Not Financial Advice (NFA)
Warning: Wall of Text. If you hate reading just skim through the bolded/italicized
Ever since I publicized my findings on DKNG, the stock has underperformed & probably has fucked a lot of people here, especially given the overly bullish stance back in June. Unless you took my advice & got into Puts then, congrats, welcome to tendie town. For the ADHD retards, here’s what the next wall of text is going to summarize: I believe at the current price of ~$30, the stock is oversold.
A tech-focused, high-growth Company that has made sports betting easy to understand with an aesthetically pleasing interface similar to how Robinhood has neatly laid out stock market gimmicks so even high-schoolers can make sense of it I believe, is underpriced at these levels.
Let’s get into some details as to why the stock has underperformed:
First off, the news slate revolving sports with the rumored delay/cancellation of the MLB season & the NFL watching from the sidelines is in my view, just a part of why the stock has underperformed. We’ll revisit this later in this post, but I want to focus on the drivers of the stock’s recent underperformance, & why these factors are now in the rearview mirror.
Part I – The Past Has Passed – SPAC-related Equity Dilution
History lesson first: DKNG went public via a SPAC merger, which has exploded in popularity recently. Anyone serious about analyzing stocks going forward needs to do their homework on this, Google is your friend.
A feature of most SPAC merger to public listings that creates a headwind to near-term share prices are embedded equity dilution events, usually in the form of earn-outs (stock bonuses to execs, the SPAC sponsor) & conversion of Warrants.
On 5/24, the earn-outs were triggered, adding 6m shares to the share count.
On 6/26, 16.3m warrants converted to DKNG, netting them ~$188m of cash.
Stepping back a little, in addition to the above, on 6/18 DKNG launched a follow-on equity offering of 16M shares @ $40/Share [1], receiving $621M in proceeds.
The last part is tricky to understand from a dilution perspective. To simplify, historically it’s almost a coin toss whether a Company’s shares outperform on the onset of an equity offering. While issuing shares does dilute the existing shareholder base, it theoretically shouldn’t, if the proceeds from the offering are earmarked for investments/projects that yield outsized returns. This is the reality for the long term, theory for the short-term. For the short-term, the ‘reality’ isn’t that the proceeds will be used for investments/projects that yield outsized returns, it is more about how convincing management is to investors that the investments they intend to pursue with the proceeds will outweigh the dilutive effects of issuing incremental shares. That’s a mouthful, but hopefully you get what I’m trying to convey.
All of this stuff put together – the Company has increased its share count by ~39M, but now has a whopping ~$1.4Bn of cash [2]. More on this in the next section.
Part II – MLB News Should Not Fucking Matter & DKNG Is Positioned As the Leading Online/Mobile Sports Platform
DKNG should not be so tied to MLB news or any of this shit as the ongoing success of the NBA/NHL season + Soccer in Europe has effectively created a blueprint on how to regulate player behavior so that they maintain professionalism amidst the pandemic. I’m going out on a whim here, but I truly think the MLB threatening a cancellation of the season is pure posturing to get these fuckers to behave appropriately. Maybe a ‘bubble’ is what it takes to get these players to focus on their jobs instead of going out & contracting COVID, but I argue that isn’t necessarily required given Soccer in Europe. So there’s already a proven path here without the need for a bubble in Soccer, so MLB/NFL should be fine, and execs need to study how they got it done in Europe. Okay, back to some facts.
Anecdotally, I’ve kept in touch with a handful of sports bookies from California to New York & even internationally about what they’re seeing – all of them say that since the NBA season started on 7/30 & since Soccer (especially the Premier League) resumed in June, along with other leagues like La Liga & Serie A, they’ve seen massive increases in betting.
These numbers are also showing up in the official data [3]:

Average % increase in sports betting handle from April 2020 to June 2020 (handle is the total $ wagered in sports bets) from the states that reported up to June 2020 (NJ, PA, MS, RI, WV, IA, IN, NH) of +258%!
- Note: NV is left out due to the site I sourced showing a weirdly negative number – so I dug into the official filings & show specifically, Sports Mobile betting growth from June since April has growing by at least +73% [4]

REMEMBER: This is for June only! No NBA, No NHL, No MLB, just Soccer, Golf, NASCAR & UFC.
The data clearly shows that there was a ton of pent-up sports betting demand, which leads one Wall St. analyst to think that betting on the NBA/NHL could ABSORB the MLB’s sports betting handle (handle = total $ size of sports bet) [5]. Remember, the MLB season is still ongoing, with games being played. The entire focus is on the Miami Marlins & St. Louis Cardinals. Fucking retards.
Additionally, I want to remind everyone that DraftKings.com is the #1 Fantasy sports website in the U.S. [6]. Also, since April 2020 site visitations are up +86% [7] & Google Search Trends for “Draft Kings” is up ~3x compared to PRE-COVID levels [8]. What does this mean? They are piquing more people’s curiosity than prior to COVID/ongoing slate of sports.
This is important because remember that ~$1.4Bn chest full of cash I mentioned DKNG had assembled earlier? Well, that money is being put to work & results are already coming in, which is exactly what DKNG intended to do with it.
Part III – Legalization of Sports Betting in the U.S.
I could write a fucking bible on this topic alone, but for now we’ll stick to some basics. Due to COVID, it’s easy to understand that each State’s financial situation is clearly in shit. Because of this, you better believe that these guys are going to start taking a hard look at how they can extract additional tax revenues, & what’s one of the easiest ways to do this? Legalization & taxation of gambling.
The big players: CA, TX, FL & NY. First, CA pushing its legislation out to 2023 was fucked up, but here’s a twist I want to add to this: Anything that has to do with gambling in CA you better believe is lobbied against by not just the Tribal casino owners in CA, but by the deep pockets of Las Vegas money. Similar thing can be said for FL, but let’s take a look at some actions by LV/nationwide gambling companies that are starting to align financial incentives with guys like DKNG.

MGM / GVC Holdings JV in BetMGM - $450m total invested
PENN invests $163m into BS Sports
Caesars has a 20% stake in William Hill plus partnership deals with The Stars Group (TSG) & our winner DKNG for operating its sports books

So it’s safe to say going forward, nationwide legalization of sports betting will reap rewards for everyone involved, & no longer be something LV money is completely focused on safeguarding.
Let’s also not forget that DKNG didn’t become the Company they are today because of their fancy app, but because their management team has a HISTORY of navigating the U.S.’s legal framework to get what they want out of it.

The Crown Jewel – The Internet Gambling Prohibition & Enforcement Act: I said it in a previous post, but I want to emphasize that them getting Fantasy Sports to be labeled a ‘game of skill’ by FEDERAL Law as opposed to gambling is just something for the history books. Fucking genius shit. When this happened I bet every casino from LV to every Indian Tribe that has one was against it, yet DKNG & other DFS providers won.
There’s more, but more recently: Getting into IL:
- In IL, there’s an 18-month ‘penalty box’ for Companies that offer DFS to offer sports betting. Our guys at DKNG created a workaround to this situation with their partnership with Casino Queen [9]. DKNG being savvy again.

These guys are at the cutting edge of creating legal frameworks to successfully launch their products & now with more of their ‘competitors’ financially aligned with them, combined with financial deterioration of State budgets, we should see an overweighting of good news vs. bad on the legal front.
Final Part – Share Price Targets
Under-fucking priced at anything below $42.50
Near-term catalysts:
8/14: DKNG files 2Q’20 results, might be shitty, but you can bet that the Earnings Call is going to contain rhetoric on how massive the uptick in sports betting has been since late June/July.
Sometime from now until November: NY releases ‘study’ by Spectrum Gaming on online/mobile sports betting.
8/20 – 9/7: PGA Championship for FedEx Cup Title
9/5 – KY Derby
9/10: NFL KickOff Game
9/17: PGA U.S. Open Start Date
Month of October: NBA/NHL Playoffs
10/1: Estimated launch of online sports betting in TN
11/1: Estimated launch of online sports betting in VA
[1] https://draftkings.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/draftkings-announces-proposed-public-offering-class-common-stock
[2] Wall St. Research – DKNG on 6/29/20
[3] https://www.legalsportsreport.com/sports-betting/revenue/
[4] https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=16984; Note: Nevada did not break out April/May figures but from the Revenue difference of 3 month ended June 30 of 4,950 vs. month of June of 2,297 for a total difference of 2,653 spread evenly over April/May for a base case April estimate of 1,327.
[5] Wall St. Research - 7/27/20
[6] https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/category/sports/fantasy-sports/
[7] https://www.similarweb.com/website/draftkings.com/#overview
[8] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=draft%20kings Feb 23-29, 2020 vs. Current Aug 2 – Aug 8, 2020
[9] https://www.legalsportsreport.com/42314/draftkings-illinois-sports-betting-market-access/

Will the Philadelphia Eagles win OVER/UNDER 9.5 games? By University Stats Prof!

1. Introduction

The Eagles have been a good model of consistency. Over the past 20 years, they have had just four losing seasons.

It wasn’t always pretty, but Philly managed to secure the NFC East title with a 9-7 record last year. They closed out the regular season with a four-game winning streak to edge the Cowboys atop the division.

Unfortunately, Carson Wentz exited the wildcard playoff game early and the team couldn’t overcome his absence in a 17-9 home loss to the Seahawks.

2. Offensive Position-by-Position Breakdown

2.1 Quarterbacks (QBs)

Carson Wentz needs to be applauded for his 2019 performance.

He had to deal with numerous injuries to his receiving corps and yet, he led the team to a playoff spot and he finished with a career-high in passing yards with 4,039. He threw 27 TD passes versus 7 interceptions, while playing all 16 games for the first time since his rookie season in 2016.

In the season finale, his top targets were Boston Scott, Dallas Goedert, Josh Perkins, Deontay Burnett and Greg Ward. Outside of Goedert, none is an established starter in the NFL. The Eagles still secured the NFC East title with a 34-17 road win in New York.

Philadelphia selected Jalen Hurts late in the second round of this year’s draft. He transferred from Alabama to Oklahoma for his senior year since Tua Tagovailoa was projected to be the starter. Hurst was actually replacing Kyler Murray who had just been taken as the number one overall pick in the 2019 NFL draft by the Cards.

Hurts did not disappoint in his lone season with the Sooners. He completed 237-of-340 passes (69.7%) with 3,851 passing yards, along with 32 TD passes and eight interceptions. He also rushed for 1,298 yards with 20 TDs on the ground!

His weaknesses are an average accuracy, inconsistent decision-making and a tendency to take off as a runner too often (sometimes when a receiver was open). He is likely to be used as a gadget player by Doug Pederson this year.

Nate Sudfeld will compete for the backup job. He missed the entire 2019 season due to a wrist injury he suffered during preseason. He was a sixth-round pick out of Indiana in the 2016 draft. He has attempted just 25 passes in the NFL in four years, so it’s hard to tell what to expect from him.

2.2 Running Backs (RBs)

Miles Sanders’ rookie season was a resounding success. He led all rookies with 1,327 yards from scrimmage.

He carried a heavier workload as the season went on. During the first eight games, he averaged 8.3 carries per game, as opposed to 14.1 over the last nine contests (including the playoff loss to the Seahawks).

Jordan Howard’s injury at midseason contributed to the increased usage of Sanders in the backfield. With Howard gone to Miami, the sky’s the limit for second-round pick out of Penn State.

Darren Sproles retired and Jay Ajayi was waived. That leaves the door wide open for third-year man Boston Scott. He flashed big time last year and unquestionably passed my eye test. The 5’6’’ back is very explosive.

Scott made a name for himself in Week #17 as he had to step in for Sanders who sprained an ankle in the first quarter against the Giants. Scott went on to rack up 138 total yards and three touchdowns.

2.3 Wide Receivers (WRs)

This unit was decimated by injuries last year. DeSean Jackson pretty much played just one game, while Alshon Jeffery and Nelson Agholor missed six and five games, respectively.

Despite playing under his age-32 campaign, Jackson showed he still has field-stretching abilities in his lone meeting last year. He was spectacular with 8 catches for 154 yards and a couple of scores. He hasn’t played a full 16-game season very often in his career though.

Jeffery is another aging receiver coming off a significant injury. He underwent Lisfranc surgery, which requires a long rehab period. He’s questionable for the start of training camp.

Since two outstanding seasons in 2013 and 2014 with the Bears, Jeffery has missed four games per year on average, while showing signs of slowing down on the field as well. His 11.4 yards-per-catch average last year was a career low.

To be honest, I feel like Jeffery’s time in the league is coming to an end soon. Lisfranc injuries can be tricky for wide receivers, and full recovery is even more difficult for guys above 30 years of age.

Nelson Agholor was a younger WR who could have provided adequate depth, but he signed with the Raiders. The former first-rounder has not lived up to expectations, but he was still a decent pass catcher, albeit his drops were a big issue last year. Maybe a change of scenery will help rejuvenate his career.

Philly drafted Jalen Reagor with the #21 pick overall last April. He’s a smallish deep threat who is at his best on straight routes. He was good with contested catches, but will it still be the case in the NFL given his size? That’s a big question mark.

Reagor opened a lot of eyes by scoring eight touchdowns as a freshman with TCU after being a high recruit out of high school. He followed up with a great 72-1061-9 receiving line as a sophomore.

Reagor’s numbers dropped quite a bit as a junior (43-611-5), but you can attribute that to having a freshman QB at the helm. He’s an electrifying player who can take it to the house every time he touches the ball.

The competition for the number three role is also likely to involve Greg Ward and J.J. Arcega-Whiteside. These two guys have had completely different paths before making it to the NFL.

Ward went undrafted before joining the AAF. He eventually was added to the Eagles’ practice squad, and later on promoted to the 53-man roster until a depleted receiving corps forced him onto the field.

Meanwhile, Arcega-Whiteside had more of a “conventional” journey by being drafted in the second-round of the 2019 draft.

Such resumes would suggest Arcega-Whiteside would be the superior wideout, but that’s not what we saw on the field. He only caught 10-of-22 targets for a disappointing 45% catch rate. He was rarely targeted down the stretch, despite the numerous injuries at the position.

On the other hand, Ward filled in admirably late in the season. Over the final four meetings, including the playoff game, he caught 20-of-25 targets (an 80% catch rate). He clearly deserves a shot as a top reserve for the upcoming season.

2.4 Tight Ends (TEs)

The Eagles have a nice duo at the tight end position with Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert.

