Barry Jackson's latest has two points: 1. Dolphins haven't approached Randy Starks about a multi year deal since they franchised him. Their offer prior to slapping the tag on him wasn't even close to what he is seeking. They also haven't approached Paul Soliai. They seem poised to make a decision about Paul Soliai versus Randy Starks in 2014. 2. The MGM Grand and 11 other Las Vegas casinos have actually lowered the odds on the Dolphins winning the Super Bowl from 50:1 to 60:1, simultaneously raising the Patriots from 10:1 to 8:1. This is odd to me. Dolphins popularity and sentiment is at a peak. Bovada has Miami at 40:1. Super Bowl futures are the most imperfect of Vegas oddsmaking ventures, but they usually do not raise teams' payout. They'll take any excuse to lower the payout, say by bumping a team from 50:1 to 40:1 as Bovada did with Miami after the draft. Either Barry Jackson is mistaken, or this is one of the more odd things I've seen from Vegas in a little while.
Ceasers has Miami at 9/2 winning the East, down 0.5 from before. My fav bet? Lay $20 on the Rams to win SB get back $1600
Where would one do such a thing? You can just point me to the thread in the betting forums if thats most appropriate.
Too much action coming in at 50:1 probably. As you pointed out, these futures are pretty imperfect, so they wont hesitate if they think they made a mistake.
They don't really have a betting forum live....good idea though. You can do this at any major sports book in Vegas.
Oppposite. They pushed it from 50:1 to 60:1 which would indicate that not enough action was coming in at 50:1.
I'm still trying to find any confirmation of what Barry Jackson said. It's not a big deal, at all, but it's that weird. Bovada has the Dolphins at 40:1 and I've heard of casinos that have them at 35:1. It's just...weird.
Pinnacle has them at 42.41:1 http://www.pinnaclesports.com/lines...e1=nfl futures&contesttype2=super bowl winner Generally speaking, Pinnacle sets the market for most books. Not always, and I'm sure if there is an exception its for SB futures, which are inherently bad bets and don't attract much attention.
I still don't really understand your stance here- Setting aside the fundamentals which I disagree with, I don't see how unless you've tracked stats you can say PFF is wrong. I've had plenty of preconceptions turn out wrong when held to higher scrutiny and statistics, I don't see how you can do the same unless you've done that. That's still anecdotal and pretty small scale. I think also suggesting PFF is laughable on this is a difficult position to take at face value because there are so many other things that rise from that- Noting the position of the safeties pre-snap is literally one of the easiest and less subjective elements of what they do. If they can't do it properly(or are choosing to do so fraudulently) it raises a whole lot of questions(which are no less difficult to support)
No, Vegas books too. Vegas books are just following offshore books. Which is why you see them get all pissy about having phones or internet devices out in the sportsbook.
No, Vegas copies offshore books. Pinnacle is the premiere lines maker...it isn't available to US residents. "futures" is what CK is discussing. Miami right now are 44:1 at my favorite book. I don't have access to vegas' lines but I would assume they'd be around the same. +6000 vs +4400 is a big difference.
What stats are you referring to, the 8 in the box numbers? Depending on how they're tabulated they could anywhere from very useful to completely useless. If you're counting every single snap then they're useless. Down-distance, formation, personnel group, score and tendency have to be considered. There are ways to over play the run that don't involve having an extra defender in the box. Covering the guards, shooting gaps, run blitzes and stunts, fast flowing and filling etc. It's more complicated than just counting players in the box, and even in the "box" is subjective. How close to the LOS does a safety need to be? What if he's outside at the snap, disguising his intentions before flying to the LOS post snap? PFF can post all the numbers they want, if they don't post their methodology along with them then...Yawn. As for compiling stats on my own, no thanks. I don't have the time or the interest to count snaps for 32 teams. I've seen enough Miami tape to know which teams game planned to take away the run and short pass several times over. But even the casual observer can see that Miami's offense was vertically challenged, that defenses adjusted their strategies accordingly, and that Ireland spent heavily to remedy the problem during the offseason. It really shouldn't be up for discussion at this point. Yes, it does raise a lot of questions. Some of them I already mentioned. But we could also ask who exactly is doing these studies and compiling these numbers? Are they paid staff or volunteers? What are their qualifications? Scouts, former players/coaches, die hard fans, casual fans, or just stat geeks who can do wonders with a spread sheet but couldn't tell the difference between quarters and Cover 6 to save their lives? IMO we should no sooner trust an unnamed source from PFF than I would a beat writer for the Herald or Sentinel. Omar and Armando have worked the team for years and they don't seem to know anything past the fundamentals. So forgive me if I discard what I see at PFF when it flies in the face of what I've seen on tape with my own eyes, over and over and over.
