• Bet: New York Jets +7.5 and Mike White over 250 passing yards, sprinkle deeper money on Jets moneyline and the over on White's passing yardage: The Buffalo Bills defensive reputation may not be warranted, so don't be surprised if the Jets offense finds more success than expected.
• Bills QB Josh Allen struggling since injury: Allen hasn't been his usual self since his injury, especially when throwing deep.
Estimated reading time: 4 mins
Last updated: Friday, Dec. 9, 10:00 pm ET
Bet: New York Jets +7.5 and Mike White over 250 passing yards, sprinkle deeper money on Jets moneyline and the over on White's passing yardage
At this point in the season, we generally have a decent sample size and a good sense of team fundamentals and the real contenders and pretenders. But in understanding and predicting where teams are going, it is also important to weigh short-term play in the context of the season—if there is change, is that change noisy? Is it a product of a marked change either in player development, scheme or something else sticky? Does the smaller but more recent sample actually have more predictive value in the short run? These are all important questions that are difficult to answer, but they allow us to better learn about sourcing market pricing and where we might be able to find value.
Fundamentals
If we took a look from a full season’s perspective, the Buffalo Bills would be in the NFL’s elite tier– and for good reason.
Nonetheless, that does necessarily have predictive value, especially when considering there is good reason to be bearish on the Bills relative to their sky-high expectations. Accounting for the recent dip in performance that is likely due to sticky factors, the Bills — in the short term — should not be priced as the league's best team.
Since Josh Allen’s injury, the Bills offense has taken a hit. And continuing on the six-to-seven-week trend, the Bills defense has been below average.
Angle 1: Josh Allen is being priced as an elite QB but is not playing like one following his elbow injury
On the offensive side of the ball, the Bills' efficiency has sputtered as Allen has struggled to manage his injury, which has been especially true when he throws to the deep areas of the field, where Allen has enjoyed far less success.
Through eight weeks, Allen was perhaps the game's best deep thrower, but following the injury, he now sits in the bottom left of the graph with a 0.1 raw PFF grade of an 0.05 EPA.
Of course, this is a small sample that comes with some questions, but in looking to predict the short term, there should be more uncertainty priced into the Bills given Allen’s performance.
Angle 2: Without its dominant pass rush from early in the season, the Bills defense is just average.
- Before the bye, the Bills were generating quick pressure (pressure before 2.5 seconds) 27% of the time, which was third-best in the NFL.
- But as the injuries piled up to Von Miller and Gregory Rousseau, that has plummeted to 17%, fifth-worst in the NFL. Of course, Miller is now out for the year, and Shaq Lawson and his 51 PFF grade don’t exactly exude confidence that he will match Miller’s production.
While the Bills defense left a lasting impression early in the season as a dominant unit following two prime-time thrashings in Weeks 1 and 2, its production simply hasn’t matched the reputation. With a depleted pass rush, since the team's bye week, the Bills have allowed 0.147 EPA per pass, fifth-worst in the NFL. And there are no reinforcements on the way to help alleive the issues.
All of this is to say: A 10-point spread against the Jets is far too much.
However, rather than just buy the Jets at +10 (-110), we can combine the above angles to build a story that get far better odds. The +7.5 builds in the expectation the Bills are not the same team, so the White passing yardage build takes advantage of Buffalo's passing defense. Let’s dive a bit deeper.
Matchup Angles & Notes
Though everything is a small sample with White considering he has only played two games — even though his 0.14 EPA is certainly impressive — it is structurally clear the Jets are more comfortable with White throwing than they were with Zach Wilson. As Sam Hoppen noted, the Jets passed 5.6% below expectation with Wilson but have thrown 0.3% above expectation without him. And considering we are betting on passing yards, volume may matters more than efficiency.
In a matchup against the seventh best run defense in terms of EPA, the Jets will have to continue to lean on White to have success. And while he might not be the next coming of Dan Marino, White can generate enough volume and efficiency to go over his passing prop against a defense producing well below reputation.
Further bolstering the case here is that both the Bills and Jets play at a top-five pace of play in neutral situations — more plays equates to more opportunities for passing yards.
Depending on how much one buys the thesis, I’d recommend not scaling in size but continuing to move the lines further in the Jets and White’s favor. There is certainly a tails outcome in which White puts up another big passing performance and the Jets win. The odds there can get up to +3300, and they all revolve around the same thesis selling Allen recent performance and a Bills defense that's hurting without its dominant pass rush.
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