Ertz is a true warrior. He hasn’t missed more than two games in each of his first seven season in the league. Last year, he played with two rib fractures one week after lacerating his kidney. Talk about a tough guy.

His numbers are also staggering. His lowest figures in terms of receptions and receiving yards over the past five years are 74 and 816. That’s truly remarkable! Please note that he’ll be turning 30 years old during the season.

Just like Ertz, Goedert is also a former second-rounder. However, he is four years younger. He caught 58 passes for 607 yards and 5 TDs, all career-highs. He was targeted 4 times per game on average before the team’s bye week versus an average of 7.9 for the remainder of the year. Granted, injuries to other targets probably boosted his numbers, but he still developed nice chemistry with Wentz.

2.5 Offensive Line (OL)

The Eagles have a heck of an offensive line.

You cannot blame Jason Kelce for anything over the past five years. He hasn’t missed any start, while consistently being one of the top centers in the league. As a matter of fact, he was rated as the #1 center in the NFL according to PFF grades last year. He’s now 32 years old.

Left tackle Jason Peters has been just as good as Kelce. He was nominated to nine Pro Bowls in his career and he finished as the number 6 tackle in the league with his 83.4 PFF mark. Unfortunately, the team decided to let the 38-year old hit the free agency market. EDIT: he was re-signed three days ago (this article was written several weeks ago). He is projected to play guard instead of tackle.

Peters will be replaced with 2019 first-round pick, Andre Dillard. Is he ready to take on the full-time job? It remains to be seen, but it will be difficult to fill Peters’ shoes.

As for Lane Johnson, the right tackle finished as the 3rd-best tackle in the league based on the PFF grading system. He’s been very good throughout his seven-year career; the former #4 overall pick has not disappointed at all!

Brandon Brooks also had a huge 2019 season! He ended the year as the top guard in the NFL with a jaw-dropping 92.9 PFF mark. Much like Lane Johnson, Brooks is another player above 30 years old who’s been reliable his entire career.

Left guard Isaac Seumalo started all 16 games for the first time of his career. He’s the one that received the lowest grades on this OL, but finishing 17th out of 81 guards is nothing to be ashamed of! The former third-round pick from the 2016 draft is not as talented as his colleagues, but you could do worse than having him as one of your starters.

The team lost good depth with the departure of Halapoulivaati Vaitai to Detroit. The 2019 season was clearly his best year; it would have been nice to retain him but he signed a huge contract with the Lions.

2020 VS 2019 OFFENSE

When comparing the upcoming 2020 season with last year, there are some positives and some negatives.

Let’s discuss the negative stuff first. I do expect a downgrade on the offensive line. They played at an extremely high level last year with four guys finishing among the 6 players at their respective position (based on PFF rankings). That’s unlikely to happen again, especially with three linemen aged 30 years or above.

Also, second-year man Andre Dillard has good potential, but it will be difficult to match Jason Peters’ 2019 performance. I do expect a drop-off here.

At quarterback and tight end, the situation remains stable.

At the running back position, losing Jordan Howard to free agency won’t hurt too much with the emergence of electrifying Boston Scott. Also, Miles Sanders is expected to take a leap in his sophomore season.

Finally, how could you not expect better production from the WR group? They were hit by the injury bug a lot last year. Agholor’s departure is a moderate blow; getting DeSean Jackson back is a bonus! Hopefully, speedy rookie Jalen Reagor can provide a spark to an offense that sorely missed game breakers last year.

The Eagles offense scored the 12th-highest number of points last year. My final conclusion, based on the arguments above, is that I expect similar production in 2020.

Final call (2020 vs 2019): Stable

3. Defensive Position-by-Position Breakdown

3.1 Defensive Linemen (DLs)

Fletcher Cox is an animal. Plain and simple.

Despite posting his second-lowest sack output of his illustrious eight-year career, he still graded as the 4th-best interior defenders in the NFL based on PFF rankings. On average, he has recorded 6 sacks per year (he only got 3.5 last year)

He has also been very durable; he’s missed just three games out 128. He still has good years to come at age 29.

Tim Jernigan was a decent starter next to Cox, but he clearly wasn’t needed on the team anymore after the Eagles signed stud DT Javon Hargrave. The former Steeler showed steady improvement in each of his first four years in the NFL. His 83.4 PFF mark last year put him in the 8th spot out of 114 DLs.

With Hargrave entering his prime years and Fletcher Cox being a perennial beast, good luck running the ball inside the tackles against the Eagles in 2020.

After playing three years in Indy, Hassan Ridgeway had a below-average season in his first year with the Eagles. He’s more of a rotational player, whom you hope won’t be needed as a starter.

3.2 Defensive Ends (DEs) / Edge Rushers (ED)

Brandon Graham is 32 years old, but he refuses to slow down. He led the team with 8.5 sacks last year, and he has averaged six sacks over an eight-year period!

The guy also finds a way to stay on the field. Can you believe he has missed a single game in eight years! He’s been consistently good and remains a force, both against the run and rushing the passer.

Derek Barnett is a former first-rounder coming off a career-high in sacks with 6.5. However, his 2019 PFF grade was the lowest of his three-year stint in the NFL and he finished as the number 83 edge defender out of 107 qualifiers. He’s an “okay” player.

Vinny Curry played 38% of the snaps last year, but it does not appear like he will be back with the team. At the time of writing, he was still a free agent. He did pick up five sacks last year, but teams seem reluctant to sign him because he’ll be playing his age-32 campaign. He actually played pretty well when called upon.

With Curry gone, the team must hope Josh Sweat will elevate his game. The 2018 fourth-round selection posted his first four sacks of his career last year, but his 62.5 overall PFF mark ranked him as the 76th-best edge defender out of 107 guys.

3.3 Linebackers (LBs)

After playing four years in Buffalo and four years in Philly, Nigel Bradham was cut by the Eagles, mainly for cap reasons. He provided average play at the LB position; he was good in coverage, but he was a liability defending the run.

The team also lost Kamu Grugier-Hill, who signed with the Dolphins. You could characterize him as a decent player, albeit far from being great.

That leaves the team pretty thin at the position.

Nathan Gerry is the lone 2019 starter that is still with the team. He ranked as the 34th-best linebacker out of 89 players. He does not offer much upside, though. It would be stunning to see him crack the top 25 someday.

Can Duke Riley and/or T.J Edwards crack the starting lineup? Neither seem to be an up-and-coming star. Riley was acquired for peanuts prior to last year and he played 35 snaps. As for Edwards, he was an undrafted rookie out of Wisconsin that did well in limited time last year. He proved to be stout against the run.

3.4 Cornerbacks (CBs)

Philly’s back end has been revamped for the upcoming 2020 season.

The Eagles signed one of the best slot corners in the league: Nickell Robey-Coleman. He has received consistently good grades from ProFootballFocus over the past four years. At 5’8’’ he is pretty small, but you couldn’t tell from the quality of his game. He’s a nice addition.

Philly also acquired Darius “Big Play” Slay, who played the first seven years of his career with the Lions. He had a down year in 2019, but I’m not worried he can rebound in a new environment. He’s been covering opponent’s top receivers for a while in this league, and he’s done a good job at it. He has 19 career interceptions.

Ronald Darby’s career has been plagued with injuries recently and he was let go during the offseason. His PFF grade took an enormous drop last year, all the way from a respectable 70.6 in 2018 down to an abysmal 44.8 last year. He signed a one-year deal with the Redskins.

Rasul Douglas and Avonte Maddox are still on the team, but neither has proven to be an impactful contributor. Both graded as very below-average corners in 2019.

3.5 Safeties (S)

Malcolm Jenkins and Rodney McLeod both played the entire 2019 season. They ranked as the 32nd- and 52nd-best out of a bunch of 87 safeties.

The organization and Jenkins couldn’t agree on a deal, so the Eagles had to let him go after six very successful seasons. He picked off 11 passes during his six-year stint in Philly. He signed with the Saints, with which he spent the first five seasons of his career. Even though he wasn’t getting any younger, his present will be missed.

McLeod’s 2019 PFF grade was the lowest he had obtained over the past five years, but he still did a decent job.

Jalen Mills will be one piece of the puzzle in replacing Jenkins. But let’s face the reality: he has been pretty awful throughout his four-year career, except 2017 where he did better.

Another option will be newly acquired Will Parks, who is coming over from Denver. However, he’s clearly not a long-term solution either. He’s pretty versatile, but he’s a below-average player.

2020 VS 2019 DEFENSE

This unit was upgraded quite a bit during the offseason at two positions, but it also suffered a severe downgrade at a couple others.

First, acquiring Javon Hargrave to team up with Fletcher Cox on the interior of the line was big! At CB, getting Darius Slay and Nickell Robey-Coleman will provide much needed help at a position that has caused headaches for years in Philly.

Unfortunately, the defense lost its best safety when Malcolm Jenkins signed with the Saints. Also, even though none of them was a true difference maker, losing linebackers Nigel Bradham and Kamu Grugier-Hill creates a hole.

Since the team acquired some big time players while losing good/average players, I envision a small improvement. In 2019, the Eagles finished in the middle of the pack in terms of points allowed per game (15th out of 32 teams). I envision Philly finishing around the #10-#13 spot this year.

Final call (2020 vs 2019): Small upgrade

4. Regular Season Wins

According to sportsbooks, the Eagles are expected to win 9.5 games this season. Should we bet the “over” or the “under”?

Here is the methodology I used in order to answer this vital question:

Use BetOnline.ag’s point spreads on all 256 regular season games.
Convert those point spreads into win probabilities.
Simulate each of the 256 games, according to those win probabilities, via the R statistical software.
Repeat the previous step one million times (you get 1M simulated seasons).
Count the proportion of seasons where the Eagles won more or less than 9.5 games.

Here are the results:

	Estimated Probability	Sportsbook	Odds	ROI
OVER 9.5 WINS	42.3%	FanDuel	-105	-17.4%
UNDER 9.5 WINS	57.7%	Pinnacle	-103	+13.7%

Tip: Bet UNDER 9.5 wins
Return On Investment (ROI): +13.7%
Rank: 19th-highest ROI out of 32 teams
Minimum odds required to bet (i.e. ROI = 0%): -136

Here are BetOnline’s point spreads for the Eagles’ 16 regular season games:

HOME: +2 vs BAL, -10 vs CIN, -2.5 vs DAL, -4 vs LAR, 0 vs NO, -5 vs NYG, -2 vs SEA, -10.5 vs WAS.
ROAD: +1.5 @ ARI, 0 @ CLE, +2 @ DAL, +2.5 @ GB, -3.5 @ NYG, +1.5 @ PIT, +5.5 @ SF, -6 @ WAS.

Note: The “Best odds” from the table above were obtained after looking at 13 well-known online sportsbooks on May 18th, 2020.

I invite you to take a look at my other 31 NFL team previews! Good information if you are involved in fantasy football and/or if you want to be up-to-date on player movement and teams' strengths and weaknesses (for betting purposes)!

Cheers,

Professor MJ

[Official//LIVESTREAM]"Chiefs vs Raiders" liVe [email protected]

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$DKNG Makes No Sense to Me - Lots of Thoughts

