32 Teams 32 Brief Thoughts
I never actually post, but wrote my notes of every team and am sharing them here
Arizona Cardinals – Impressive but reminder Titans may be weak. 2nd-4th yr QBs can always improve
Atlanta Falcons – O-line, defense too poor to compete
Baltimore Ravens – Major O-line issues plus injuries will struggle to .500 coaching change?
Buffalo Bills – Slight regression puts AFC East in play for Pats & Miami – no real concerns off of wk 1
Carolina Panthers – Darnold awful in red zone
Chicago Bears – Defense has regressed, Owner/GM/Coach combo prevents winning
Cincinnati Bengals – 2nd-4th yr QBs can always improve, will hit over if O-line holds up. Bates top-5 safety but Bengals won’t pay him because they are cheap
Cleveland Browns – Perfect gameplan and 1st half vs. Chiefs. Mayfield is poor in 4th quarters and/or when trailing
Dallas Cowboys – Opting for short FGs cost them the game vs. TB. No margin for error with below avg defense
Denver Broncos – Aggressive on offense, need to continue
Detroit Lions – Miracle cover of 2021
Green Bay Packers – Is Aaron Rogers tanking? Need more data points on team play because of week 1 blowout
Houston Texans – Avg veterans can get Texans to avg-ish record. Non-zero chance to win division with other teams weakness
Indianapolis Colts – Offense zero margin for error. Wentz OK not great
Jacksonville Jaguars – Should improve but how soon?
Kansas City Chiefs – Same defensive issues as last season but Mahomes
Las Vegas Raiders – Underrated skill positions + QB. ????s all around on defense masked by Baltimore poor O-line week 1. Gruden awful decisions in-game and will continue to cost wins/points on the margins
Los Angeles Chargers – Slater excellent LT, might have enough skill to overcome no home field if team injuries subside
Los Angeles Rams – No changes to preseason outlook, depth still major concern
Miami Dolphins – Is Tua Andy Dalton or Kirk Cousins 2.0?
Minnesota Vikings – Team might quit on Zimmer, very minimal upside
New England Patriots – Jonnu Smith key to offense, too conservative week 1
New Orleans Saints – Defense equal to last year’s top 5 group based on week 1, offense questions still exist. Too reliant on Kamara
New York Giants – Upcoming Washington and Atlanta games will provide barometer for all 3 teams talent level and outlook – Denver superior + horrible matchup
New York Jets – No above avg pass blockers on roster. Worst team in AFC
Philadelphia Eagles – Excellent week 1, need more data points. Can win division
Pittsburgh Steelers – Best Front 7 in league, secondary did well. O-line plus immoble QB puts significant limitation on offense. Will struggle to score points on long fields
San Francisco 49ers – Reliance on extremely injury-prone players means team will be worse than current talent level later in the season
Seattle Seahawks – Play calling highly encouraging. IND not capable of testing secondary
Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Autopilot until Nov/Dec. Need trades/signings to bolster DBs
Tennessee Titans – Will not make playoffs without winning division. Not enough talent across the roster
Washington Football Team – Horrific October schedule, Heinicke unlikely to be top 25 QB
Also per Sean’s request, My current HFA for all 32 teams:
Arizona Cardinals – 2
Atlanta Falcons – 2
Baltimore Ravens – 3
Buffalo Bills – 3
Carolina Panthers – 2.5
Chicago Bears – 3
Cincinnati Bengals – 2
Cleveland Browns – 2.5
Dallas Cowboys – 2.5
Denver Broncos – 3
Detroit Lions – 2
Green Bay Packers – 3
Houston Texans – 2
Indianapolis Colts – 3
Jacksonville Jaguars – 2
Kansas City Chiefs – 3
Las Vegas Raiders – 1.5
Los Angeles Chargers – 0
Los Angeles Rams – 1.5
Miami Dolphins – 2
Minnesota Vikings – 2.5
New England Patriots – 3
New Orleans Saints – 3
New York Giants – 2
New York Jets – 1.5
Philadelphia Eagles – 3
Pittsburgh Steelers – 3
San Francisco 49ers – 3
Seattle Seahawks – 3
Tampa Bay Buccaneers – 2.5
Tennessee Titans – 3
Washington Football Team – 1.5
Week 1 NFL
Bengals +3
The Vikings will find ways to keep them in the game. And they still have a shitty kicker.
