July 25, 2024 • 46 mins
How can Action Network's Director of Predictive Analytics and his math PhD colleague help listeners win more NFL sides and totals this season? Their exclusive Luck Rankings, that's how! On today's episode, Action hosts Chad Millman and Simon Hunter bring on the curators of their most beloved handicapping tool. Sean Koerner and Dr. Nick Giffen are data experts, and their Luck Rankings have been a revelations for gamblers looking to quantify how "lucky" or "unlucky" NFL teams were during a given game or entire season. Together they break down the math behind these rankings, their incredible performance against the spread, how we can all use the Luck Rankings as a profitable tool in our gambling tool belts, and so much more. Learn more about your ad choices.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to The Favorites, the podcast presented by about three
six five.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We are part of the Action Network.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I am Chadmillman, chief Content Officer of the Action Network,
joining me today.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Dude, this is such a big show.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
My co host, my companion, my compadre might BFF professional
better Simon hunter Head.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Oh so I'm in, Hello Chad?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
What are we? Six seven weeks out from the start
of the season. Brother Rome was there?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
We are so close since we last spoke, Caleb Williams
and Roman Dunesa. I've officially signed their contracts with the
Chicago Bears.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Next week we begin our annual NFL Division previews, and
so we want to seize the moment. Today is training
camps open across the NFL. To bring on two of
my favorite leagues could be Action Networks smartest people. They're
(01:06):
going to discuss, Simon. I think you and I can agree.
The luck rankings have revolutionized how we've looked at games
the past couple of years. This is like, it's very
infrequent that a new stat is created that has such
(01:28):
a huge impact on how we look at the games,
and that is so accurate in terms of reflecting quality
of play, quality of teams, separating signals from the noise
in how we do our jobs.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
You know, I love it. I know that you love it.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, they've taken some of that stupid people like me.
They say, well, I'm buying loan a team and actually
put some math behind it. So for years I always
talked about me and Chad love buying low on teams.
I get embarrassed, especially in primetime games. And then he
become a couple of geniuses that actually can put the
data behind it. And uh, you know, even even when
me and you don't even see an edge, they come
to us of these luck rankings. We go, Okay, that's
(02:08):
actually a pretty huge edge in that game. So yeah,
we love it.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Welcome to the show, the engine of our predictive analytics team.
Two of the most respected people in the industry, Sean
Kerner and doctor Nick Giffen Fellas.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Patty, what's going on. It's been a long off season.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
It has been a long off seas. I mean, you
don't have an off season, no, doctor Nick.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
With basketball and NASCAR.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
And his true story, true story, I was interviewing a
candidate for a job and this is always a really
good indicator to me of whether or not someone knows
our business, because everyone always like, I'm so excited about
Action Network blah blah blah blah blah blah. And so
I'll be like, tell me about your how did you
find Action Network? And so he started telling me that
(03:01):
originally he was betting a lot of hockey and was
trying to make hockey models, but then discovered the Action
Network app and started to bet Nascar, and he named
not ass Like, tell me, you know, who do you
like to follow in the app? The first person he
(03:21):
named doctor Nick Giffen because of Nascar. That's how you
know somebody loves Action And of course we immediately hired
that person.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Nick's a little low right now because he's he's injured.
Otherwise I feel like he'd be jumping out of his
seat with the recognition.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I don't know it kind of yeah, I don't know.
I get a little embarrassed on the recognition sometimes.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I told you, my favorite Nick story is we're all
in the office together, Chad and I think we hit
It was like a seventeen to one or ten to
one guy to score a touchdown and we're all going crazy,
we're all celebrating, and Nick is just right back on
his computer looking for the next guy to bet live.
I was just like, this guy is a machine. Truly,
you are a.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Machine, Nick, You know what, Shawn Kerner's not that either.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
These are right.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
As a reminder, the Favorites Podcast is presented by Bet
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(04:59):
we're excited to share that are popular college sports betting brand,
BBOC is launching its very own YouTube channel. Get every
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(05:21):
July twenty fifth. Whether you're into college football, college basketball,
college baseball, any other college sports, our new BBOC is
the channel for you. Make sure to subscribe now so
you don't miss any of the fun college football action
this season. All right, Cerner, Yeah, we love the luck rankings.
(05:48):
I remember exactly where we were when the idea for
the luck rankings was hatched. Explain to people what the
luck rankings are. Why you do all this work, why
create these things?
Speaker 5 (06:04):
Yeah? So, you know, Simon actually hit the nail on
the head when he was saying, you know, we're looking
for teams to buy low sell high on. So I
had been using a similar concept to the luck rankings
years ago when I was trying to attack you know,
season long win totals and you know, the ideas that
a team's record, you know, is a factual thing, but
(06:25):
it can be misleading because there's a ton of other
factors at play, a lot of which are due to luck.
So I was just looking at more high level things
like a team's one score records, strength of schedule, injury luck,
opponent field goal luck, and other factors. So the idea
was just to get a sense of which teams are
probably over or underachieving and look to you know, buy
(06:49):
or sell the upcoming season. During the season, you know,
I would, I would kind of play around with it
and you know, kind of use that for my spread bets.
