Week 11 Preview: Colts at Bills
Parity in the NFL is at an all time high
The NFL prides itself on parity in the league, that, on any given Sunday, any team can win. Over the last two weeks, both these teams played the Jaguars, one team beat the Jags, the other lost. The Jags are 2-7, a pure mess of a football team that’s trying ever so hard to be taken seriously, and, on an ‘any given Sunday’, they just about get there. In week 9 they beat the Bills in a sloppy game 9-6, a Bills team that was 5-2 at the time, and no one, not a soul on this earth gave the Jags a chance in hell. Well, the Jags followed that game with a trip to Indy, and as you’d expect, they returned to form, and lost to the Colts.
So parity is working, but just like every sport, form is temporary, class is permanent. ‘Any given Sunday’ isn’t every Sunday, and the Bills are far superior to the Colts.
Even in an age of parity, there are ways to see who is better in the NFL, teams pay millions for the latest in advanced analytics, and even average NFL heads like me can figure these things out.
One of the most accurate statistics for telling if a defence is good, is if it’s able to get pressure on the QB without having to blitz to much. So if your blitzing percentage is low, but your pressure rate is high, you’re having a greater impact on the oppositions passing game without having to sacrifice players who are defending the pass. The Bills are 1st (30%) in pressure rate, while blitzing 19.7% of their defensive plays, the 6th lowest blitzing percentage in the league. The Colts are the 5th (19%) worse team in pressures, while blitzing 16.8% of their defensive plays, the 4th lowest in the league.
The reason why this explains the most about both of these teams is because the NFL is a passing league, everything happens through the pass. You need to pressure the QB to disrupt his rhythm with his receivers, but if you can’t get pressure, you have to blitz, if you blitz, the receivers have one less defender to worry about, and a good QB can figure out where the blitz is coming from, if he knows it’s coming, he’ll be able to hit his hot receiver (the receiver designated to break his route in the event of a blitz), if he can hit the hot receiver, then your defence is going to get toasted.
So the Bills can get more pressure with less defenders, and the Bills have the better QB, if you play this game 10 times, the Bills win 9.
Prediction (29-20 through week 10)
When I first got interested in the NFL, people use to say that ‘football starts at Thanksgiving’. I never really thought anything of it, as weeks 1-11 always seemed to be just as important, famously, only 1 team has ever started a season 0-4 and made the playoffs (the 1992 Chargers - I think), so surely the start of the season counts?
It does, but only to teams that were burning trash bags the year before. Teams that are well coached, with good players and solid play callings, they get right by Thanksgiving and kick on from there. If you can stay near 5-5, 6-4, even 4-6, you have a chance, but it’s at this time that no team can make mistakes, you can lose, but if you’re trying to figure out who you are during Thanksgiving, you’re not ready for January at all.
The Colts come into this game 5-5, won their last two games, and need to keep winning to hope for a wildcard spot, but I don’t think they have it in them. They should know what they are, a run first team that needs to stay ahead of the scoreboard. We all seen what Carson Wentz can do when he’s under pressure and needing to score, he’ll throw with his weaker hand while having a complete brain fart moment. The Colts win games when they lean on Jonathan Taylor and stick to that plan. In this game, if they can do that, they should be able to keep it close and stay in the game by the 4th quarter.
However, the Bills will mess you up if they get going. We already know they don’t need much help to hit your QB, the Colts don’t give up much sacks, but when they do, it will send Wentz into a spin. I’d imagine the Bills will be willing to put their money on getting him twisted in knots. The Bills offence will pick up where it left off last week, dropping 45 points on the hapless Jets.
Final Score: Colts 17 - 31 Bills
Tips
Dawson Knox is 13/5 to score an anytime TD, for a player that’s had a TD in 4 of the last 6 games is a good price.
We’re around 25% ROI through week 10. Not great, not bad, but we keep working!