Steelers +6.5
Line is too big; this should be a 3 point game, and a good one at that. Sneaky big AFC game week 1.
Texans vs Jaguars OVER 46
These defenses stink.
Rams -8.5
Stafford and a top 5 defense vs Andy Dalton and a top 10 defense. I choose Matt Stafford.
Prop of the week: Daniel Jones OVER INT 0.5 -130
DFS:
Miracle Covers AFC 2021 Preview
Here’s Lou and I’s 2021 AFC Preview. We also talk some La Liga and EPL.
https://soundcloud.com/miraclecovers/mc-afc-2021-preview
And here are my Super Picks this week:
CIN +3
LA -9
SF -8
PIT +6.5
GB -3.5
NFC 2021 NFL Preview
We’re back! Lou and I talk NFC 2021 over/unders and division winners.
https://soundcloud.com/miraclecovers/mc-2021-nfc-preview
NFC Teaser (+150):
Bucs -7.5 (now at 9.5!)
Rams -8
SF -7.5
EPL 2021-2022 Plays
Leeds to make Champions League 12-1
Leeds to make Europa 4-1
Leeds OVER 52.5 Total Season Points
Prop: Son Heung-min to Score 15+ Goals + Che Adams to Score 10+ Goals -110
Best Promoted Team: Brentford +105
To be Relegated: Newcastle United +275; Southampton +500
EPL Today:
Brentford +285
TTIB (4)
Innings Management
Mike Matheny has a bit of a questionable rap when it comes to in-game decisions. I honestly cant really speak to that but I think we may have something on him now with innings management stuff. This is from an AP article following a strong start a couple weeks ago for Casey Mize in Detroit.
Mize tried to avoid manager A.J. Hinch at the end of the fourth, but it didn’t work.
“I was hoping to stay away from him, because I wanted to go another inning,” he said. “But we’re being careful with innings right now, and I understand that.”
Mize was playing Hide-and-Seek! Now Peralta in Milwaukee. Counsell pulls him mid-shutout last night…
“We’re just trying to conserve innings as we go,” manager Craig Counsell said. “He threw 50-some pitches last time, a little more this time and he’ll be full go next time. We were hoping to be a little shorter today.”
Now lets go to a post-game interview with Matheny after their July 20th game.
“We knew at some point we were going to have to take a break with our young pitchers, for sure,” Matheny said. “Instead of limiting them from the beginning, kind of let’s go, let’s pitch, let’s just see how they feel, and if at any point we need to take a pause, we do it. And this isn’t necessarily a shutdown as much as let’s just make sure that he’s feeling how he should be feeling and watch closely, use the medical team, use sports science, and figure out when it would be best to get him back in there.”
That was a quote on the day one of his promising young arms, Brady Singer, was put on the IL, and 3 days after he was rocked (2 IPs, 7 ERs). Matheny has cred in his dealings with pitchers considering his very successful catching and coaching careers, but his thinking here seems outdated. Hinch and Counsell come across as way more pro-active with limiting workload with their young-ins. Matheny would appear to favor the approach that as long as you swoop in directly after an issue has begun to emerge, thats an acceptable approach to innings management.
Again, the purpose of this series is to pin down things that are true. We honestly dont even know if Singer is legitimately injured, or if KC and Matheny are just creating something to give him a rest after getting shelled. What we can say confidently; of the 3 young pitchers discussed here, the only one that has gone on IL this year is the one with the coach saying “let’s go, let’s pitch, let’s just see how they feel.” The other 2 are humming along.
This Things I Believe (3)
Osaka
Dont know if plagiarize is the right word here…we are going to cite our source. There is a very knowledgeable (seems to me, anyway) guy on youtube named Cam Williams who will often do watch-alongs for tennis matches. He does Osaka’s match today, where she winds up losing to someone named Marketa Vondrousova. My spell check just exploded. I trust this guy for his insights and we are going to transcribe about a minute long quote of his in regards to this match and how it relates to potential Osaka tendencies…
“If youre going ‘what the Hell happened,’ this is what happened. Vondrousova came out here with a game-plan, of being aggressive and making Osaka move. She made her move…thirty-two unforced errors for Osaka…she made Osaka hit 32 errors, and the reason why I say made…she came out here with a game-plan, super aggressive, ultra-aggressive game-plan…and that made Osaka try and go for shots she wasnt comfortable to hit, she was trying to go for winners too early, Osaka, and that just filtered into missing so many shots…and she just made so many errors…errors, errors, errors…Vondrousova made Osaka make those errors. That is the blueprint on how to beat Osaka on a hard-court. A very similar scoreline, we saw Sakkari do that in Miami, Sakkari did the same thing, came out aggressive…Osaka gets a little stressed and goes ‘Hang on, Im supposed to be the dominating player here, why are you hitting winners?’ And then she gets a little stressed and she makes terrible errors…thats what happened today.”