DKNG has seen huge gains this week, mostly focused on Tuesday and today, Thursday. Both days saw intraday spikes on sports-world news: on Tuesday afternoon a presser with Gary Bettman was announced and on Thursday it was announced that the Premier League would return in June. Oddly, the stock did not move back down at all after Bettman’s announcement turned out to just be an expanded playoff format, and nothing about a return to the ice. The Premier League news didn’t seem to have much impact on other sports betting stocks either.
Both of these events point towards something that seems obviously clear: DraftKings’ stock is hugely overpriced, but seems to keep being driven up just by trading. I think there are cases to be made for short term bull or bear, and for long term bear. I’m already in on the long term bear case with Nov ‘20, Dec ‘20 and Jan ‘21 Puts that have all taken a beating, but debating what the profitable short term play is.
For some context, I used to trade bonds on one of the biggest desks in NY, but moved to be closer to family a while ago and run my own business. My state is not supported by DraftKings, so keep in mind when reading that I am a bit salty towards the company and their ability to sniff out VPNs. Been a long time lurker here, but this is my first post.
The company’s Q1 earnings was pretty enlightening and quite the spin job. I was shocked to see the stock rise that day after what I read to be a pretty poor outcome. Growth in marketing expenses can be written off as entering new states, but seeing no growth in net revenue despite 30% growth in gross revenue means that the company has a growth problem, in other words almost all the revenue growth was driven by giving away free bets and reducing vig. Let’s look further at revenue growth though.
I found it very interesting that the company led with “30% revenue growth” when, in fact, that was only at Old DraftKings, which makes up about 75% of New DraftKings revenue. SBTech makes up the rest and grew at only 3%, giving the public company a 23% growth rate for the quarter, not 30% - spin job.
The company also gave us an interesting insight into coronavirus’ impact on their business, maybe unintentionally. At Old DraftKings, they noted 60% growth through March 10th. If we assume each day through the quarter is equal, that means the last 21 days of the quarter would have been down 70% vs Q1 ‘19, that’s big. However, we know not all days are created equal in the world of sports, and Q1 included 5 NFL playoff days and the Super Bowl. If we assume NFL betting days are 3x a normal day and the Super Bowl is 3x a normal NFL day, you can see your way to revenue post-March 10th being down 95%. A similar look at SBTech’s drop from +19% to only +3% means revenue post-coronavirus is down at least by half.
Another interesting lens to use in looking at the company is how they pitched themselves when the merger was announced five months ago in December. On slide 22 they compare their valuation to a variety of comps, trying to show that the valuation is fair, probably trying to alleviate the fact that the valuation for DraftKings was about 4x what Paddy Power paid for FanDuel 18 months earlier. I’m going to ignore the “EV / 2021E Revenue – Growth Adjusted” multiple that they highlight, because adjusting a forward looking multiple based on your own forward looking growth projections is absolute garbage, and instead look at EV / TTM 3/31 Revenue for those same comps.
At $39 per share, DraftKings has a market cap a bit over $15 billion on TTM revenue of $451 million, giving them a revenue multiple of 33.7x. For those of you that haven’t been around the block a few times, that is outrageously high. The “High Growth Consumer Internet” category that they selected is at 8.1x and “EU Sportsbook Operators” at 3.6x. Their best comp is probably Flutter, which is Paddy Power + Fanduel + Stars, trades at 7.8x. DraftKings deserves a higher multiple than Flutter given that they are pure-play USA vs Flutter which has a lot of retail european revenue that isn’t high growth, but the two companies currently have the same market cap, despite FanDuel being a direct comp to DraftKings with more market share in the fast growing business segments. Even if you said DraftKings should trade at a 50% premium to Flutter, which is being very generous, that implies a share price of only $13.50.
I know what you’re going to say: “this is all about more states allowing sports betting.” Fine, let’s look at what would need to happen at the state-level to get DraftKings’ current valuation to be reasonable. Going back to the December investor presentation, DraftKings estimates their sports book net revenue at $2.3 billion given 25% market share and 65% of the US having online betting, with a 22% allowance for promos from Gross to Net. That let’s us back into $4.5 billion of gross revenue at 100% of the population. Let’s then give them a 30% bump on that for iGaming. Using the company’s current $15 billion valuation and the same 50% premium to Flutter’s revenue multiple above (11.7x) that means they need $1.28 billion of revenue, or $831 million more than they currently have. $831 million more revenue needed means they need 14% more of the population to legalize in the very short term. Of the big five states, CA, TX, FL, NY and PA, none are going to add any population, with PA already online, NY choosing retail-only and the other three being no where close to legalization and widely considered by researchers and lobbyists to be years away. The remaining 46 states, including DC, average 1.3% of the population each, meaning you need a windfall of states to add 14% of the population.
Don’t get started on nationally legalized sports betting, no one is even pushing for that and it is never going to happen. The SCOTUS repeal of PASPA was as much about taking away the Federal Government’s ability to make national decisions like allowing or disallowing sports betting as it was about sports betting itself. Sports betting will roll out throughout the US, but it is going to be a state-by-state slog.
Another thing to consider is what the company might do with its highly valued stock. As we saw with Tesla a few months ago, a big run up in stock price is a great time to do some financial maneuvering. I think there are two very good options for management right now. The first is obvious: follow-on equity offering. In going public via a reverse merger with a SPAC, DraftKings barely tapped the big institutional investors. A follow-on would be a great way to load up the coffers further - anyone that watched TV in 2015 knows they love to spend money on ads - at a very attractive valuation for the company. The problem with this is that new shares coming in, or the follow-on pricing poorly, could be a big drag on the current share price.
Another option might be a little less obvious, but I think could make a lot of sense for the company: Buy William Hill. William Hill currently has a market cap of about $1.5 billion. They have a huge footprint in Europe, a market that DraftKings previously tried and (largely) failed to enter, are a big threat to DraftKings’ DTC approach in the US and have the tech that powers much of the land-based casinos’ sportsbook operations in the US. DraftKings could buy them with their cheap stock, or issue new equity to raise money for the acquisition. DraftKings would add a ton of revenue, could cut lots of duplicated costs, diversify across geographies and sports to temper their seasonality, and replace WillHill’s outdated tech with their much better apps. The big downside is that the CEOs of the two companies seem to really dislike each other.
One reason that I think the stock could be up so much since the “IPO” is that there are a very small number of liquid shares. Remember that this wasn’t an IPO at all, it was a reverse merger with a SPAC, meaning that a much higher percentage of outstanding shares are currently locked up than would be in a typical IPO. That constraint on supply with big retail demand could be a huge driver in the stock gain.
Circling back to be three cases for what I think could happen: - Short term bull: Sports come back, stock (irrationally) trades up on it - Short term bear: Correction to a more realistic valuation, bulls taking gains, any of NHL, NBA, MLB announce they won’t play again in 2020, financial maneuvering by the company - Long term bear: Correction to a more realistic valuation, bulls taking gains, any of NHL, NBA, MLB announce they won’t play again in 2020, financial maneuvering by the company, Q2 or Q3 earnings disappoint/are eye opening, any blip to the NFL cash cow, NBA or NHL ‘20-’21 season delays, lockup ending in October
Just giving my two cents on how I’m looking at this and trading it, and curious to hear any other thoughts or theories on real reasons why the stock is moving and where it is going.
Last thought: for those of you that like DraftKings at this price, you should LOVE Flutter at this price.

McClain's Mailbag - lotta frustration here

Thank you for making this the longest Mailbag we’ve posted. Most of you wanted to vent, so I ran your comments first and the ones that required answers come afterward.
Most of you have given up on the season after the 0-2 start that should be 0-3. I’m guessing you gave up on them after the 0-3 start in 2018. Titans fans gave up last season when they started 2-4. Ravens fans wanted John Harbaugh fired with a 4-5 record in 2018. And don’t forget the Colts’ 1-5 start in 2018 and 10-6 finish, including a victory over the Texans at NRG Stadium? I predicted in August the Texans would start 0-3, so I’m not surprised. Now, if they start 0-4, it’s time to hit the panic button.
Oh, I almost forgot, stunningly, a few of you want Bill O’Brien fired. Imagine that.
Please check out the Chronicle’s two television shows this season: “Texas Sports Nation” airs at around 11:30 p.m. Sundays on KPRC (Channel 2) after NBC's football game. “Texas Sports Nation: In Depth” runs twice a month on AT&T SportsNet Southwest, which also reruns it at different times. The staff is putting a lot of time and effort into the shows, and we hope you like the content.
As always, thank you for contributing to the Mailbag, reading our stories in the Chronicle's print editions and online at Texas Sports Nation, where we also have multiple weekly podcasts. As you do every week, please send your comments and questions to [email protected]. Note: questions have been edited for clarity and/or brevity.
Q: Same BS again this year. There have been many changes, millions of dollars spent, lots of new coaches and plenty more excuses to come. Bill O’Brien is the one constant. He is not a great coach, not even a good coach and still a worse GM. By the time McNair realizes we will be auditioning the next quarterback to lead them nowhere. The excuses are so old. — David P.
Q: Your grade of the HC/GM should be an F. It’s hard to write this during the fourth quarter of this game where I knew, as well as you, the Texans wouldn’t win. But going for it on 4th down in the first half again on our side of the field is flat out stupid. I would have been OK with it in the 4th quarter on Baltimore’s side of the field because we were down by two scores and a field goal wasn’t going to help. If the guards can’t run block or pass block any better than this then I have to call out the GM. Does Bill understand that the rest of the NFL coaches know the offensive line cannot block long enough for a deep route to hurt them. It appears he has built a quick-strike offense fantasy built around deep pass routes that does not reflect the offensive line’s ability to block. Use Cobb and the TEs more and run the clock because our defense is not built to be on the field for long stretches and we surely haven’t scared the opponent defensively. Please do not say we played Baltimore better this time then last time. We lost and until the coaching/drafting/trading gets better, the Texans will always be full of noise and nothing else. — Glenn P.
Q: It's amazing that the Texans still keep getting national television slots. And every time they do Bill O'Brien uses it to showcase really stupid coaching decisions. That David Johnson trade looks bad now, with no one to block for him, and no one to pass protect for Deshaun. And Hopkins is enjoying great success with a dynamic QB and 2-0 record. The more things change, the more things stay the same. The Texans are again proving to not be ready for the start of the season. Those poor guys are bad at everything, poor offensive line play, no pass rush, poor tackling, and boy do they get outcoached. Teams take on the personality of their coach. And OB is never prepared and extremely unpredictable. That offense looks the same to me and so does the sad sack defense. Poor Deshaun deserves better than running for his life game after game. — Ronald J.
Q: I just want to say that I'm sorry you had to sit through the entire Ravens-Texans game. At least I could switch to the U.S. Open golf tournament. I'm not going to rag on anybody this morning. Just some thoughts that seem to me to be reasonable concerning Deshaun Watson. I was prompted on this subject by Brian Smith's first paragraph of his column. To paraphrase, one of these days he is going to shout, “REALLY?” when another questionable 4th down call comes in. There are just a few gifted QBs that have an innate gunslinger quality about them. Watson, Jackson, Mahomes, Favre, and Russell Wilson, to name a few. I think Watson is being mismanaged. The GM/HC is trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole. He is by nature a gunslinger. He is unconventional and they are trying to make him conventional. Turn him loose! Let him use the play called as a suggestion. See what happens when he is allowed to be who he is. My observation is he’s not a pocket QB. I see nothing in Kelly's play-calling that differs from O'Brien. Tim Kelly is an O'Brien clone. He studied and was groomed by O'Brien. What did we expect? I know, it's early. They were expected to lose this game. I just wish they would have gone out on their shields and not pouting on the bench. I know eventually O'Brien will be let go. My recommendation for replacement is Ravens DC Wink Martindale. Have you ever seen a more ravenous defense! You just wonder why we can’t be like that. They do trade film don't they? Weaver should study them until his eyes bleed. — Joe K.
Q: Hopkins is making Kyler Murray an MVP candidate. All Texans fans wish OB would go away. I worry about your sanity if you can't get over the Hopkins trade. Normally when you have fourth-and-1 at your 34, you punt. Why wouldn't you punt? Because your defense is arguably the worst in the NFL. Odds are they’ll be even worse if they are tired. It's one thing to know it another to announce it to the Ravens. Perhaps OB forgot, it's an emotional game. How do you think the Ravens felt then? OB’s got one of the most gifted QBs the NFL has ever seen at eluding a pass rush. What does a pump fake do? It gets DL to raise their hands and DBs to make a move. This is why the Texans are so damn frustrating. Yes, they stink on defense, and yes, they can barely block on most plays, but they still have the magician, DW4. What makes him so elusive? Body movements — subtle and not so subtle just like Air Jordan. It happens so quickly for these phenomenal athletes. It’s more instinct than thought. If you know anyone who has any influence with OB, pay them to whisper the words "pump fake." I bet you DW4 can sell a pump fake better than most. — Juan B.
Q: I was hoping the Texans would not start the season 0-2. The Ravens again beat the Texans. The Texans were outcoached and outplayed. The Ravens organization is clearly at a higher level than the Texans. The Texans' defense again was not effective against the run. The offensive line was not consistent with pass blocking or picking up the blitz. Then there was the fourth-and-1 at their 34. The coaching staff is hired to give you the best chance to win. This was not the best call, ever, on your side of the field against the Ravens defense. The play that was called had no chance of succeeding. This has become an alarming pattern for this team every year. Can we win in Pittsburgh? Not with this play-calling, poor defense and sporadic offense. I’m hopeful for a Texans win, but I see this year being very long and disappointing. — Darryl K.
More Texans Coverage
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JOHN MCCLAIN JOHN MCCLAIN John McClain's takeaways: Less is more for J.J. Watt
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TEXAS SPORTS NATION: TV & PODCASTS JOHN MCCLAIN, AARON WILSON Podcast: How can Texans win in Pittsburgh?
JOHN MCCLAIN BY JOHN MCCLAIN, STAFF WRITER McClain: Texans lacking that opening drive
JEROME SOLOMON BY JEROME SOLOMON, STAFF WRITER Solomon: Bill O'Brien lucky to have the only supporter he needs
TEXAS SPORTS NATION: TV & PODCASTS JOHN MCCLAIN, AARON WILSON Podcast: Why the Texans sit at 0-2 Q: The Texans looked a little more competitive but did not show anything to convince me they can beat the Steelers so I'm seeing an 0-3 hole. Hope springs eternal which is essential for Texans fans. This looks like my year to adopt the Cardinals as my team. I lived in Phoenix for 50 years so it's not a random choice. With DeAndre Hopkins playing like he's a Cardinals veteran alongside the ever-reliable Larry Fitzgerald, I'm sure they're a fun team to watch and a nightmare to defend against. I'd like to become convinced that Bill O'Brien knows what he's doing, but the mountain of evidence to the contrary just keeps growing. — Greg G.
Q: If Houston played KC and Baltimore nine more times each, they would lose all nine to both teams. They're probably not in the top five in the AFC! These are the teams they must compete with just to reach a Super Bowl. Houston is not even in the conversation to win it all. This sucks again for loyal Houston fans begging for a winner. O'Brien is the problem, not the solution. I fear we have many years before being able to make and succeed in the playoffs. I see easily an 8-8 team this year. — Rhett D.
Q: I listen to Sports Radio 610 and read the comments from everyone and its all the same old thing — it’s O’Brien’s fault. When do all these high-priced prima donnas start hearing the comments about them? O’Brien got rid of Clowney because he wanted too much money, the same reason that he’s with his third team in three years. He got rid of Hopkins because he had three years left on the contract he signed. When is enough enough? These guys talk about helping people, then buy more cars or more jewelry or go to the strip clubs and make it rain. When do the owners that took the chance and spent their money to buy these teams say enough is enough and lock the doors and say no more, let’s get real on all these demands and I own the team and it’s my way or the highway? They don’t need the players — the players need them. — Tommy P.
Q: Football 101: You can't expect to win by trading away your best players. — Tim H.
Q: Bring DeAndre Hopkins back home. Please get rid of BOB, he's ruining the teams. Get rid of everyone in organization staff and the medical staff as well. — Billy W.
Q: I have lived in Houston and followed sports and Houston is just not a winning town. Look at the poor play in this year’s first two games. You gave them an F. I give them a big F-minus. Okay, you don't win every game, but you should be at the top. We had a few times where we did get to the top but not near enough. Now the best was the Luv Ya Blue days with Bum Phillips. The owner did not like Bum getting all the credit so off went Bum, down went the Oilers. Sports is just way out of control. Look at the pay they get, the best heart surgeon does not come anywhere near. Now the real problem is kneeling when our beautiful flag is presented and the national anthem is played. Protest is no problem as when done in a positive and proper manner. These kneelers have a nationwide audience. What a disgrace for this great country. Remember, these guys are able to kneel because of the veterans. Just find another place and method to protest. I look at the headstones of our military with KIA (Killed in Action) and look what they gave for little pay. This protesting by kneeling has to stop. I and many others no longer watch or purchase commodities from the advertisers. This virus will also hurt. . I stand for the veterans. — James M.
The Houston Chronicle’s Brian T. Smith discusses Texans coach Bill O’Brien’s curious decisions In their loss to the Ravens and whether anything has changed with the franchise. Video: Houston Chronicle Q: It all goes back to coaching and a head coach is only as good as the personnel around him. Frank Broyles passed that on to me a long time ago. And looks like he might have known what he was talking about. — Jim D.
Q: I couldn’t agree more with you on the grade you gave the Texans against the Ravens. It’s probably not too late or too early to get rid of O’Brien as we all figured they would start out slow. That being said even if they go 10-6, they’re nowhere near the quality of the Ravens or the Chiefs. They have way too many holes on defense and even though they’ve got some big-name wide receivers, they are not on the same page. And the defense is absolutely horrible. Why have Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins been able to get on the same page so quickly while the Texans are struggling? I looked at their schedule and based on how they’ve played even though it’s been only two weeks I figure them to be no better than 8-8. That being said, I think O’Brien should be fired. I don’t know who should replace him. It looks like trading Hopkins is a catastrophic mistake and trading Clowney he has also been a catastrophic mistake. Not resigning Reader is a catastrophic mistake. — Glen K.
A: Glen, why was trading Clowney a catastrophic mistake? He didn’t do much in his one season with Seattle and had fewer sacks than Jacob Martin. He’s still getting in shape with the Titans. Would you have given him a $100 million contract? Nobody else has. As for D.J. Reader, good against the run, but over the last nine games last season, including the playoffs, they allowed like 166 yards a game rushing. And they still can’t stop the run.
Q: Any idea why the Texans elected not to have crowd noise pumped into the stadium? Also, what the hell was Bill O’Brien thinking going forward on fourth and 1 on his own side of the field? — Jimmy B.
A: They had crowd noise, Jimmy, but they didn’t have the volume turned up. As for the fourth and 1, the Ravens blitzed and nobody picked it up and the pass was incomplete. Sometimes you’re the bug. Sometimes you’re the windshield. OB was the bug.
Q: I am a Texans fan and will watch and try to be positive, but nothing helps. Why doesn't offensive line push these teams back? Why is our QB constantly trying to throw 30 yards? Why is our center always standing after a play, typically backward and not forward? — Stephen G.
A: The offensive line is off to a bad start against damn good defenses, Stephen. Watson is running for his life and trying to find receivers down the field, and he’s still thrown a lot of short passes.
Q: Your article said Bill O'Brien called the fourth-down tragedy. Later in the article it said Tim Kelly is calling the plays. It looks like an OB call to me. Is O'Brien still calling the plays and Kelly is just a puppet or what? I was ready to turn the game off right after that call. I knew how the rest of the game would go. More of the same with stupid offensive calls. Both KC and Baltimore have active, varied offenses. Coach puts Watson in a position where the offense can't even operate. He continues to try to jam up the middle with his running plays. Isn't there some creativity somewhere? — Chuck W.
A: Chuck, O’Brien made the decision to go for it, and Kelly called the play.
Q: No takeaways about the coaching? I know you graded them F in your report card. Just curious if you had a more profound opinion? Remember OB’s the GM as well. No opinion on any of his trades so far? I know it’s early but I don’t see progress but then again that’s why as fans we look to you for insight. — Francisco M.
A: Francisco, I wrote a column that included OB. I try not to duplicate things in my On the Texans column with my takeaways. Plus, I have to pay attention to what our columnists, Brian T. Smith and Jerome Solomon, are writing. Brian wrote about the fourth-and-1 call and quoted O’Brien. I wrote about it but didn’t quote Bill because we’re not supposed to duplicate quotes if we can avoid it. After a game, we try to cover every single angle in the Chronicle's print editions and on our sports website, Texas Sports Nation. As for OB’s trades, I’ve written about them often.
Q: Now that we are two games in, who is the best quarterback in the AFC South? I know I have heard a lot of hype suggesting Deshaun Watson is the best, but if you go with wins, he is not the best. If you prefer using stats, he is buried behind such stellar talents as Gardner Minshew, Baker Mayfield and Justin Herbert. He is so far below Ryan Tannehill, Deshaun would need a telescope to see up that far. So is it the QB, the O-line coach or the BOB that is the problem with Deshaun? What irked me the most about the coverage of the team is trying to blame the defense. The defense was not good against KC but they held the Ravens to 16 points through three quarters. The lone touchdown was set up by the first of three turnovers by the offense in the first quarter. When you go for fourth and 1 in your territory, you need to make it. Three offensive turnovers in the first half is awful. The defense did let down in the fourth quarter but you could see it coming with their body language. You could tell they knew what we all knew. This offense is awful and they were never coming back. It is going to be a long year. I hope Deshaun survives it. — Tim M.
A: Tim, they didn’t commit three turnovers in the first quarter. As for who’s the best QB in the AFC South, if you ask GMs and coaches around the NFL, I imagine everyone will tell you it’s Watson. You’re already written him off after two games against the best teams in the NFL.
Q: I had a chance to hear your national radio interview on the Sirius NFL station Sunday morning. I thought you were really informative and brutally objective and really gave the rest of the country a sense of how many of us feel here locally. My questions are: How do you prepare for these things? My sense is that you stay immersed in your subject matter and then almost speak a verbal article in the Chronicle. And when did you start feeling comfortable doing these things. Finally, thank you so much for speaking in complete sentences. — Ray M.
A: Thank you for listening, Ray, and taking the time to write. I do so many talk shows, podcasts, Zooms and a weekly television show and write six days a week for the Chronicle — every day but Saturday — and it just comes out when I open my big mouth. I love what I do, and I’m blessed to be doing it for a 45th year at the Chronicle. I try not to turn down anyone who calls me for a radio appearance, Zoom, podcast, etc. if I can work them in. I try to accommodate everyone on a weekly basis.
Q: I'm curious as to why Bill O'Brien never provides specific details on what the team needs to work on after a bad game. It's always, “We need to do better" types of comments. I don't know why he will not provide specific details to the media and fans. Why is he always so vague? — Dan W.
A: Dan, he addressed the bad run defense, Keke Coutee’s fumble, lack of consistency, etc., after the Baltimore loss. He does say they need to play and coach better. He’ll never single out players for criticism, and they appreciate it even if the fans don’t.
Q: I know it’s a long season, but how much longer are the McNairs going to tolerate Billy O’s slow starts and faith-based personnel decisions. For the better part of seven years we have been hearing Billy say, “We have to start faster.” And the last few years, Billy has let go of or traded the best players on the team — Duane Brown, Brandon Brooks, Ben Jones, Glover Quin, JD Clowney, D-Hopkins, D.J. Reader. How do other teams figure out how to pay all these guys but Billy can’t? I know it’s not all Billy’s fault, but after the past few years, shouldn’t the McNairs realize Billy’s a below-average coach, at best? — Louis L.
A: Geez, Louis, you’re so off base on some of your comments. Rick Smith traded Brown and let Quin go in free agency to sign Ed Reed. Brooks, Jones and Reader left in free agency. Would you have paid all of them what they wanted? Would you have paid Clowney $100 million? Teams have to make financial decisions on the salary cap. They can’t pay every player what he asks for. Nobody does.
Q: I am amazed what Jacksonville has done the first two games. Jay Gruden has Minshew playing rather well and his offense looks to be pretty good. Is it possible that Cal's football team is imploding and the brain trust he has in place doesn't know that it is happening? I kind of got excited when the KILT 610 talking heads were saying things about all the speed at WR, and having two RBs who can catch the ball as well as run. And the fact that there were three new coordinators, bringing in new ideas and things should be different and much better. Looks like the OC is simply a clone of the previous one. Not sure about the DC. I still see opposing WRs and TEs running free like last year, and as you have pointed out many times, the run defense has disappeared. But Anthony Weaver is not missing gap assignments and trying to arm tackle ball carriers. Several of the players have gotten paid, but Cal is not getting his money's worth so far. When you predicted an 0-3 start, I figured you probably were correct and I thought those losses would be 2- or 3-point affairs, much like 2018. What I am seeing this season reminds a whole lot of 2005. Seemingly good players and coaches, but terrible execution and suspect game plans. From what you have said and written, Cal will not be making any changes unless the wheels completely fall off. Right now, I think his organization might be riding on the rims, but the wheels are still turning. Albeit slowly. Before the Baltimore game started, I watched the last 20 minutes of Arlington and Atlanta. Can you imagine Cal's team ever doing what Jerry's team did in that game? I feel bad that you have to endure another season covering Cal's team. I would truly love to see you cover a championship team before you retire. — Dennis W.
A: Dennis, if they finish 2-14 like they did in 2005, I expect OB will be fired as Dom Capers was. But I don’t see them finishing 2-14.
Q: I'm holding off any opinion on Kahale Warring at this point thanks to Bennie Joppru, a second-round pick in 2003 who never played a game after going on IR three years in a row. He seems to have played in one game in his fourth year and wound up in Seattle getting into five games and was never heard of again. Saved on laundry bill never having to wash his uniform. It's so easy and fun to be mean when you are a fan. — Larry V.
A: Larry, unfortunately, when I see Warring going on IR for a second consecutive season, I think of Joppru, too. Unfortunately. Maybe he’ll figure it out and make something out of himself because he’s got talent but hasn’t learned how to use it.
Sign up for the Daily Playbook newsletter Texas sports are back! Get the latest scores, news and analysis. Enter your email By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of use and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy. Photo of John McClain John McClain Follow John on: mcclain_on_nfl John McClain, a Waco native who graduated from Baylor in 1975, is in his 45th year at the Houston Chronicle and his 44th covering the National Football League, including the Oilers and Texans. He worked for the Waco Tribune Herald from 1973-76, when he accepted a job with the Chronicle. to cover the original Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association.
McClain has a plaque in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio as the 2006 winner of the Dick McCann Memorial Award presented annually by the Pro Football Writers of America to a writer for his long and distinguished coverage of the NFL. He is past president of the Pro Football Writers of America. In 2019, he was voted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame’s second class of media inductees.
He's a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Seniors Committee and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame Selection Committee.
In 2015, he was named as a Gridiron Legend in Texas, becoming the third member of the media behind Dave Campbell and Mickey Herskowitz. In 2019, he was voted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame's second class of media honorees.
McClain can be heard six times a week on the Texans' flagship station Sports Radio 610 in Houston. He also does weekly sports talk shows in Nashville, Knoxville, Waco, Austin and San Antonio.
McClain also has appeared in eight movies: The Rookie, The Longest Yard, Spring Breakers, Secretariat, Invincible, Cook County, The Game Plan and Make It Rain.

