Larejo is a mid-stakes tournament mastermind who specializes in outmaneuvering 150-max players with a small number of entries
It’s Week 16 and you’re tasked with reading a lot of words before Christmas if you want to digest OWS and prepare properly for the Saturday main slate, and by now, you’re building strong lineups, giving yourself a chance to bink something, and learning each week. We’re just waiting for the variance wind to blow our way . . .
Oh, the weather outside is weather. The conversations in DFS land this week start and end with the weather. Well, welcome to late December football! We know the cold, wind, rain, and snow are already affecting the Vegas totals early this week, but of those factors, we’ll need to primarily focus on the winds. As of late Wednesday, it’s shaping up as a primary factor in the Saints // Browns game, and the Bills // Bears. As always, keep tabs on any changes in forecasts into Saturday morning, but as always, don’t overreact as the field will.
The Bengals have the seventh-highest Vegas team total on this slate, sitting at 22.5 implied points. They travel this week to cold (but warmer than Cincinnati right now) New England where they are favored by just 3.5 points. Nothing about this game environment screams for a stack, but although the numbers seem to project this as a close matchup, the Bengals are rounding into form in recent weeks and these are not your father’s Patriots. In projecting this game, there are traditional ways to look at it and non-traditional ones. I like to keep things simple, so let me make the case.
Let’s look at the Bengals elite passing offense first. PFF ranks the Bengals as the second best passing offense in the NFL through 14 games, behind the Chiefs. They also rank second in pass rate over expectation, well behind the Chiefs, but just ahead of the Bills. Interestingly, while they rank just tenth in overall pass play rate on the season, their pass rate is up to 65% in road games (3rd in NFL) vs. just 56% in home games (18th). Their opponent, the Patriots, rank in the top-10 DVOA against both the rush and the pass so the onus is on Cincinnati to choose their preferred method of attacking. That should be through the air, and if it is, the volume would funnel through Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, who would line up nicely against a heavy man coverage defense.
The problem, of course, is Bill Belichick, who is a guru for developing, adapting, and implementing opponent-specific game plans week to week. And although his time as a coach could be winding down, I don’t doubt he can single out Chase this week, bracket him up and make someone else beat them. That someone else could be Mr. Higgins. I found this tweet from Bengals beat writer, Mike Petraglia very interesting. It’s a quote from Bengals offensive coordinator, Brian Callahan discussing how Belichick used to line up against his former team, the Denver Broncos (back in the Manning days). The tweet indicates literally that a tight end or a third wide receiver is the way to beat the Pats. But the way I read this is Callahan is ready to adapt his game plan to beat Belichick. It’s always a chess match, and the Bengals talent should allow them to win if Chase is getting all the focus, they’ll turn to Higgins and Tyler Boyd.
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