This article is part of our East Coast Offense series.
When Disaster Strikes
This was one of the worst NFL weeks I've ever experienced. I went 4-11 against the spread (ATS), damaging what was a strong overall record. I lost all four of my best bets, putting me at .500 on them for the year. I got eliminated in two of my three survivor pools with the Seahawks, the team I also recommended in my article for the site. I also lost my NFFC Classic matchup in part due to Cruz's TD drop and injury and lost Cruz for the year. And I had my real-life team get blown out 27-0 against its first-place divison rival.
When you have so many teams, picking pools, survivor pools and a real-life team in which you're heavily invested, there's almost never a week where something doesn't go wrong. But it's rare for nearly everything to go wrong at once.
Oddly, I'd have been more upset if only one or two of those things had happened. In those cases I tend to stew over the missing detail that derailed my week. But when everything goes wrong, it causes me to disengage, question the premise of the entire endeavor. Why am I watching 15 hours of football a week? To what end am I investing so much emotional energy in something I can't control? Might I have some other purpose on the planet? In short, the total disaster scenario forces me to have perspective, and perspective is dangerous to the mission.
There are two ways one can go with this: (1) Turn it into something funny - ha ha, the NFL is so unpredictable, and look how it's kicking my ass. That has its merits for a while, but ultimately it's like the co-ed softball game with a keg - an appealing concept but disatisfying for anyone who actually wanted to compete; or (2) Check out the Week 7 lines and seriously, without irony, make another go at it as if this is the week I'll go 15-0 ATS and win all my fantasy leagues. The key to sticking with the second option is to mute the "reality"-based voice that says, "You're flipping coins and trying for heads," or "you win some, you lose some, but over the long haul you'll break even in your fantasy leagues."
Even if those sentiments are largely true - or true generally over the long haul for the average player - they undermine the enjoyment and creativity essential to the pursuit. In fact, I'd argue the "truth" is sometimes defeatist, and there's actually research on the phenomenon of depressive realism which concludes mildly depressed people are more realistic in certain situations because they lack an optimistic bias.
I'm not advocating you go to the blackjack table and believe you'll win because you're a good person, i.e., the Mark Stopa philosophy, cooked up when he won nearly $10K in a few hours of playing this summer, but there's an element of unrealistic optimism necessary to having an open mind and the potential to see an angle someone else might have missed. Realistically, no one person is ever likely to advance human understanding, or create something great, but setting that statistical "reality" aside is necessary for any person actually to do so. Even if we have more modest goals like taking down the 2200-person RotoWire NFFC Online Championship or getting 57 percent of our picks ATS right for an entire year, we have to do the same. Yes, we know what the odds are and how Vegas works. We know not to bet more than we can afford to lose. But maybe - if we pay close attention to the facts and trust our observations - we'll see something others are missing or sense something important going on before it's widely apparent.
Unexpected Results
Sometimes you think you've got the NFL landscape loosely figured out - no one has it in his grasp entirely - and something unexpected happens. For me, this was the Cowboys going into Seattle and crushing the Seahawks. The margin of the game was only four points, but Seattle had a blocked punt touchdown and recovered a muffed punt. The Cowboys shut down Seattle's offense entirely and also ran the ball at will.
The question is what to make of such a result. If it happened in Dallas, it wouldn't have been as big a deal, but not only does almost no one win in Seattle, almost no one makes it a game.
There are a few ways to view a result like this:
(1) It was an anomaly.
Sometimes, things happen for no reason whatsoever. That's not to see there can be an effect without a cause, but that the cause is restricted to that particular Sunday and does not arise before or after. One example that's stuck out in my mind for a long time is the 2008 defending champion Giants who ran roughshod over the entire league through 12 games, going 11-1, before Plaxico Burress shot himself and Justin Tuck got hurt.
At that point, the Giants had soundly beaten three of the eventual final-four teams, including the 2008 Super Bowl champion Steelers, runner-up Cardinals and AFC-finalist Ravens.
