Game Analysis
*CHICAGO (+7) over Atlanta
**Chicago Over 5.5 Wins (even)
Atlanta came incredibly close to winning it all last season despite the fact that their defense was actually unlucky to give up 5.75 points per Redzone opportunity (ppRZ), tying for 4th worst of any team since 2000. Based on the quality of their defense last year, Atlanta should’ve been expected to only give up 5.05 ppRZ, which would have saved them 36 points. However, while the Falcons’ defense is likely to be a bit better, and is also likely to improve in the Redzone, the offense will almost certainly regress without OC Kyle Shanahan orchestrating the beautiful symphony that was the 2016 Atlanta Falcons’ attack. The Falcons averaged 8.64 yards per pass play last season, the 4th most of any team since 2000, and the other 8 teams in our database that surpassed 8 yppp averaged 0.9 yppp less in the following season, which equates to about 2 ½ points per game.
Much is expected of the Falcons after coming so close to winning it all last season but Super Bowl losers are just 2-15 ATS in week 1 of the following season since 2000. Atlanta may very well be in contention for the NFC Championship again but it’s unlikely that they’ll be as good as they were last season and the 2016 Carolina Panthers are a prime example of the affect of the Super Bowl hangover.
While history suggests that the Falcons will regress, this play is more about Chicago being undervalued than about Atlanta’s regression to the mean. Chicago was actually much better last season than their 3-13 record reflected. The Bears were very unlucky to lose 6 of 7 games decided by one-score or less, as historically teams are expected to win 50% of their one-score games. Furthermore, the Bears lost 105 points to turnover variance (equivalent to about 3 wins) while Atlanta was helped by 39 points of turnover luck.
Chicago was outscored by 120 total points last season and our play-by-play model projected a scoring deficit of -111 points using EPA (expected points added). However, 105 points of that deficit was due to negative turnover luck so the Bears were actually very close to being an average team in 2016 despite their rash of injuries and that is certainly not how the Bears are perceived as they head into this campaign. The Bears will likely be better defensively this season with better health expected and they’re likely to have much better luck in the turnover department. Chicago also ranked last in special teams hidden value, which takes into account the variance in opponent’s punt and kickoff distance and field goal accuracy (things the Bears could not control).
In this case, the perception of these teams appears to be significantly different than the reality and our week 1 model sees value with Chicago plus the points.
This game will likely move to +6.5 and since I have both possible Chicago quarterbacks valued about the same (with more potential upside for the rookie Mitch Trubisky), I want to get this play to you before the line moves. Chicago is a 1-Star Best Bet at +6 points or more but try to wait for a +7 if your current number is less than 7.
I’ll also play 2-Stars on Chicago to win Over 5.5 games (up to -115 odds and 1-Star up to -120 odds).
- Team Stats
- Game Log
- Falcons
- Bears
Pass
- Pass Plays 35.8 44.1
- Succ Pass Plays 53.4% 49.5%
- Sack Rate 6.8% 5.4%
- Int Rate 1.0% 2.0%
- Deep Pass Rate 19.5% 17.5%
- Big Pass Yards 45.9% 33.6%
- NYPP 8.4 6.3
Rush
- Rush Plays 27.1 23.6
- RB YPR 4.3 4.1
- Stuff Rate 24.2% 19.9%
- Succ Rush Plays 44.9% 48.8%
- Big Rush Yards 46.7% 43.9%
- Yards Per Rush 4.3 4.5
Game
- All Snaps 62.8 67.7
- Early Down Succ 52.5% 51.5%
- Succ Rate 49.6% 48.9%
- Big Yards Rate 46.8% 37.2%
- Yards Per Play 6.6 5.6
- Fumble Lost Rate 0.4% 0.9%
- Time Per Play (sec) 27.6 25.5
- Run Ratio 42.6% 35.1%
- Starting Field Pos 29.7 26.2
- Game Control 7.6 -7.6
- Points 34.2 25.3