Will the Green Bay Packers win OVER/UNDER 9 games? By University Stats Prof!

1. Introduction

Matt LaFleur’s first season as Green Bay’s head coach has to be considered a success. He led the team to a 13-3 record, which secured the NFC North title.

The Packers held off the Seahawks to a 28-23 home win in the first round of the playoffs, but were ousted by the Niners in a brutal 37-20 thumping (a game in which the Packers dugged themselves into an early 27-0 hole).

2. Offensive Position-by-Position Breakdown

2.1 Quarterbacks (QBs)

Aaron Rodgers will be entering his 16th NFL season. He had another excellent year with a 26-to-4 TD-to-INT ratio and over 4,000 passing yards. He finished as the 7th-best QB in the league according to PFF ratings.

At 36 years old, he is likely to have a few good years left. After all, Drew Brees and Tom Brady posted nice statistics in their late thirties.

Rodgers has been very durable throughout his career, but he’s not invincible either. Tim Boyle was the backup plan last year, and the team needed to upgrade the position while starting to think about the post-Rodgers era.

Still, drafting Jordan Love was the most questionable and talked-about pick in this year’s draft. People expected the Packers to go with a veteran backup QB. Rodgers has mentioned several times he wants to play in his forties; he can still offer a good five years of solid play in the frozen tundra.

Love has possesses great size, throws with velocity and he’s very mobile. The main knock on him is the decision-making and inconsistency.

As a sophomore, he threw 32 TD passes versus 6 interceptions. He regressed a lot last year by posting a mediocre 20:17 TD:INT mark. Granted, his surrounding cast was very weak and he had to go through a coaching change.

Love can throw from many different arm angles; he reminds people of Patrick Mahomes in this regard. He can throw a fastball or a soft touch pass.

Quick note: he almost quit football when he was 14 years old after his dad committed suicide. However, he knew his dad would want him to keep playing, so he did just that.

2.2 Running Backs (RBs)

Aaron Jones is a top running back in this league. Along with Jamaal Williams, they form a lethal duo.

Including the playoffs, Jones ended up scoring 23 touchdowns in 18 games. His 19 regular season scores were the second most in Packers history. His numbers have increased in each of his first three years as a pro. He is also excellent as a pass catcher.

Despite playing in the shadow of Aaron Jones, Jamaal Williams still finished as the 17th-best RB based on PFF rankings. He does not seem like a lead back, but he’s a perfect change-of-pace guy. Much like Jones, he can do some damage as a receiver as well.

Williams has been a steady performer thus far in his career. He has rushed for 450-550 yards in each of his three seasons, while catching a minimum of 25 balls. He has 15 total TDs over this three-year span.

If you thought GM Brian Gutekunst made a strange move by drafting QB Jordan Love in the first round, he doubled down with another head scratcher in the 2nd round when he took A.J. Dillon.

Message to Mr. Gutekunst: Aaron Rodgers needed pass catchers, not a third running back! I really don’t get this pick either. I’m not saying Dillon won’t be good in the NFL; only time will tell. However, it clearly wasn’t a position of need for the Packers.

Dillon is a power back who rarely breaks off huge runs. He racked up big numbers in three seasons in Boston College. He’s unlikely to become a three-down starter, especially since he’s not a good pass catcher. He will likely be used sporadically as a rookie.

2.3 Wide Receivers (WRs)

Davante Adams is one of the best at his position. He had a streak of three straight seasons with at least 10 TD receptions snapped last year, but he still caught 83 passes for 997 yards in 12 games (he missed four games because of a toe injury).

Outside of Adams, all pass catchers appeared lost on the field. None of them developed a good chemistry with Rodgers.

Marquez Valdes-Scantling was a huge disappointment last year. He showed promise as a rookie with over 500 receiving yards. Here’s a jaw-dropping statistic: after Week #7, MVS did not get more than 19 receiving yards in any meeting. That’s awful.

One of the guys benefiting from Valdes-Scantling’s poor play was Jake Kumerow. He got more playing time than expected, but still only caught 12 passes. He is closing in on 30 years of age and is limited as an athlete, so he’s not a long-term answer for sure.

Allen Lazard was also thrown into action far more than expected. He finished second in terms of receiving yards for Green Bay, but let’s face the reality: the undrafted guy remains more of a #3 or #4 WR for any team.

Geronimo Allison was another bust last year. His top performance over the last 12 games (including the playoffs) was a meager 33 receiving yards. He left for another NFC North team, the Detroit Lions.