Now the point of this series of blurbs is to try to drill down to true statements. Cam is including some hypothesizing about possible thoughts going through Osaka’s mind and how this affects her play. What we can say for the purpose of this entry, as Cam notes, 2 of Osaka’s most recent losses on hard-court are to players utilizing an ultra-aggressive game-plan. Osaka hits 32 errors vs Vondrousova and 23 vs Sakkari in Miami, losing both matches in straight sets. Is there a correlation between a super-attacking style and Osaka’s high unforced error total and eventual defeats? We cannot say for absolute certain, but recent results would suggest this scouting report/analysis has merit. Considering Osaka has won the last 2 majors on hard-court this is notable.
This Things I Believe (2)
Steelers OLine
We can say with confidence the Steelers OLine is going to look much different this year than from units of the recent past. We are not pointing out anything new by noting the eye-opening collective departures of proven Pro-Bowl talent players DeCastro, Pouncey, and Villanueva, not to mention Ramon Foster retiring before the 2020 season. As a result of this turnover, some folks are predicting rough times for the Steelers offense, which struggled at times last year as it was, especially in the run game. Whoever lines up will obviously be tasked with protecting an aging QB often described as “statuesque.” If you take an important unit that performed poorly last year, and then strip it of essentially all its proven talent, it would seem bad times are almost inevitable. And then the dominoes knock each other over and Steeler short-sellers have Pittsburgh finishing 3rd or 4th in their division. An already subpar OLine is only going to be worse this year. Ben, who has been integral to the success of PIT over the years is going to get his 300 year-old ass bombarded routinely. He will get hurt (or at least be super ineffective), the offense will be a shell of itself, Pittsburgh will be a collective hot mess. All of these things might happen, but what I am looking to point out here is that this argument rests on not 1, but 2 assumptions – that the OLine unit will be inevitably super poor, and ultimately that will be a main factor in a possible Steeler downfall this year. Tomlin recently noted; “(Last year) We were last in the league in rushing. We have nowhere to go but up from certain aspects.” That team finished 12-4…Even if the OLine proves a borderline disaster (which is not a given), there still exists the chance it ultimately just doesnt really matter in the standings.
As I noted yesterday, the idea behind this particular series of blurbs is to stick to statements we can make that are essentially fact. The story line of a low-grade OLine causing the Steelers to plummet in the standings might prove largely accurate…but all we can say for certain is that the PIT OLine will be very different than in years past. The team recently signed former Pro Bowler Trai Turner at OG and I would imagine they will continue to pursue reinforcements.
This Things I Believe (1)
I am going to aim to write a daily blurb here. Anyone who stumbles upon this for whatever reason should be warned the aim for these posts will be to toss out ideas and thoughts, not to slam down winners…The main concept here will be to try to establish concepts that are believed to be true. I apologize if some of the issues here are widely known and discussed, I havent watched SportsCenter in an eon.
Blue Jays
I have been going thru team lineups pretty consistently the last couple of weeks and it is striking how Toronto hardly ever seems to diverge from its standard lineup. Virtually every other team accounts for hot streaks, or at the least righty-lefty matchup stuff…Toronto for the most part seems to go, “Oh, you say they are scratching that 22 year old lefty minor league call-up and are pitching deGrom today? Fair enough. No, I dont need an eraser, we’ll stick with whats on the card, thank you.” They simply dont care…You are going to face 5-6 very legit RH hitters right off the rip…I bet some pitchers almost do a double-take when Cavan Biggio steps up. It has obviously worked fine for them so far, interesting to see if they maintain this course as playoffs begin to approach.
UFC 264 + Copa America Final
UFC 264:
Tai Tuivasa -130
Stephen Thompson to win by Decision +150
Dustin Poirier to win by submission +450
PARLAY @ +150: Sean O’Malley -1000; Michel Pereira -180; Tai Tuivasa -130
Copa America Final:
Brazil vs Argentina OVER 2 -110
