers pass-rusher TJ Watt has been hospitalized, for “lung evaluation,” after experiencing discomfort while practicing yesterday, apparently due to an injury suffered during practice. The team hasn’t yet released further details.
Being from Wisconsin, as well as being a UW alum, I’ve always been a fan of the Watt brothers. My guess is a collapsed lung. Hopefully it’s something from which he can recover from quickly.
There have been others player with sickle cell trait but probably Ryan Clark for a former Steelers player. That would have been maybe a decade or so ago.
It’s not that he could not play in Denver but it was definitely a risk for him to do so as he had sickle cell trait and the lack of oxygen during heavy exertion could easily cause complications or even death in extreme cases.
The way he did it is illegal, I’m sure, exactly as you say. The rules have changed so much. But the idea of putting pressure on a QB by taking away receiver options is still alive and well; we often still see “coverage sacks”, where a QB hangs onto the ball far longer than he should because he has no way to get rid of it, and gets swallowed into a collapsing pocket.
Of course, with the mobile QB being pretty common these days, that strategy can often backfire. If your whole defense is tied up with taking away receivers, that can open an easy running lane for a QB to run for a first down if not a score.
Sometimes I really love the chess match aspect of this sport.
When the line is set they are often try to predice the proportion of recency bias and latency bias.
When a team suffers a shock defeat a lot of people will immediately make a large adjustment to their perceived power, on the other hand many people expect the chiefs and Bills to be among the best in the league because they have been for years.
The football season is short, using this season as data is a small sample size and variables such as injuries mean you can not even say how much a game in September reflects current team strength.
There are different analyrtics models but they nearly alway are pretty close to the better line (I’ve not seen analytical based forecasts of win probabilities for this weeks games who do they have winning these games.
I’ve always taken the betting lines with a grain of salt. For all of the analytics and statistics involved, their primary purpose is to get the bets to be 50/50 on either side. The gambling sites still make their money on the vig.