In other words, the #2 role is wide open. The team hopes newly acquired Devin Funchess can step into that role. The former second rounder had his best season in 2017 with the Panthers with a 63-840-8 stat line. He signed with the Colts last year, but played just one game before breaking a collarbone. He will be 26 years old this season and provides an interesting prospect for the Packers.

2.4 Tight Ends (TEs)

We’re not done talking about 2019 busts. Jimmy Graham was one of them. He clearly looks washed. He received the lowest grades of his 10-year career, and deservedly so. The Packers released him and he signed a few days later with the Bears (a horrible mind-boggling two-year, $16 million contract).

Marcedes Lewis received surprisingly good marks from PFF. If you look into the numbers, the good grade occurred mainly because of efficient run and pass blocking. He’s not much of a pass catcher and he will be 36 years old when the season begins.

Robert Tonyan will also be in the mix, but the guy that has the best chance to break out as a receiver in 2020 only caught three passes last year (all in the playoffs): Jace Sternberger. Taken in the third round of the 2019 draft, Sternberger was a threat at Texas A&M in college. He missed most of the regular season because of injuries, but the door is wide open with Graham’s departure.

We might also see third-round rookie Josiah Deguara. He has a great motor and plays extremely hard. He’s undersized as a tight end, though.

2.5 Offensive Line (OL)

The Packers had a pretty solid offensive line in 2019. All five starters managed to play at least 84% of the offensive snaps. And they all finished above-average according to PFF ratings!

The bad news, however, is the Bryan Bulaga left for the Chargers. Despite turning over 30 years old, he still played at a high level.

The Packers decided to replace him by signing Rick Wagner, formerly of the Lions. Wagner’s PFF grades from 2016 to 2018 were as follows: 74.0, 75.2 and 71.4. Last year, his play deteriorated a lot and he was tagged with a 59.0 grade. He finished as the #61 tackle among 81 guys.

I like the fact that the team is returning four out of five guys, but replacing Bulaga with Wagner has to be viewed as a downgrade.

2020 VS 2019 OFFENSE

The Packers offense finished in the middle of the pack in points scored per game. Barring major injuries, I expect about the same production in 2020.

The QB and RB situations remain the same.

Adding Funchess is not a huge move, but it won’t hurt. The team clearly needs someone to step up opposite of Davante Adams. At tight end, losing Jimmy Graham means close to nothing since he was so ineffective. Sternberger might bring a nice contribution, but we can hardly expect him to be a game-breaker.

Finally, the OL will take a dip with the loss of Bulaga. I don’t believe Rick Wagner can do better than him.

All in all, I view the additions/departures as a slight negative for Green Bay, but having so many starters returning to the lineup for a second straight season is always a good thing in the NFL. For these reasons, I expect a similar output as 2019 from this unit.

Final call (2020 vs 2019): Stable

3. Defensive Position-by-Position Breakdown

3.1 Defensive Linemen (DLs)

Kenny Clark had a fantastic season! He is one of the best interior rushers in the NFL. He recorded six sacks for the second straight year, and PFF ranked him as the 13th-best interior linemen out of 114 qualifiers.

The same nice comments cannot be made about Dean Lowry. He had the worst season of his four-year career as a pro. He did not post a single sack and wasn’t great against the run either.

Reserve Tyler Lancaster is only there to provide some depth. He isn’t particularly good in any aspect of the game.

The team did not make any move regarding this position during the offseason.

3.2 Defensive Ends (DEs) / Edge Rushers (ED)

During the last offseason, the Packers acquired two Smiths: Za’Darius and Preston. They burst onto the scene and got 13.5 and 12 sacks, respectively.

Obviously, both received high marks for their pass rushing abilities, but Preston finished as an average linebacker overall because of mediocre run defense and poor coverage.

Kyler Fackrell was a huge disappointment in 2019. After racking up 10.5 sacks in 2018, he only got one in 2019! He signed a one-year deal with the Giants.

First-round pick Rashan Gary wasn’t necessarily impressive during his rookie season. He played 23% of the snaps, while obtaining two sacks but very pedestrian marks from PFF (an overall 55.8 grade, which is near the bottom among edge defenders).

3.3 Linebackers (LBs)

Green Bay lost its leader in tackles from the past three years, Blake Martinez. After starting 61 of the last 64 Packers games, Martinez decided to join the New York Giants. He had the second-most tackles in the league last year, but don’t be misled by that number. Martinez still finished slight below-average (52nd out of 89 LBs) because of poor play against the run.

The Packers also lost some depth at the position when B.J. Goodson left for Cleveland.

Green Bay picked up a linebacker from the Browns roster: Christian Kirksey. He was picked in the 3rd round of the 2014 before being involved in all 16 games from his first four seasons in the NFL. However, he has been plagued with injuries over the most recent two years; he played 7 games in 2018 and only 2 games in 2019.

He is also capable of racking up tackles, as shown by his 2016 and 2017 seasons where he obtained 146 and 138. His PFF grades during his first four seasons varied between 61.9 and 69.3. Just to give you a rough idea, a 65.0 rating would have been good for 29th place out of 89 LBs.

3.4 Cornerbacks (CBs)

Jaire Alexander has done the job as the #1 corner. He has obtained 72.4 and 71.2 marks from PFF during his first two seasons, which is well-above average. He’s so-so defending the run, but his coverage skills are very good.

The number two corner, Kevin King had five interceptions last year after getting just one over his first two years as a pro. He did show some improvement after two rocky years. He finished 2019 as a middle-of-the-pack corner.

Tramon Williams played 74% of the snaps and had a surprisingly good season despite his age. He will be 37 when the 2020 season begins. He is currently a free agent and it remains to be seen if the Packers bring him back or not.

In summary, Alexander and King are both pretty young and could still be improving, but Tramon Williams provided quality play and it’s uncertain if someone else can pick up the slack.

3.5 Safeties (S)

Adrian Amos and Darnell Savage were the top two guys here.

Along with Za’Darius and Preston Smith, the Adrian Amos was another excellent signing by the Packers during the 2019 offseason. Amos had been a reliable guy in Chicago for four seasons, and he continued to excel in the frozen tundra.

After being selected as the #21 overall pick in the 2019 draft, Darnell Savage did show some flashes as a rookie last year. He finished as the #47 safety among 87 qualifiers, which is very satisfying for a rookie. He earned nice marks in coverage (77.4), but horrible ones against the run (37.7).

Will Redmond will be back as the number three safety. He’s not starter material for sure.

2020 VS 2019 DEFENSE

Most of the starters are returning in 2020. That’s the good news.

The team lost their leader in tackles, Blake Martinez, as well as pass rusher Kyler Fackrell and CB Tramon Williams.

The only acquisition worth of note is Christian Kirksey. Him not having played very much during the last two seasons brings some question marks.

The Packers defense struggled against the run last year, and there’s no reason to believe that will change in 2020. Green Bay still finished 9th in points allowed, which was a very acceptable result.

Unfortunately, a decrease in effectiveness is expected and I predict this unit will end 2020 as a middle-of-pack defense (12th – 19th in points allowed).

Final call (2020 vs 2019): Small downgrade

4. Regular Season Wins

According to sportsbooks, the Green Bay Packers are expected to win 9 games this season. Should we bet the “over” or the “under”?

Here is the methodology I used in order to answer this vital question:

Use BetOnline.ag’s point spreads on all 256 regular season games.
Convert those point spreads into win probabilities.
Simulate each of the 256 games, according to those win probabilities, via the R statistical software.
Repeat the previous step one million times (you get 1M simulated seasons).
Count the proportion of seasons where the Packers won more or less than 9 games.

Here are the results (excluding the simulated years where the Pack won exactly 9 games, since in those cases your bet would have tied):

	Estimated Probability	Sportsbook	Odds	ROI
OVER 9 WINS	51.4%	bwin	+115	+10.5%
UNDER 9 WINS	48.6%	Heritage Sports	+100	-2.8%

Tip: Bet OVER 9 wins
Return On Investment (ROI): +10.5%
Rank: 25th-highest ROI out of 32 teams
Minimum odds required to bet (i.e. ROI = 0%): -106

Here are BetOnline’s point spreads for the Packers’ 16 regular season games:
HOME: -6 vs ATL, -10 vs CAR, -4.5 vs CHI, -6.5 vs DET, -11.5 vs JAX, -3 vs MIN, -2.5 vs PHI, -3.5 vs TEN.
ROAD: 0 @ CHI, -2 @ DET, 0 @ HOU, +2.5 @ IND, +3 @ MIN, +5.5 @ NO, +6.5 @ SF, +2.5 @ TB.

Note: The “Best odds” from the table above were obtained after looking at 13 well-known online sportsbooks on May 18th, 2020.

TOMORROW: I'll talk about the team whose ROI is the 24th-highest in the league, the Pittsburgh Steelers!

Did you like this write-up? If so, comment below! I'd like to know YOUR opinion on what to expect from the Packers' 2020 season!

Professor MJ

ACS | September 28th, 2020 | AJ Benza

Will the Chicago Bears win OVER/UNDER 8.5 games? By University Stats Prof!

1. Introduction

It was a roller-coaster ride for the Bears last year. They started with a 3-1 record before losing five of their next six meetings. They concluded the season by winning four of the last six games, but it wasn’t enough to qualify for the playoffs.

After a NFC North title in 2018, Da Bears ended with a disappointing 8-8 record last season.

The offense was often criticized (deservedly so), and changes needed to be made.

2. Offensive Position-by-Position Breakdown

2.1 Quarterbacks (QBs)

Mitchell Trubisky has had an uncharacteristic journey in the NFL thus far. After being selected as the number two overall pick, he had a rookie season where he threw 7 TD passes versus 7 picks. He took a nice leap in his sophomore year with 24 TDs and 12 interceptions, while leading the team to its first division title since 2010.

QBs showing such a nice growth from year 1 to year 2 rarely crash down the following season, but that pretty much describes Trubisky’s third year in the league. He graded as the 30th-best QB in the NFL out of 37 qualifiers based on PFF rankings.

This situation was inexplicable. It’s not like the team had lost many key pieces on offense. What happened to Trubisky?

GM Ryan Pace has set up nicely a good QB battle in camp between Trubisky and newly acquired Nick Foles.

What’s interesting is Foles himself has had ups-and-downs in his career. He was outstanding in 2013 by throwing 27 TDs versus just 2 interceptions! He also led the Eagles to a Super Bowl in the 2017 season, after Carson Wentz went down to an injury. Foles also performed well in 2018.

However, he wasn’t so good in 2014, 2015 and more recently 2019. What type of quarterback will he be in the windy city? Who’s going to get the starting nod?

My own guess is Foles win the job early on. He is already familiar with the head coach, the QB coach and the offensive coordinator. Learning the playbook won’t be as difficult as if these guys had never worked together in the past.

Backup QB Chase Daniel left for a division rival: the Detroit Lions.

Overall, adding Foles over Daniel is clearly an upgrade over 2019, while also keeping in mind the fact that Trubisky may return to his previous form (which is not impossible for a young guy like him).

2.2 Running Backs (RBs)

What the heck happened to Tarik Cohen? I have always liked small and fast guys. For this reason, he had become one of my favorite guys to watch. Watching him last year (and the entire offense) was sad.

His yards per rush average went from 4.5 to 3.3. His yards per catch average went from 10.2 to 5.8. He couldn’t get going all season long.

In 2017 and 2018, Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen were a great version of the thunder-and-lightning combo. Despite losing Howard, the production wasn’t supposed to drop significantly because of the acquisition of David Montgomery through the draft.

That’s not how things played out. The team went from 11th to 27th place in terms of rushing yards per game (from 2018 to 2019). Montgomery finished the year with a disappointing 3.7 yards per carry average.

Both Montgomery and Cohen will be back in 2020. Perhaps they’ll do better this year, but I don’t expect a huge upgrade either.

2.3 Wide Receivers (WRs)

Finally a guy that has produced consistent results in this offense: Allen Robinson!

Catching 98 balls for 1,147 yards and 7 TDs despite such bad QB play was phenomenal! You can count on him to generate good numbers again, especially in a contract year.

A former second-round pick, Anthony Miller caught 52 passes last season after catching 33 the year before. The only blemish was the number of TD receptions, which went from 7 to 2.

Miller started the year slowly following an offseason injury that made him miss some time in camp. His role could be increased after the departure of Taylor Gabriel.

The Bears pulled the plug on the Taylor Gabriel experiment. After showing some flashes with the Falcons, he never lived up to expectations in Chicago.

Again, the production from this group may be steady in 2020.

2.4 Tight Ends (TEs)

I’m sorry Bears fans, but one of the worst free agent acquisitions, in my humble opinion, was Jimmy Graham for two years and $16 million. The price paid versus the production doesn’t make sense at all.

If you look at his numbers, you can see a clear decline. His first seven seasons were a success; his lowest mark according to PFF during that time span was 74.7. Then, he received a 66.0 grade in 2017. And then 59.6 in 2018, followed by 58.0 last year. To make matters worse, remember that the last two years were with the Packers, who happen to have a quarterback named Aaron Rodgers (have you heard of him?).

Trey Burton was another huge disappointment last year. After catching 54 passes a couple of years ago, he only caught 14 in eight games. He was released and picked up by the Colts.

The team drafted Cole Kmet in the second round in this year’s draft. He’s a classic tight end who can do a little bit of everything. He provides good run blocking, albeit sometimes a bit inconsistent. He doesn’t have that much experience as a pass catcher since he only started racking up decent stats last year, but he has a big catch radius. He will likely need time to develop into a solid starter.

The Bears also have Adam Shaheen in their roster, a 2nd round pick from the 2017 draft. He has bust written all over him.

As if they didn’t have enough tight ends, Chicago went on to sign Demetrius Harris, formerly of the Browns. He graded as the 66th-best tight end out of 66 qualifiers. Enough said.

This group did very little last year. A bunch of six guys combined for 46 catches. Despite the questionable moves, I expect a small upgrade. Perhaps Graham can magically rejuvenate his career?

2.5 Offensive Line (OL)

Four out of five starters are returning: Cody Whitehair, James Daniels, Charles Leno and Bobby Massie. Only Daniels graded as above-average; the others finished in the middle of the pack (or even lower).

Kyle Long announced his retirement, while semi-starter Cornelius Lucas left for Washington. The new starter on the OL will be Germain Ifedi, who made at least 13 starts in each of his first four seasons in the league (all with the Seahawks).