Barry Jackson reached out to me to confirm what he reported. He said MGM Grand just had very few people taking them at 50:1, so they had to lower it to 60:1.
I actually spoke to a guy who said he had a friend that was one of the film watchers for PFF. This was a few years back and you have the whole "I heard it from a guy who knew a guy" thing, but my impression was he was telling the truth. He didn't seem to have any reason to lie to me about it. Anyway, he said his friend was a college kid who had no football background. He said he wouldn't even call the guy a football fan. According to him the guy was just given a checklist like sheet for the two games he had to watch each week.
Nice post. I wish I could find the quote from the player who said his defense looked to stop the run and could play us in a 20 yard box regardless of where we were on the field, or something to that nature. Evidence straight from an actual opponent's mouth easily supersedes PFF. Besides, the only thing PFF measured in this case was 8 in the box, which in and of itself isn't indicative of anything concrete overall. All they did was measure one aspect of a defense's aid in run support. I'd like to know how the overall stats look when they measure all areas of run support and not just the easy one that involves counting hats. I mean, they're already watching the play as it is so why half *** it when they can easily jot a checkmark next to another aspect of run support, unless they don't know what they're watching. Side note: If I'm you, putz, I'd also have a difficult time stomaching the advisement to trust PFF's stats over your own eyes when you have an advanced knowledge of the game and have likely spent more time watching and rewatching Miami games than PFF has.
That's the same story I got. The requirements, according to Khaled, were access to game film, Microsoft Excel and a ton of free time so a college kid seems like the perfect candidate.
I'm sure there are some viewers with more experience. And some are just going to be better at their job than others. But the point is that I don't put any extra validity to a PFF grade. Many here and in the media believe it's a superior opinion. I don't give it any more credence than I would give a poster whom I was unfamiliar with. And I give PFF less credence than I would the more knowledgable posters here.
That's going past the sale- The PFF numbers are simply the percentage of runs a player had with a safety in the box. You don't need all that for these purposes, it obfuscates the point. If there wasn't a lot of safeties in the box than teams didn't do it to the Dolphins a lot.
The PFF thing has been widely overblown. They're quite good overall, and deserve the respect they've gotten. It's hardly all from the Omar Kelly's of the world padding out articles. There are elements they pretty objectively don't do well at, but even those offer value. Trashing PFF just as frequently has more to do with someone making claims to their own football knowledge as it has any sort of methodology issue.
Well then it's a useless stat. Might as well call it the "dumb OC's who run when they should be passing" stat. If the numbers do not take into account down-distance-field position-score then the numbers don't mean much. If the numbers don't allow for the fact that defenses don't know when the offense is going to run, or that offenses often run less and pass more as a result of seeing 8 in the box then the numbers have no context.
You will have to forgive Omar ... he is still looking for the "holes" in Legedu Naanee's game after swearing in training camp there were none. Apparently he never looked at the ones in his hands
While I agree with you I don't think the mind of a player is being taking into account from the side who are defending that their not literally in the box..?
Defensive formations are going to be primarily dictated by offensive personnel. Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Amazing how unreliable PFF becomes for something so objective. Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4 Beta
This is a straw statement on more than one level, Stringer. Firstly, I have a hard time believing your football acumen has devolved to the point of believing a defense aiding run support is as black and white as counting 8 hats in the box. That's the quick, easy [or lazy] way to measure one aspect but certainly does not tell the entire story, as GM has accurately pointed out. Secondly, I don't know if I am or am not surprised at your attempt to muddle this from the get go by mentioning PFF's 8 in the box study and subsequently forking this into a PFF debate by arguing their validity as a site when this was never about PFF to begin with. **JUST SO EVERYONE JOINING IN LATE IS CLEAR, the initial debate here had NOTHING to do with PFF. The actual conversation was regarding Miami's opposing defenses focusing on aiding or stopping the run, not PFF's chart about 8 in the box. Stringer interjected PFF's 8 in the box chart as if it should've sufficed to end the debate, as if the NFL is that simple. What GM and I did were point out the flaws in Stringer's belief that an 8 in the box chart should be the end-all be-all for assessing run support. Here's Stringer's quote about it: I have a difficult time believing that even Stringer believes this falsity (the bolded above). If Stringer truly believes that unless a defense has 8 in the box they're fully disinterested in aiding or stopping the run, then I really don't know what to say, or I'd say I guess that's a LOT of NFL defenses standing perfectly still from the time they initially line up and until the ball's snapped.
LOL. I was just getting ready to say something of that nature...... but I think you formed it better.