Welcome to the recap blog. Weekly results are a silly thing to track -- the small sample and high variance nature of the NFL makes them totally irrelevant. However, I do feel it's important to have an easy place to track all our bets, where we can easily see how we're performing over a larger sample size.
The Super Bowl is the most heavily bet game in all of sport's betting. As such, I expect the market to be even more efficient than normal, and it'll be quite common for us not to bet it (although we did take the Bucs last year). The model thought the correct spread was LA -5. With the line opening at 3.5 and moving to 4.5, we never saw value at any point in the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. With prop bets we went 4-2 and won 3.65 units.
Some thoughts:
-I wrote about how effective Jet Sweeps are in the Prop article. I truly believe they would be utilized more if not for the injury risk it causes to receivers. In the Super Bowl that goes out the window, and we now have quite the history of teams handing the ball off to receivers in the Super Bowl. Chase ended up with 4 yards on 1 carry. Cooper Kupp had a 7 yard rush attempt on 4th and 1 during the game winning drive. I imagine we'll continue to bet these heavy in future Super Bowls unless the market catches up.
-Cam Akers struggled all game. He ended with just 21 yards on 13 carries (1.6 average). I've mentioned the fact that he even came back after tearing his Achilles in July was a pure big dick move (BDM), but it was obvious from the start that he isn't in mid season form. Fading him was the correct call.
-Joe Burrow had 33 pass attempts, 0 in the hands of Rams receivers. Regression wins.
-I'm a little disappointed in my Mixon bet. It was the right call according to multiple projections, but I do still try to fade bets that don't make sense given how I expect the game to play out. I knew the Bengals would need to dump the ball off to Mixon often given how effective the Rams pass rush would be against the Bengals offensive line. They should have thrown more screens to Mixon, but ended up with one of such throws. Either way, I should have faded it. We live and we learn.
-Higgins only ended with 4 catches. He got 100 yards receiving, but that wasn't the bet.
Sides recommendations:
Week 1: Jameis Preserves the Even Week (2-2, even)
Week 2: Thanks for Fumbling, Clyde (3-1, +4 units)
Week 3: We Lost Every Bet (0-2, -4 units)
Week 4: Monday Night Fucked Us (2-1, even)
Week 5: It's Raining On First And Thirty (0-2, -2 units)
Week 6: We Bet One Game. We Lost One Game (0-1, -1 unit)
Week 7: Houston Sucks, Apparently (1-1, +1 unit)
Week 8: When the Dogs Win Outright (2-1, +3 units)
Week 9: Both Dogs Won Outright, Again (2-0, +3 units)
Week 10: Props Only (0-0, even)
Week 11: A Wild Sunday Prevents a Winless Week (1-2, -2 units)
Week 12: Ouchtown, Population Us (0-4, -6 units)
Week 13: Props Only (0-0, even)
Week 14: Success, Finally (2-0, +2 units)
Week 15: The New Format Comes Out Firing (6-3, +3 units)
Week 16: The Perfect Week (4-0, +4 units)
Week 17: When You Bet the Jets, You Win (Results May Vary) (3-2, +1 unit)
Week 18: Free Money Fading Baltimore, Again (3-1, +2 units)
Wildcard: "Super" Wildcard Weekend Can Suck It (0-3, -3 units)
Division: So Long, Number 1 Seeds (2-0, +2 units)
Conference: Props Come Through (0-0, even)
Super Bowl: Final Results (0-0, even)
Season total: 33-25, +7 units
Props recommendations:
Week 10: Props Only (10-4, +8.02 units)
Week 11: A Wild Sunday Prevents a Winless Week (5-8, -3.74 units)
Week 12: Ouchtown, Population Us (4-11, -7.6 units)
Week 13: Props Only (7-4, +4.23 units)
Week 14: Success, Finally (8-4, +5.34 units)
Week 15: The New Format Comes Out Firing (1-2, -1.1 units)
Week 16: The Perfect Week (7-5, +3.22 units)
Week 17: When You Bet the Jets, You Win (Results May Vary) (7-5, +2.47 units)
Week 18: Free Money Fading Baltimore, Again (2-8, -5.8 units)
Wildcard: "Super" Wildcard Weekend Can Suck It (7-4, +3.6 units)
Division: So Long, Number 1 Seeds (5-5, -0.25 units)
Conference: Props Come Through (5-3, +2.37 units)
Super Bowl: Final Results (4-2, +3.65 units)
Season total: 72-65, +14.41 units
We finished the season +7 units on sides. With prop bets, I started tracking those week 10, and we finished +14.41 units. I highly doubt that win rate is sustainable, but I think the process is solid and fully believe that it's easier to beat props than sides/totals. I'll do these every week next year and we can continue tracking how the bets do. I'd unequivocally call this another successful season and already can't wait for next year.