In summary, we have a not-so great starter being replace by a not-so great player. Therefore, we can expect similar results to 2019, which was average play.

2020 VS 2019 OFFENSE

Inconsistency is a recurring theme for many players from this unit: Trubisky, Foles and Cohen.

My final conclusion is a small upgrade over 2019, mainly because of the QB position. The chances are fairly good that either Foles provides a spark, or Trubisky regains his 2018 form. However, don’t expect a MVP-type of season for any one of them.

The rest of the offense should expect similar output. Acquiring Jimmy Graham and Germain Ifedi is nothing to write home about, just as losing Taylor Gabriel isn’t a big loss either.

Final call (2020 vs 2019): Small upgrade

3. Defensive Position-by-Position Breakdown

3.1 Defensive Linemen (DLs)

The interior defenders did a fairly good job. Roy Robertson-Harris, Nick Williams and Eddie Goldman all graded as above-average DLs in 2019. Only Bilal Nichols received poor grades, but he played less often.

Nick Williams left for Detroit, but the Bears expect to get Akiem Hicks in 2020. He suited up for just five games last year. He’s been a dominating force for them the previous three years. His return on the field will make a big difference.

So, despite Williams’ departure, this group should do better in 2020 than the year before, mainly because of Hicks’ return.

3.2 Defensive Ends (DEs) / Edge Rushers (ED)

Khalil Mack’s sack production went down in 2019 with “only” 8.5. He had recorded 12.5, 10.5, 11 and 15 in its previous four campaigns. Still, Mack finished as the #14 edge defender out of 107 guys. He is constantly disrupting plays from opposing offenses.

The Bears lost Leonard Floyd who went to the Rams, but they quick found a replacement with Robert Quinn, coming over from Dallas. Floyd is two years younger and averaged 4.6 sacks per season, while Quinn has gotten 8.9 sacks per year over his nine-year career. Quinn is a better pass rusher, while Floyd plays the run better.

All in all, I expect similar results as 2019 from this unit.

3.3 Linebackers (LBs)

One more guy who saw a dip in productivity was Roquan Smith. After receiving a 67.0 grade in his rookie season, he only got 52.4 last year. He played the run well, but his coverage and pass rushing weren’t nearly as good in 2019. I do believe the former #8 pick overall can come back very strong in 2020.

Danny Trevathan missed six games because of an injury, but he played pretty well when he was on the field. I am not worried about him.

Backups Nick Kwiatkoski and Kevin Pierre-Louis both left in free agency. Both played very well while filling in for injured starters. Their losses take a blow to Chicago’s linebacker depth.

3.4 Cornerbacks (CBs)

Kyle Fuller and Prince Amukamara were the clear starters in 2019. Despite finishing as PFF’s number 41 CB out of 112 qualifiers, Amukamara was released by the Bears for cap reasons.

Still, the team needs to replace him. Can Buster Skrine or Kevin Toliver assume that #2 role? I’m not so sure about that…

Chicago hopes to fill the void via the selection of Jaylon Johnson in the 2nd round last April. The number one concern about him is health; he has undergone through three shoulder surgeries over the years.

Johnson’s speed and explosiveness are below average, but he makes up for it with great competitiveness and smart-play.

3.5 Safeties (S)

We are rounding the defensive side of the ball with the safeties. Things were pretty simple in 2019, as both Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and Eddie Jackson played 99% of the defensive snaps. They ranked 19th and 46th out of 87 safeties, respectively, according to PFF.

The problem is Clinton-Dix is gone to Dallas. Last year the Bears vacated the vacancy created at the safety position when Adrian Amos left for Green Bay by acquiring Clinton-Dix, but now that he’s also gone they have a glaring hole at the position.

2020 VS 2019 DEFENSE

The Bears allowed the fourth-fewest points in the league last season. Can we expect a similary good 2020 season? I doubt it.

First, the good news. Akiem Hicks is back from an injury that made him miss 11 games and the team acquired steady sack producer Robert Quinn from Dallas.

The bad news? Losing DL Nick Williams, DE Leonard Floyd, LBs Nick Kwiatkoski and Kevin Pierre-Louis, CB Prince Amukamara and S Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix. That’s a lot of bodies that need to be replaced. We’re talking about at least 4 new starters and some key depth.

Overall, my guess is it takes a moderate blow to the Bears’ defense. Their front seven is likely to remain very good, but the secondaries worry me. I wouldn’t fall off my chair if the team went from 4th-best in points allowed to the 10th-12th range.

Final call (2020 vs 2019): Moderate downgrade

4. Regular Season Wins

According to sportsbooks, the Chicago Bears are expected to win 8.5 games this season. Should we bet the “over” or the “under”?

Here is the methodology I used in order to answer this vital question:

Use BetOnline.ag’s point spreads on all 256 regular season games.
Convert those point spreads into win probabilities.
Simulate each of the 256 games, according to those win probabilities, via the R statistical software.
Repeat the previous step one million times (you get 1M simulated seasons).
Count the proportion of seasons where the Bears won more or less than 8.5 games.

Here are the results:

	Estimated Probability	Sportsbook	Odds	ROI
OVER 8.5 WINS	38%	Pinnacle	+148	-5.8%
UNDER 8.5 WINS	62%	MyBookie.ag	-130	+9.7%

Tip: Bet UNDER 8.5 wins
Return On Investment (ROI): +9.7%
Rank: 26th-highest ROI out of 32 teams
Minimum odds required to bet (i.e. ROI = 0%): -163

Here are BetOnline’s point spreads for the Bears’ 16 regular season games:

HOME: -5 vs DET, 0 vs GB, -3.5 vs HOU, -1.5 vs IND, 0 vs MIN, +2.5 vs NO, -5 vs NYG, -1 vs TB.
ROAD: +2 @ ATL, -2.5 @ CAR, +1.5 @ DET, +4.5 @ GB, +1 @ JAX, +3.5 @ LAR, +4 @ MIN, +3 @ TEN.

Note: The “Best odds” from the table above were obtained after looking at 13 well-known online sportsbooks on May 18th, 2020.

TOMORROW: I'll talk about the team whose ROI is the 25th-highest in the league, the Green Bay Packers!

I hope you found this article insightful, thanks for reading!

Professor MJ

Will the Seattle Seahawks win OVER/UNDER 9.5 games? By University Stats Prof!

1. Introduction

Upon hiring Pete Carroll as their new head coach back in 2010, the Seahawks had consecutive 7-9 seasons. Since then, the franchise has enjoyed eight winning seasons in a row, compiling an impressive 86-41-1 record (a 67.6% winning percentage).

Last year, Seattle stayed toe to toe with the 49ers atop the NFC West division by winning 10 of the first 12 games. However, the Seahawks lost three of their final four contests, including the season finale against the Niners that was lost by a matter of inches on fourth and goal.

The Seahawks opened the playoffs by traveling to Philadelphia. They took advantage of an early injury to QB Carson Wentz to take the game by a 17-to-9 score.

Seattle’s next stop was at Lambeau Field to face Aaron Rodgers’ squad. The Hawks almost rallied from a 21-to-3 deficit at halftime, but were defeated 28-23.

2. Offensive Position-by-Position Breakdown

2.1 Quarterbacks (QBs)

Russell Wilson is just a phenomenal quarterback. There are so many good things that could be said about him.

Before diving into the numbers, here’s a stunning fact: he hasn’t missed a single game over his entire 8-year career. That’s incredible considering the number of hits he’s taken and given that he rushes about 90 times per season.

If not for Lamar Jackson’s heroics, Wilson might have won the MVP honor. He had his second-highest completion percentage (66.1%) and passing yards (4,110) of his career. His 31:5 TD:INT mark was exceptional.

All of the numbers above are great, but what makes them even more impressive is Wilson didn’t have a top-10 supporting cast. Keep in mind that he had just lost perhaps his top target, Doug Baldwin, who had decided to hang up his cleats at 31 years old. Wilson can clearly embrace the role of carrying a team on his shoulders.

The backup QB job is still up in the air. Geno Smith has yet to be re-signed, but it’s not impossible that he comes back.

2.2 Running Backs (RBs)

Chris Carson has now rushed for over 1,000 yards in each of the past two seasons, while reaching the end zone nine times in each of those years. His career yards-per-rush average of 4.5 is very respectable as well.

Carson suffered a pretty significant hip injury in the season finale. He avoided surgery during the offseason, but is questionable for training camp.

The second leading rusher in 2019, Rashaad Penny, also had a severe late-season injury. He went down with a brutal torn ACL and he seems unlikely to be ready in time for Week #1. The number 28 overall pick from the 2018 draft rushed for just 370 yards behind Carson last year, but he improved his yards-per-rush average from 4.9 in 2018 up to 5.7 last year.

Considering both Carson and Penny are nicked up, can Travis Homer take advantage? Last year’s sixth-round rookie didn’t do much in 2019. He had touched the ball just three times through the first 15 weeks of the season. He had to step in when the injury bug hit Seattle’s backfield. It’s hard to draw any conclusions from his 18-114-0 rushing stat line.

2.3 Wide Receivers (WRs)

Tyler Lockett is a very reliable guy. His worst career season has been 41 receptions for 597 yards. Last season he set career-best in receptions (82) and receiving yards (1,057), while also hauling in 8 TD passes.

Much like his signal caller, Lockett is very durable. He has missed just one game in five years.

Rookie D.K. Metcalf stepped up in a nice way to grab the number two role. His 58-900-7 receiving line was a resounding success. He has a great mix of size and speed. He set a new league record with 160 receiving yards as a rookie in a playoff game.

The Patriots finally pulled the plug on the Phillip Dorsett experiment. He packed his bags for Seattle where he’ll be looking to fill a role as a deep threat. He couldn’t get going in New England despite a very thin receiving corps and having Tom Brady throwing the ball his way. It does not bode well for him.

David Moore had the third-most catches among Seattle WRs last year, but 17 receptions isn’t something to get overly excited about. He can be an occasional deep threat, but he makes bad mistakes at times. As a former seventh-rounder, there is not much upside with him.

2.4 Tight Ends (TEs)

Greg Olsen decided to hold off his project to call games on television for at least another year. He signed a $7 million one-year deal to join the Seahawks. He’s clearly not the once-dominant tight end he used to be, but the 35-year-old still caught 52 passes 597 yards despite catching passes from Kyle Allen and Will Grier.

Jacob Hollister led the position in receptions last year with 41, but that’s unlikely to happen again in 2020. He did his best, but keep in mind he was an undrafted guy who had caught just eight passes in two years. He benefited from Will Dissly’s injury and with the lucrative contract awarded to Olsen, it seems obvious that Hollister will get his playing time cut out.

Will Dissly got drafted in the 4th round in 2018. He missed most of his rookie season due to a torn right patellar tendon. This time, he tore his left Achilles’ during the sixth game of the 2019 regular season after a promising start. His athletic abilities could be more limited after sustaining a major injury to both legs.

As for Luke Willson, he will be primarily used as a blocking tight end.

2.5 Offensive Line (OL)

Right tackle Germain Ifedi left for Chicago during the offseason, but that’s fine from Seattle’s perspective. The 2016 first-round pick has been a bust and clearly struggled throughout his career. The team will replace him with Brandon Shell, formerly of the Jets. He is a small upgrade, but far from a big-time acquisition.

Left tackle Duane Brown continues to provide quality play on Russell Wilson’s blindside, but you have to wonder how much longer he can do the job. Brown will be entering his age-35 campaign. He finished as the 23rd-best tackle out of 81 qualifiers last year, which is a nice accomplishment for a player in his mid-thirties.

The team lost some depth following the departure of their #3 tackle, George Fant, to the Jets. He wasn’t great, but he still represented a good insurance policy.

Center Justin Britt had started either 15 or 16 games in each of his first five seasons in the NFL. His lucky streak ended on a running play in Week #8 where he tore his ACL and missed the remainder of the year. His play has been uneven, and he graded out as a below-average center. The team decided to release him during the offseason.

Backup center Joey Hunt did even worse than Britt when called upon to fill in as the starter. He’s not a long-term solution for sure, but he will compete for the starting gig with B.J. Finney, who was complete dust when he stepped on the field for the Steelers last year.

Guards Mike Iupati and D.J. Fluker received almost identical marks from PFF last year: 60.3 and 59.1 (46th and 48th out of 81 guards).

Iupati is a 10-year veteran whose play has deteriorated since 2017 when injuries started to plague him. As for Fluker, he’s also a player in decline. His first 3-4 years were good, but the last three not so much. Seattle released him and he found a new home two days later in Baltimore.

One potential candidate to replace Fluker is third-round rookie Damien Lewis. He is a great fit for Seattle’s run-oriented offense since he’s great in run blocking; he was seen throwing defenders on the ground many times. However, he’s not nearly as good in pass protection.

Perhaps Ethan Pocic can take advantage of his last shot to play in the NFL. After being picked in the second round of the 2017 draft, he has been bad in all three of his pro years.

2020 VS 2019 OFFENSE

Russell Wilson, Chris Carson, Rashaad Penny, Tyler Lockett, D.K. Metcalf and Jacob Hollister are all back for the Seahawks this year.

Add the return of TE Will Dissly from an injury, along with the acquisitions of Greg Olsen and Phillip Dorsett and you have a recipe for another successful season on offense, right?

A major potential problem stems from the offensive line. Replacing Ifedi for Shell is fine. However, Duane Brown and Mike Iupati are getting older (35 and 32 years old, respectively) and the team lost some depth following Fant’s departure to New York. There are big question marks at center and right guard following the release of Britt and Fluker without having clear-cut solutions to replace them.

Russell Wilson has always been great at dealing with suspect offensive lines, but there’s a limit to what he can do. Also, the team’s success relies on the running game quite a bit, so you need guys that will open up holes.

Don’t forget about Carson and Penny both coming back from significant injuries. Also, Russell Wilson is coming off an amazing season in which PFF rated him as the best QB in the league. As much as I love Wilson, it will be difficult to replicate that kind of success.

Seattle’s offense posted the 9th-most points in 2019. For the reasons stated above, I envision a slight downgrade in 2020.

Final call (2020 vs 2019): Small downgrade

3. Defensive Position-by-Position Breakdown

3.1 Defensive Linemen (DLs)

The interior of the defensive line featured a mix of Quinton Jefferson, Poona Ford, Jarran Reed and Al Woods.

