Atlanta Falcons @ Carolina Panthers Matchup Analysis

Game Analysis

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2-Star Best Bet – **Atlanta (+3) over CAROLINA

Home-field advantage is less than a half point in this divisional matchup with minimal travel and limited fan attendance. Thus, this point spread is implying Carolina is clearly a better team than Atlanta, which simply isn’t the case. Just three weeks ago the Falcons closed as a 2.5-point favorite against the Panthers. Before the season, the market priced Atlanta as a 7.4-win team while Carolina’s market implied wins was at 5.6 (a difference of about 3.6 points). We’ve only seen each team play seven games since then and our metrics actually have the Falcons as the better team year-to-date by 1.8 points.

The line is what it is because perception on Atlanta is very low due to their 1-6 record. However, the Falcons have lost three games in which they had a greater than 95% win probability. It will be a long time before we see another team manage to have these types of collapses in less than half a season and it is unlikely to continue. This line would look much difference if the Falcons were 4-3 rather than 1-6. There’s also reason to believe Atlanta’s offense is better than their numbers insinuate thus far due to Julio Jones’ hamstring injury earlier in the year.

Jones missed two games this year and only played 15 snaps against Green Bay before exiting at halftime. Matt Ryan averaged just 5.6 yppp in those three games Jones wasn’t healthy, compared to 7.7 yppp in the games where Jones has been on the field for the majority of offensive plays.

Calvin Ridley is averaging 2.29 yards per route run (14th) and he’d have a favorable matchup as a compliment to Jones if Panthers CB Rasul Douglas is once again unavailable. Douglas was allowing 0.71 yards per cover snap (10th) before being put on the COVID-19 list. Backup cornerbacks Troy Pride and Eli Apple have combined to surrender 1.62 yards per cover snap. However, Apple was cut earlier this week, which could imply Douglas will be re-activated for this game.

Carolina’s rush defense ranks 30th so Atlanta’s unnecessary feeding of the ball to Todd Gurley won’t hurt them as much as it usually does. Gurley rushed for 8.6 yards per carry when these teams last met in week 5.

Falcons’ CB Kendall Sheffield has been terrible, surrendering 2.77 yards per cover snap, and he will struggle to stay in front of DJ Moore, but I still think this Falcons secondary is slightly underrated due to the 5 combined games missed by starters Keanu Neal, Ricardo Allen, and AJ Terrell.

Our model favors the Falcons by 4.7 points and by 1.8 points using this season’s games only (with a predicted total of 49.6 points) and Atlanta is a 2-Star Best Bet at +3 (-120 or better) and a 1-Star Best Bet down to +2 (Strong Opinion at +1.5).

Team Stats
Game Log

Falcons
Panthers

ATL

Offense

Defense

Pass

Pass Plays 44.7 47.0
Succ Pass Plays 44.9% 53.7%
Sack Rate 3.7% 4.6%
Int Rate 1.5% 1.3%
Deep Pass Rate 24.0% 23.2%
Big Pass Yards 44.0% 42.8%
NYPP 6.8 7.5

Rush

Rush Plays 26.7 25.3
RB YPR 4.2 3.6
Stuff Rate 17.8% 17.3%
Succ Rush Plays 46.2% 58.5%
Big Rush Yards 39.5% 52.7%
Yards Per Rush 4.2 4.5

Game

All Snaps 71.3 72.3
Early Down Succ 46.4% 60.2%
Succ Rate 45.6% 55.4%
Big Yards Rate 42.3% 45.4%
Yards Per Play 5.9 6.4
Fumble Lost Rate 0.4% 1.2%
Time Per Play (sec) 24.8 25.9
Run Ratio 37.7% 34.9%
Starting Field Pos 31.8 29.5
Game Control 4.2 -4.2

Points 30.0 36.0

2020 Game Log				PASS				RUSH			GAMES
Wk	Opp	Score	Game Control	Succ Pass Plays	Sack Rate	Int Rate	NYPP	Succ Rush Plays	Stuff Rate	Yds per Rush	All Snaps	Early Down Succ	Succ Rate	Big Yards Rate	Yds per Play	Fum Lost Rate	Run Ratio	Starting Field Pos
1	SEA	25 – 38 L	-8.5	50.0% / 57.9%	3.6% / 7.9%	1.9% / 0.0%	7.8 / 7.9	47.6% / 55.0%	23.8% / 15.0%	3.4 / 4.2	77 / 58	50.8% / 61.7%	49.4% / 56.9%	35.6% / 38.1%	6.6 / 6.6	1.3% / 0.0%	27.3% / 34.5%	24.7 / 31.3
2	@DAL	39 – 40 L	12.6	44.7% / 58.0%	2.6% / 2.0%	0.0% / 0.0%	7.0 / 8.9	47.1% / 64.5%	17.6% / 12.9%	3.3 / 4.0	72 / 81	43.4% / 63.1%	45.8% / 60.5%	38.2% / 46.1%	5.3 / 7.0	0.0% / 3.7%	47.2% / 38.3%	40.8 / 24.4
3	CHI	26 – 30 L	8.6	40.0% / 45.3%	5.0% / 3.8%	2.6% / 3.9%	5.7 / 5.8	44.0% / 56.0%	12.0% / 24.0%	5.8 / 5.2	65 / 78	45.1% / 55.9%	41.5% / 48.7%	53.1% / 51.9%	5.7 / 5.6	0.0% / 0.0%	38.5% / 32.1%	29.9 / 32.8

2020 Game Log				PASS				RUSH			GAMES
Wk	Opp	Score	Game Control	Succ Pass Plays	Sack Rate	Int Rate	NYPP	Succ Rush Plays	Stuff Rate	Yds per Rush	All Snaps	Early Down Succ	Succ Rate	Big Yards Rate	Yds per Play	Fum Lost Rate	Run Ratio	Starting Field Pos
1	LV	30 – 34 L	-2.6	45.7% / 56.7%	2.9% / 0.0%	0.0% / 0.0%	7.4 / 8.0	56.7% / 64.5%	16.7% / 16.1%	4.3 / 4.3	65 / 61	50.0% / 62.0%	50.8% / 60.7%	29.9% / 37.1%	6.0 / 6.1	0.0% / 0.0%	46.2% / 50.8%	26.4 / 32.9
2	@TB	17 – 31 L	-12.1	53.2% / 40.0%	10.6% / 0.0%	4.8% / 2.9%	7.2 / 6.2	58.3% / 59.1%	12.5% / 27.3%	3.6 / 5.5	71 / 57	55.2% / 47.8%	54.9% / 47.4%	24.6% / 53.1%	6.0 / 5.9	2.8% / 1.8%	33.8% / 38.6%	26.3 / 37.4
3	@LAC	21 – 16 W	6.1	53.3% / 52.9%	6.7% / 3.9%	0.0% / 2.0%	7.4 / 6.3	33.3% / 60.9%	38.1% / 17.4%	3.9 / 5.1	51 / 74	51.3% / 53.4%	45.1% / 55.4%	42.1% / 27.5%	5.9 / 5.9	0.0% / 4.1%	41.2% / 31.1%	37.8 / 24.6

Atlanta Falcons @

Carolina Panthers

Thu, Oct 29

5:20 PM Pacific

Game Analysis