The Giants' one loss to that point was to the 4-12 Cleveland Browns in a Monday night game by a score of 35-14. I watched that game, and the margin was an accurate representation of the quality of teams that night. It wasn't a bunch of fumbles and blocked punts - the Browns just kicked the crap out of them.
Anomalous games whose results mean nothing happen every year.
(2) It was an indicator
While we know not to read too much into any one game, certain results are indicators a team is for real, or another one isn't as good as we thought. The Cowboys are off to a great start, their offensive line looks fantastic and their defense doesn't look bad, but this is a Jason Garrett-coached, Jerry Jones-run squad that had one of the worst defenses in the league a year ago and actually lost key players like DeMarcus Ware and Sean Lee. Even a strong showing against the Seahawks in a loss could be taken as an indicator the Cowboys were for real - at least to some extent.
It could also indicate we vastly overrated the Seahawks based on their great 2013 season and dominant play at home. While the Seahawks aren't likely to collapse entirely, their poor offensive line play, lack of pass rush and inability to stretch the field bode poorly for another deep playoff run.
(3) It signifies a fundamental shift
Sometimes, a game portends a complete turnaround (for better or worse) for a team. You see this in the Ravens-Broncos playoff game a couple years ago (the Ravens needed a last second TD, but prior to that, the Broncos had two kick return TDs in that game), it happened toward the end of both Giants recent Super Bowl runs, too. Sometimes, a team is one thing, and within a game or two, they are something else entirely.
My instinct is to say anomalies and fundamental shifts are rare while nearly everything's an indicator of some kind, but it's probably more of a continuum where "anomaly" is at zero, "fundamental shift" is at 100 and generic "indicator" would be 50. And by 50, I don't mean a 50-percent shift, but the median amount of meaning that can be derived from one result. And some games would be 60 indicators or 30 indicators, etc.
I wonder if most analytic models assign the same amount of weight to every game, using simply the average influence for each, i.e., to them every game is a "50." But if I were looking for games to weight more heavily or write off as anomalies, I'd target the most surprising results. In other words where a seven-point underdog destroys the favorite (and by destroys, points are not the best metric), my hunch is it's more likely either to mean almost nothing or a whole lot than a result picked at random between two teams that were more evenly matched.
Most annoying commercial
Whenever I'm having a terrible NFL week, I get especially thin-skinned with respect to the obnoxious sounds and images emanating from my TVs during commercials. The Rob Lowe ones weren't that funny the first time, and they get dumber and more annoying the 17th. But there's one commercial the jingle to which makes me want to buy an anti-aircraft gun and launch it into my TV. It's this. You're better off not clicking, and I apologize even for linking to it because it could get stuck in your head, but it's at the point where I can't keep this stuff in anymore.
Week 6 Observations
• Because I already know the Orioles will win the World Series, and it's incredibly unlikely that will happen if they go down 3-0, I feel they're a virtual lock to win tonight in Kansas City.
•Austin Davis is this week's Kirk Cousins, the latest young quarterback to be overhyped after playing the Eagles, only to crash to earth against a real pass defense.
• The Rams are going the way of the Falcons with a real running back committee. Too often the word "committee" gets thrown around when really it's a two-man timeshare, but with Zac Stacy yielding carries not only to Benny Cunningham but also Tre Mason, Tavon Austin and occasionally even Trey Watts, this looks like the real deal.
• There's a lot of week-to-week variance at the receiver position, and I suspect it's even worse on bad passing teams. Brian Quick has been great this year, but four targets, one catch and 10 yards shows the downside of relying on a Rams wideout.
• Those who predicted a big year from Michael Crabtree either overestimated Colin Kaepernick's projected attempts - he's on a better pace than last year, but still well below league average - or too cavalierly dismissed Anquan Boldin as a legitimate target. Keep in mind Vernon Davis is now back too.