Let’s kick off the analysis with the two guys that left via free agency. Jefferson got drafted in the 5th round and had a slow start to his career. However, he showed nice improvement in each of the past two seasons, even reaching the #27 spot out of 114 DLs based on PFF grades. Seeing him leave for Buffalo wasn’t good news.

Al Woods also jumped off the ship to sign with the Jaguars. He won’t be missed as much as Jefferson, although he had a respectable 2019 season. He was more of a run-stuffer who turned 33 years old.

Poona Ford showed promise in limited time as an undrafted rookie in 2018, especially defending the run. He was an “okay” player last year and might see the field more often in the upcoming season.

Jarran Reed seemed like an up-and-coming star after generating 10.5 sacks in 2018. However, the 2016 second-round pick had a season to forget both on and off the field last year. He was slapped with a six-game suspension for domestic violence before having an ordinary season that included just two sacks.

He just signed a very lucrative contract, so the team is banking on him to rebound to his 2018 form. The talent is there for sure. Let’s see if he can put it together this year.

3.2 Defensive Ends (DEs) / Edge Rushers (ED)

The Seahawks were pretty bad last year rushing the passer. They had the second-fewest sacks in the league.

The team’s leader in sacks was Rasheem Green with only 4! The third-round pick from the 2018 draft wasn’t super effective, as shown by his 92nd rank out of 107 edge defenders in the NFL. There’s not much hope he will become a game-changer.

The only guy receiving good grades was Jadeveon Clowney. He’s known for his pass rushing abilities, but he’s an underrated run stuffer. He had his lowest sack output in five years, but he is bound to get rack up more in 2020. The bad news is he left via free agency.

Ezekiel Ansah was a major bust in his first year as a Seahawk. After averaging 8 sacks per year over his first six seasons, he recorded just 2.5 last year. He was also a liability defending the run. An awful year across the board. Now 31 years old, he has yet to sign with any team.

As for Branden Jackson, he is a replacement-level player. He has 3.5 sacks in four years.

The team is attempting to boost the position via a couple of free agent acquisitions: Bruce Irvin and Benson Mayowa.

Irvin is a nice addition. He is reuniting with the team that selected him in the first round of the 2012 draft. He has 52 career sacks in eight seasons, which amounts to 6.5 on average per year. Not bad!

It’s harder to figure out what to anticipate from Mayowa. He’s playing for a new team for the 5th time in 7 years. After posting just two sacks in his first three seasons, he now has 18 over the last four years. He is coming off a career year in Oakland with seven sacks and three forced fumbles. He is likely to be used as a rotational pass rusher.

Why not attempt to boost a position that underwhelmed last year by adding one more piece through the draft? That’s what the Seahawks did when taking Darrell Taylor in the second round. Based on expert evaluations, he has the toolbox necessary to succeed, but he needs quite a bit of development.

3.3 Linebackers (LBs)

Bobby Wagner led the NFL with 159 tackles last year. He’s never had less than 104 tackles in a season (and that was over 11 games). I think it’s fair to call him a tackling machine.

During his eight-year stint in the NFL, Wagner also has 19.5 sacks, 10 interceptions and five forced fumbles. He can do it all! He will be playing his age-30 campaign.

K.J. Wright had a subpar year. He received his lowest PFF grades of his nine-year career, but still finished in the middle of the pack (46th out of 89 LBs). He missed 11 games in 2018 with lingering knee issues, so you have to wonder if that still affects him.

Mychal Kendricks is gone after spending two uneven seasons in Seattle. He tore is ACL in the season finale and he pleaded guilty to securities fraud accusations.

The Seahawks picked a guy that is likely to play a rotational role in 2020: Jordyn Brooks. Some experts thought he was a reach at the 27th overall selection. He is good chasing running backs and scrambling QBs (he can literally fly and won’t miss many tackles), but he is far from a finished product in coverage.

3.4 Cornerbacks (CBs)

After two run-of-the-mill seasons, Shaquill Griffin flipped the switch and performed admirably well last year. His coverage skills improved dramatically and he finished at the #10 spot out of 112 corners in the NFL based on PFF rankings. Can the 2017 third-round pick keep it up?

Tre Flowers received awful marks from PFF after getting burned repeatedly last year. He finished among the worst CBs in the league.

The team felt a need to upgrade the position, and they did so in a big way. Seattle signed Quinton Dunbar, formerly of the Redskins. He is coming off a career year where he picked off four passes and graded as the second-best corner in the NFL.

Still, let’s not get exhilarated too much. Dunbar is an undrafted guy that had four decent, yet unspectacular, seasons. He hasn’t proved he can be a top starter yet, but having him over Flowers is definitely an upgrade!

3.5 Safeties (S)

Quandre Diggs was acquired from the Lions last year to bolster Seattle’s secondary. He did a great job with three picks in just five games! He was a nice get and an upgrade over Tedric Thompson (who is now off the team).

The other starting safety is Bradley McDougald. He’s been fairly solid in each of his six seasons in the NFL. He is not a game changer, however.

2020 VS 2019 DEFENSE

Let’s evaluate how the 2020 Seattle defense should fare compared to the 2019 unit.

On the interior of the line, we detect a downgrade following the departure of Quinton Jefferson, and to a lesser degree Al Woods. Granted, there is hope that Jarran Reed might bounce back from his super disappointing 2019 season.

At edge, Clowney and Ansah are out, while Bruce Irvin and Benson Mayowa are in. What is the net outcome from those moves? I’ll go with a slight loss, in part because Clowney is likely to improve upon his 2019 sack total and he was great against the run.

At linebacker, Wagner and Wright aren’t young fellows anymore, but they’re not old either. Wright had a subpar year and he certainly has a shot to do better in 2020. However, losing Mychal Kendricks isn’t good news (albeit not a devastating blow either!). We’ll see if rookie Jordyn Brooks can fill his shoes.

Plugging Quinton Dunbar opposite Shaquill Griffin is an upgrade for sure since Tre Flowers struggled mightily last year.

At safety, we know what to expect from McDougald: respectable play. Now, having Diggs for a full season instead of Tedric Thompson is a vast improvement.

For all of those reasons, I am pegging Seattle’s defense to stay around the same level as 2019. They finished 22nd in points allowed last year and I expect them to secure a similar spot in 2020.

Final call (2020 vs 2019): Stable

4. Regular Season Wins

According to sportsbooks, the Seahawks are expected to win 9.5 games this season. Should we bet the “over” or the “under”?

Here is the methodology I used in order to answer this vital question:

Use BetOnline.ag’s point spreads on all 256 regular season games.
Convert those point spreads into win probabilities.
Simulate each of the 256 games, according to those win probabilities, via the R statistical software.
Repeat the previous step one million times (you get 1M simulated seasons).
Count the proportion of seasons where the Seahawks won more or less than 9.5 games.

Here are the results:

	Estimated Probability	Sportsbook	Odds	ROI
OVER 9.5 WINS	49.4%	William Hill	+130	+13.6%
UNDER 9.5 WINS	50.6%	Pinnacle	-118	-6.5%

Tip: Bet OVER 9.5 wins
Return On Investment (ROI): +13.6%
Rank: 21st-highest ROI out of 32 teams
Minimum odds required to bet (i.e. ROI = 0%): +102

Here are BetOnline’s point spreads for the Seahawks’ 16 regular season games:
HOME: -7.5 vs ARI, -2.5 vs DAL, -3.5 vs LAR, -3 vs MIN, -4.5 vs NE, -9 vs NYG, -8.5 vs NYJ, 0 vs SF.
ROAD: -2.5 @ ARI, -1.5 @ ATL, +2.5 @ BUF, +1.5 @ LAR, -4 @ MIA, +2 @ PHI, +6.5 @ SF, -6 @ WAS.

Note: The “Best odds” from the table above were obtained after looking at 13 well-known online sportsbooks on May 18th, 2020.

Tomorrow, we're previewing the Indianapolis Colts 2020 season! Will they win oveunder 8.5 games?

Cheers!

Professor MJ

Will the Minnesota Vikings win OVER/UNDER 8.5 games? By University Stats Prof!

1. Introduction

The 2019 season had mitigated success for the Vikings. They secured the #6 seed in the NFC before pulling a huge upset win in overtime in New Orleans. The offense completely stalled the following week in San Francisco, though.

The franchise has not gone through a losing season in five years. Head coach Mike Zimmer has really done a good job.

Can the team take a forward leap and make it further into the playoffs? The team has not made it to the Super Bowl since 1976.

2. Offensive Position-by-Position Breakdown

2.1 Quarterbacks (QBs)

Kirk Cousins has received more criticism than praise since signing a huge contract with the Vikings a couple of years ago. Yet, the team posted an 18-13-1 record and Cousins has thrown 56 TD passes versus 16 interceptions. His completion rate has been excellent over those two years: 69.7% (among the best of his career).

The reprimand concerned more the lack of playoff wins than the level of play itself. He cleared a hurdle by leading his team to a big playoff upset in New Orleans last season, thanks to a 4-year TD pass to Kyle Rudolph in overtime.

However, he followed it up with a horrific performance in San Francisco. Don’t be misled by his 21-of-29 passes completed during the game. Minnesota flirted with the postseason record for fewest first downs in a game; they only got 7 and totaled 147 yards of offense.

Still, based on PFF grades, 2019 was Cousins’ best career season. He ranked as the #6 QB in the league with an 84.1 mark.

Sean Mannion will once again back up Cousins. He’s clearly not the best #2 quarterback in the league. Cousins has been extremely durable throughout his career, and the Vikes hope it stays that way.

2.2 Running Backs (RBs)

In my 2019 NFC North preview, I mentioned how I believed Dalvin Cook was one of the most underrated players in the league. He had only rushed for 354 and 615 yards in his first two seasons, but he had passed my eye test. I knew that, barring injuries, he would breakout as one of the top backs in the league.

He did enjoy a nice 2020 season with 1,135 rushing yards and 519 receiving yards, while racking up 13 touchdowns.

Two things raise some concerns about him, though. First, his lengthy injury history. He seems to get nicked up often.

Secondly, his play tailed off quite a bit towards the end of the season. During the first eight games of the season, he rushed 156 times for 823 yards, which was good for a lofty 5.3 average. However, over his final six meetings (including the playoffs) he carried the ball 84 times for 256 yards, a meager 3.0 average.

After being selected in the 3rd round of the draft out of Boise State, Alexander Mattison showed promise in his first year as a pro. He had 100 rushing attempts for 462 yards, a nice 4.6 yards-per-carry average. It will be interesting to see if he can carry the load if Cook goes down.

2.3 Wide Receivers (WRs)

The Vikings had one of the most talented WR duo in Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs. They caught 113 and 102 passes, respectively, during the 2018 season. Those figures regressed to 30 and 63 last year. Thielen only played 10 games, but he was still on pace for just 48 receptions.

What was the problem? In 2018, Minnesota had the 6th-highest number of passing attempts. In 2019, that rank dropped to 30th !

That being said, the team traded Diggs to Buffalo. He expressed frustration with Cousins and they didn’t seem to be on the same page.

In order to compensate for that loss, GM Rick Spielman signed Tajae Sharpe, formerly of the Titans. He will fight for the #2 role opposite Thielen. The former fifth-rounder posted decent numbers in his first three years in the league. He used to be a starter, but his playing time got cut after Tennessee drafted A.J. Brown and signed Adam Humphries. Sharpe seems to be destined to be a #2 or #3 receiver in the NFL.

The team also has high hopes for first-round rookie Justin Jefferson. He was very productive at LSU and he ranked second in 15+ yard receptions over the last two seasons (only Jerry Jeudy beat him). He wasn’t spectacular as an outside target, but he had a monster season playing in the slot last year. He’s great with contested catches and has a good shot to become an immediate starter.

Bisi Johnson took advantage of Chad Beebe’s injury to grab the number three role last year. The 7th round rookie posted a 31-294-3 stat line, which was “okay”, but he seems like a long shot to become a true starter.

The team finally pulled the plug on the failed Laquon Treadwell experiment. He’s been nothing short of a disappointment since being the #23 overall pick in the 2016 draft. He signed a contract with the Falcons in the offseason.

2.4 Tight Ends (TEs)

The Kyle Rudolph – Irv Smith combo is very solid.

Both guys played all 16 games with Rudolph recording slightly better numbers. He hauled in 39 passes for 367 yards and 6 TDs, while Smith’s numbers were 36-311-2.

Rudolph made some highlight reel catches, his most important one being the game-winning TD catch in overtime in New Orleans. Smith is expected to expand his role in the offense with one year of experience under his belt and Diggs off the team. He showed very nice potential despite the Vikings relying very often on the running game.

2.5 Offensive Line (OL)

This unit allowed the sixth-fewest sacks in the league, but that wasn’t necessarily a great accomplishment given the offense ran the ball so often.

Overall, this is an average, or slightly above-average, offensive line. Here is a rundown of each starter’s PFF rankings:

Garrett Bradbury, 30th out of 37 centers;
Brian O’Neill, 33rd out of 81 tackles;
Riley Reiff, 38th out of 81 tackles;
Pat Elflein, 39th out of 81 guards;
Josh Kline, 26th out of 81 guards.

Bradbury and O’Neill were the youngest guys as first- and second-year players. It’s worth noting that O’Neill definitely improved the quality of his play from year one to year two.

Riley Reiff was a candidate for release considering his big contract, which is not in sync with his on-field performance. He’s clearly not among the top left tackles in the league.

After an atrocious 2018 season, Pat Elflein did better last year. He is in his mid-twenties and should remain an adequate starter (albeit, not a great one).

Josh Kline was let go by the Vikings, possibly because of cap reasons and the fact he was now on the wrong side of 30. Still, this is a bit of a surprising move given the team’s lack of depth.

2019 fourth-round pick Dru Samia or career journeyman Dakota Dozier will be fighting for Kline’s spot.

The Vikings selected a late riser in the second round of this year’s draft: Ezra Cleveland. He played over 95% of the snaps in three years with Boise State. He is mobile and very athletic. He seems like Riley Reiff’s heir apparent (who seems likely to be released next offseason).

2020 VS 2019 OFFENSE

The starting lineup remains fairly intact with 9-of-11 starters returning.

The QB, RB and TE positions should provide similar production in 2020.

The WR position took a hit with the loss of Stefon Diggs, a very dangerous playmaker. He was among the best in contested catches. Acquiring a borderline starter like Tajae Sharpe won’t be enough to replace him. Let’s hope rookie Justin Jefferson can have an impact right away.

On the offensive line, Bradbury and O’Neill may take a leap given their young age. However, Josh Kline leaving the team is hardly good news.

Accordingly, I expect Minnesota’s offense to fall a little bit.

Offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski left the team to take over as Cleveland’s head coach, but the system will remain the same under new OC Gary Kubiak. The latter oversaw the offense from the coaches box last year, so the transition shouldn’t be too difficult.

Last year, the Vikings offense scored the eight-most points in the league, and I predict this year’s ranking to lie between the 10th and 16th spot.

Final call (2020 vs 2019): Small downgrade

3. Defensive Position-by-Position Breakdown

3.1 Defensive Linemen (DLs)

The best interior defender for the Vikings was clearly Linval Joseph. Unfortunately, the cash-strapped Vikings had to release him.

A few days later, Minnesota signed Michael Pierce. The former Raven performed at a very similar level as Joseph, but he is four years younger. The run-stuffing nose tackle’s acquisition has to be viewed as a bit of a positive for the Vikings defense.

The other guys seeing time on the interior of the defensive line aren’t very good. Both Shamar Stephen and Jaleel Johnson finished way below-average according to the PFF grading system.

3.2 Defensive Ends (DEs) / Edge Rushers (ED)

The Vikings had one of the most fearsome DE duo with Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen. They racked up 14.5 and 8 sacks, respectively.

Casual fans probably know who Danielle Hunter is. But they don’t realize how good he is; he doesn’t get enough credit, possibly due to playing in a smaller market.

If you look at the numbers, he’s been a beast. Did you know he became the youngest player in NFL history to reach the 50-sack mark? He picked up 14.5 sacks in each of the past two years, and he has averaged 10.9 over his five-year career. The former LSU player was a steal in the 3rd round of the 2015 draft!

Everson Griffen is getting older at 32 years old. At the time of writing, he has yet to sign with a team. He is very likely to find a suitor, but all signs point towards him leaving Minnesota. That will leave a void for sure.

Griffen has averaged 8.8 sacks during the last eight seasons. He has spent his entire 10-year career with the Vikings and has missed very few games. He’s a true warrior.

So, who will take Griffen’s spot? Stephen Weatherly was a key reserve for the team last year, but he left for Carolina. Is Ifeadi Odenigbo ready to pick up the slack? He came out of nowhere to record seven sacks last year!

After being chosen in the 7th round of the 2017 draft, Odenigbo barely played any snaps in his first two seasons. I seriously doubt he can be the long-term answer and I believe last year’s seven sacks were an outlier.

3.3 Linebackers (LBs)

Eric Kendricks had one of the most improbable seasons last year. His PFF marks had varied between 59 and 69 since entering the league five years ago. Then, he earned a jaw-dropping 90.1 grade in 2019, which put him as the second-best linebacker in the entire league. He didn’t do much as a pass rusher, but he was great defending the run and covering people.

Anthony Barr had a subpar year and finished as a below-average LB according to ProFootballFocus. He’s been a steady producer, but his grades have been all over the place during his six-year career. He received his second-lowest mark in 2019.

Eric Wilson has been a reserve player since joining the league in 2017. He’ll likely have a similar role in the upcoming season. He did show adequate skills last year.

3.4 Cornerbacks (CBs)

Wow, a lot of shuffling has taken place with Minnesota’s secondary during the offseason.

Both 2019 starters, Trae Waynes and Xavier Rhodes, are gone to other teams. And their primary slot corner, Mackensie Alexander, also signed with another squad. Ouch.

Waynes never played at the level of a #11 overall pick, but he yielded steady play during his five-year stint with the Vikings. His PFF grades have been very consistent year-over-year, and he repeatedly finished slightly above-average among all CBs. He’s the guy the team will miss the most.

Let’s face the reality: Xavier Rhodes was one of the worst corners in the league last year. His play took a big hit in 2018, and things got even worse in 2019. He really needed a chance of scenery; perhaps joining the Colts will rejuvenate his career.

As for Mackensie Alexander, I feel like the team should have tried harder to keep him. His first two seasons were difficult after getting drafted in the 2nd round out of Clemson, but his last couple of years were much more promising. He could have rendered some valuable services to a team that had just lost its two starters.

The door is now wide open for 2018 first-rounder Mike Hughes. The jury is still out on whether he can assume a starting role in the NFL, but I guess we’ll find out very soon.

The Vikings decided to address the glaring hole at the position by selecting Jeff Gladney with the 31st overall pick in this year’s draft. Gladney is a sound tackler and a good blitzer too.

He was a four-year starter out of TCU, where he was one of just two players with at least 15 passes defended in each of the past two years. However, he has a lengthy injury history.

3.5 Safeties (S)

Harrison Smith is a perennial All-Pro safety. He’s been racking up tackles and interceptions throughout his eight-year tenure in the NFL. Averaging close to 3 picks per season over such a long span is impressive.

Talk about defying the odds. Anthony Harris went undrafted five years ago. Fast-forward to today, and he’s received 89.0 and 91.1 grades from PFF the last two seasons. He finished as the top safety in the NFL out of 87 qualifiers.

In other words, the Vikings may have the best safety duo in the NFL. The only bad news is they lost depth when both Andrew Sendejo and Jayron Kearse left via free agency.

2020 VS 2019 DEFENSE

Replacing Linval Joseph with Michael Pierce is a small gain for this Vikings defense, in my opinion. That’s about it for the good news for this unit.

Stud pass rusher Everson Griffen seems destined to leave the team, and one of their main backups, Stephen Weatherly signed with the Panthers.

At linebacker, I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but Kendricks is very unlikely to match his 2019 performance. He had been an average LB for four years; I doubt the switch suddenly went on and that he will keep being a top 5 linebacker in the NFL.

Last year’s top three CBs are gone, as well as two backups at the safety position. As of now, the team hasn’t signed any free agent to replace them. This is not a surprise, considering the bad cap situation the team is in. They drafted a few guys, including Jeff Gladney late in the first round, but their impact remains to be seen.

Many new faces on defense, plus a drop in talent invariably equals a big downgrade. The team allowed the fifth-fewest points in the league last year; they’ll be lucky if they finish above-average in 2020.

Final call (2020 vs 2019): Big downgrade

4. Regular Season Wins

According to sportsbooks, the Minnesota Vikings are expected to win 8.5 games this season. Should we bet the “over” or the “under”?

I'll answer this question via two different methods.

4.1 Professor MJ's Prediction

I won't go into the mathematical details, but here is a summary of my own personal pick (based on my analysis above and my estimated spreads for the Vikings' 16 games):

OVER 8.5 WINS

Estimated Probability: 72%
Best Odds: -121 (DraftKings)
ROI: +31.5%

UNDER 8.5 WINS

Estimated Probability: 28%
Best Odds: +139 (Pinnacle)
ROI: -33.1%

Tip: Bet OVER 8.5 wins

4.2 Based on BetOnline's Point Spreads

Here is the methodology I used here:

Use BetOnline.ag’s point spreads on all 256 regular season games.
Convert those point spreads into win probabilities.
Simulate each of the 256 games, according to those win probabilities, via the R statistical software.
Repeat the previous step one million times (you get 1M simulated seasons).
Count the proportion of seasons where the Vikings won more or less than 8.5 games.

Here are the results:

OVER 8.5 WINS

Estimated Probability: 63.1%
Best Odds: -121 (DraftKings)
ROI: +15.2%

UNDER 8.5 WINS

Estimated Probability: 36.9%
Best Odds: +139 (Pinnacle)
ROI: -11.8%

Tip: Bet OVER 8.5 wins

Here are BetOnline’s point spreads for the Vikings’ 16 regular season games:

HOME: -6 vs ATL, -9 vs CAR, -4 vs CHI, -2.5 vs DAL, -7 vs DET, -3 vs GB, -11.5 vs JAX, -3.5 vs TEN.
ROAD: 0 @ CHI, -2 @ DET, +3 @ GB, 0 @ HOU, +2 @ IND, +5.5 @ NO, +3 @ SEA, +3 @ TB.

Note: The “Best odds” from the table above were obtained after looking at 13 well-known online sportsbooks on May 18th, 2020.

Tomorrow I'll preview the Dallas Cowboys!

Professor MJ

What do you think of my DD on DraftKings (DKNG)?

DKNG has gained a lot the week of May 24 2020, mostly focused on May 26 (Tues) and May 28 (Thurs). Both days saw intraday spikes on sports-world news. On May 26 afternoon, a presser with Gary Bettman was announced, and on May 28, it was announced that the Premier League would return in June. Oddly, the stock did not drop at all, after Bettman’s announcement turned out to just be an expanded playoff format, and nothing about a return to the ice. The Premier League news didn’t impact other sports betting stocks either. Both events clearly imply that DKNG’ stock is hugely overpriced, but it’s being driven up just by trading. I’m not affiliated with DKNG in any way.
The company’s lousy Q1 earnings was quite the spin job, and I was shocked to see the stock rise that day! Growth in marketing expenses can be written off as entering new states, but no growth in net revenue, despite 30% growth in gross revenue, means that the company can’t actually grow. In other words, almost all revenue was grown by offering free bets and reducing vigorish. Let’s examine revenue growth further.
I was stunned that the company led with “30% revenue growth” when, in fact, that was only at Old DKNG, which constitutes 75% of New DKNG revenue. SBTech makes up the rest and grew at only 3%, giving the public company a 23% growth rate for the quarter, not the 30% spin job. DKNG might’ve unintentionally unveiled COVID19’s impact. At Old DKNG, they noted 60% growth through March 10th. If we assume that each day through the quarter is equal, that means the last 21 days of the quarter would have been down 70% vs Q1 ’19!!! This difference is hefty! But we know not all days are created equal in the world of sports, and Q1 included 5 NFL playoff days and the Super Bowl. If we assume NFL betting days are 3x a normal day and the Super Bowl is 3x a normal NFL day, revenue post-March 10th will drop 95%. Similarly, because SBTech’s dropped from +19% to only +3%, revenue post-COVID19 will drop at least by half.
Also examine how they pitched themselves when the merger was announced in Dec. 2019. On slide 22, DKNG compare their valuation to competitors’, trying to show that the valuation is fair, probably trying to counter DKNG’s valuation that was4x what Paddy Power paid for FanDuel 18 months earlier. Let’s ignore the “EV / 2021E Revenue – Growth Adjusted” multiple that they highlight, because it’s completely unreliable to adjust a forward looking multiple based on your own forward-looking growth projections. Instead look at EV / TTM 3/31 Revenue for those same comparisons.
At $39 per share, DKNG has a market cap over $15 billion on TTM revenue of $451 million. So their revenue multiple is 33.7x, which is too overvalued! The “High Growth Consumer Internet” category that they selected is at 8.1x and “EU Sportsbook Operators” at 3.6x. Their best competitor is Flutter, which is Paddy Power + Fanduel + Stars, and it trades at 7.8x. DKNG deserves a higher multiple than Flutter because DKNG is pure-play USA, and Flutter earns retail European revenue that isn’t high growth. But the two companies currently have the same market cap, despite FanDuel competing directly with DKNG with more market share in the fast growing business segments. Even if you are generous to DKNG and believe they should trade at a 50% premium to Flutter, DKNG’s share price ought be just $13.50.
No, this isn’t about more states allowing sports betting. Let’s examine what must happen at the state level to value DKNG’s current valuation reasonably. In their December investor presentation, DKNG estimates their sports book net revenue at $2.3B given 25% market share and 65% of the US having online betting, with a 22% allowance for promos from Gross to Net. Consider their $4.5 billion of gross revenue at 100% of the population. Let’s bump that by 30% bump for iGaming. DKNG’s current $15 billion valuation and the same 50% premium to Flutter’s revenue multiple above (11.7x), mean that DKNG need $1.28B of revenue, or $831M more than they currently have. $831M more revenue needed means 14% more of the population must legalize in the very short term. Of the big five states, CA, TX, FL, NY and PA, none will add any population, because PA is already online, NY chose retail-only and researchers and lobbyists don’t think the other three will legalize for another 5 years. The remaining 46 states, including DC, average 1.3% of the population each, meaning you need a windfall of states to add 14% of the population.
Forget nationally legalized sports betting, because no one is even pushing for that and it won’t happen. SCOTUS invalidated PASPA to remove the Federal Government’s ability to make national decisions like (dis)allowing sports betting. Sports betting will roll out throughout the US, but will slog state-by-state.
Now that DKNG’s stock has rocketed, DKNA’s management has two good strategies, like TSLA did when TSLA's stock price rocketed in Jan 2020.

The first is obvious: follow-on equity offering. In going public via a reverse merger with a SPAC, DKNG barely tapped the big institutional investors. This follow-on can add cash to the balance sheet. If you watched TV in 2015, you know DKNG love to spend money on ads, at a very attractive valuation for the company. What’s the problem? New shares, or if the follow-on prices poorly, can lower the current share price.
The less obvious option is to buy a competitor, William Hill, that has a market cap of about $1.5B. They have a huge footprint in Europe, a market that DKNG previously tried and failed to enter. Europe threatens DKNG’ DTC approach in the US, and Europe has the IT that powers much of the land-based casinos’ sportsbook operations in the US. DKNG could buy them with their cheap stock, or issue new equity to raise money for the acquisition. DKNG would add much revenue, can cut lots of duplicated costs, diversify across countries and sports to temper their seasonality, and replace William Hill’s outdated tech with DKNG’s better apps. The downside is that these two companies’ CEOs dislike each other.

What’s one reason the stock has risen so much since the “IPO”? Because DKNG has a teensy number of liquid shares. Remember this wasn’t an IPO at all, it was a reverse merger with a SPAC, so a much higher percentage of outstanding shares are currently locked up than in a typical IPO. That constraint on supply with big retail demand could boost the stock price! I’ll summarize the 3 cases for DKNG.

Short term bull: Sports come back, stock (irrationally) trades up on it.
Short term bear: Stock price corrects to a more realistic valuation. Bulls take gains. Any of NHL, NBA, MLB announce they won’t play again in 2020. Company decides on more financial maneuvering.
Long term bear: Q2 or Q3 earnings disappoint. The NFL cash cow drops or NBA or NHL ‘20-’21 season gets delayed. Lockup ends in October 2020.

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