• Who replaced Giants offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo with Kevin Gilbride? The whole point of the new offense was tempo and quick throws. But the Giants yielded eight sacks and took a delay of game and had to burn a timeout to avoid another delay call in the first half. Why change it up when the offense was clicking so well?
• The Giants have to do better than Peyton Hillis as the No. 2 back. Andre Williams is not a good blocker or pass catcher, but you can't have a guy in the game who has no chance of getting five yards on a touch. The Giants actually handed it to Hillis on 3rd-and-25 at one point; they'd have been better off punting just in case the punter got a bad snap in which case he could fall on it and punt again.
• With Cruz likely out for the year, Odell Beckham and Rueben Randle should see a lot of targets – that is, assuming the Giants go back to what was working for four games.
•LeSean McCoy has done nothing all year, but he always goes off against the Giants. Maybe the Eagles have figured things out, but, as with Eddie Lacy, I'd feel better if he puts together two good games in a row.
• The Seahawks misdirection offense which looked so brilliant during their game-winning overtime drive against the Broncos, got badly exposed against the Cowboys.
•Russell Wilson is a fantastic escape artist, but why is he running for his life upon catching the snap seemingly on every play against both the Redskins and Cowboys? The offensive line is not good, and every pass against the Cowboys was of the seven-yard variety to Luke Wilson or Percy Harvin cutting across the middle. There's no vertical element to the offense this season at all.
•Cam Newton's running again, and with Carolina's defense slipping, he should again finish as a top-seven QB.
•Derek Carr looks like a player. Not only did he throw four TDs, but there was one play on third-and-two where he rolled out, went through his progressions and finally ran for the two yards the defense gave him that particularly impressed me. It was the poise and judgement you often see in Wilson or Andrew Luck.
•Branden Oliver looks like Ray Rice/Maurice Jones-Drew at their peaks, a short, stocky quick back who can also break tackles and catch passes. Ryan Mathews could be back in a couple weeks, but expect Oliver's role to be Danny Woodhead-plus.
•Keenan Allen will have his games, but as long as Malcom Floyd and Antonio Gates are healthy, the offense is too diverse to count on any one receiver each week. That's a credit to Philip Rivers, but it's hard to count on Allen for more than an occasional big game.
•Bishop Sankey finally got his carries but didn't do much with them. He also got pulled at the goal line for Jackie Battle. Of course, Ken Whisenpunt's team needed a last-second blocked field goal to beat the Jaguars at home.
• It's odd to see defenses like the Cowboys and Bears actually give supposedly good offenses so much trouble. Matt Ryan and the Falcons usually light up opponents at home, but Ryan managed only one TD and 7.3 YPA, and thanks mainly to another long catch and run by Antone Smith.
• The Broncos pick six against the Jets with half a minute left was a real gut punch on a day where I needed every cover I could get. Fortunately, Kirk Cousins and the Redskins gave it back to me in Arizona.
•Ronnie Hillman seemed quick and elusive, but he fumbled once and Juwan Thompson looks the part of the feature back. If they continue to play well, there's no great reason to re-install Montee Ball when he's healthy.
•Jace Amaro caught 10 passes for not much yardage, but given the state of the Jets receiving corps, he should be a frequent target the rest of the way.
•Jordan Reed looked 100 percent healthy and uncannily agile for a tight end. So long as he stays that way, he should be a top-seven option (maybe even top-five) at the position.
• Maybe Detroit's defense is for real. Teddy Bridgewater was terrible against the Lions. It's nice to see the Vikings make the switch to Jerick McKinnon – he got only 11 carries for 39 yards, but caught all six of his targets. He could be a difference maker.
• When Joe Flacco had five TDs early in the second quarter, I was wondering whether the Ravens wouldn't just say screw it and get him eight or nine for the game. NFL teams almost never do that though – it's too bad.
• Anyone who stuck around until the end of the Sunday night game got to hear Al Michaels – who frequently references point spreads – admit he was looking at potential stock market trades during the broadcast. He's the best.