But you know, eventually I realized, you know, this is
probably a really good idea that can be like formalized
and used in season. And you know what better person,
the genius that is Nick get him to come up
(07:11):
with the formalized version of this. But that was kind
of the overall idea of it. And I was just
you know, rubbing two sticks together. And then Nick, you know,
invented sort of the convention oven of like just making
it work. But that was kind of the idea behind it,
kind of because we all have our own perceptions of
teams and stuff which can be skewed. So just a
way to kind of look at the underlying data, underlying
luck factors and kind of, you know, really gauge which
(07:33):
teams we should be betting on or fading hearnery.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You set up Nick so nicely, and I know he's
super shy and doesn't like the attention, but Nick, please
explain the actual mechanics. What are we talking about here?
What do they quantify? How did you test these?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Yeah? So obviously Sean approached me about this, and uh, I,
you know have I basically got my start in sports
analytics with college basketball and Ken Pomeroy has a luck
column on his you know, his homepage there, and I've
(08:18):
always been super interested in, you know, like the saber
metrics behind sports, whether it's baseball or basketball or anything
like that. And so there's something called Pythagorean expectation or
Pythagorean wins, and very often that's used as a way of,
you know, saying which teams were lucky or which teams
were unlucky, which is based off of your point scored
(08:41):
and your points allowed. However, points Gordon points allowed can
be a little misleading, which is where we get to
the idea of the luck ranking. So instead of doing
points Gordon points allowed and just you know, taking that expectation,
I went another level with it, and there's actually multiple
levels you can go, and there's some called second order
(09:01):
Pythagorean wins or third order Pythagoreon wins, and second order
is basically saying, instead of using your point differential, we'll
use your expected point differential, right, because if you get
a lot of ninety nine yard touchdowns, that's not sustainable,
but that shows up in your point differential, but it
wouldn't really be your expected point differential. So that's kind
(09:23):
of the idea. But instead of just using scoring plays
or luck based plays, right, like maybe if you're on
defense and you're the opposing team drops a wide open pass,
yeah that's lucky or fumble luck, those kinds of things.
Instead of just using those purely luck based plays, I
use every single play in the whole game, and I say, okay,
(09:46):
it's first and ten from the twenty five yard line.
What does this team do against the opposing team on
first and ten from the twenty five yard line? If
we replayed this a million times, and then what happened
on this specific play? Did that come over or under
the average expectation? If we replayed that situation a million times?
And the nice thing is it adjusts for the team's strength. Right,
(10:09):
So we're talking about if it's the Eagles versus the
New York Giants or something like that, you know, and
the Eagles offense and the Giants defense, we're expecting the
Eagles to have a better baseline than if it was
the New York Giants offense versus the forty nine Ers
defense or something like that. So it adjust relative to
each team strength as well. So it's not just saying
the average NFL play, saying the average NFL play based
(10:31):
off these team strengths, and that automatically injury adjusts because
if you have one of your best players injured, the
expectation changes as well. So it really is a true
measure of team luck. And it takes every single play
from the whole NFL season and then produces an expected score.
How many points should this team have scored in the
(10:52):
game and how many points should they have allowed in
this game? And you know, like I said, a lot
of things go in to it every single play, team strengths,
play volume, FUELD position, all that stuff goes into it,
and we get an expected score and from there we
can derive an expected win or loss percentage. Compare that
(11:13):
to a team's actual women loss, and then we can
get what we call our luck percentage.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Samon, I know you want to jump in. Let me
just ask Nick to do one thing.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Explain to people why you're called doctor Nick, because I
think it's worthwhile for them to understand the baseline from
which you come to be able to do this kind
of math.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Yeah. So I have a background in mathematics. Both my
parents were mathematics teachers at University of Virginia, and so
naturally I fell into a math background as well. I
got my undergrad in mathematics, but then I also got
my PhD in mathematics, which is why I am a
doctor of mathematics. So that's why you call me doctor Nick.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
And I'm sure Nick got sick of me and Chad
couldn't anytime we lose a bet. I feel like every
time chat, we're texting doctor Nick here and being like, hey,
we're on the right side. Right the maths work didn't
work out for us, but mathematically we were on the
right side. Nick's just nicely, He's like, yeah, you guys
probably had a seventy percent chance of covering that game.
You really shouldn't and Yeah, that's that's why we love
throwing in and we talk about the time, it's probability,
(12:25):
all the math behind this. I mean, it's just so
heavy and people get annoyed abyt the like you guys
talk about the numbers so much and trust in your system.
It's like, you know, you can't always go against the numbers, right.
There's like there's times here me and Chat talking on
the show, we like a side. If these guys are
on the other side their luck rankings and a couple
of other stuff, the trends on the other side of it,
Me and Chat will walk away from those bets, right,
And more often than not, it's worked out from us.
(12:47):
So I know it sounds crazy for people, but there
really is. There's a rhythm behind this. So just to
follow up one and Nick, there's a difference right between
what you guys are doing here in DVOA.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Correct, absolutely, And you know that was one of the
things I like to talk about. So DVOA measures and
it's a great metric. I love DVOA. We use it
all the time, but it measures.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
What happened on man's numbers, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
It's it's I mean, there's a lot of high level
map that goes into that as well, but it measures
what happened on the field, so it doesn't measure luck.
It is saying, this is what happened. And if you're
the luckiest team in the world and every bounce your
way and every ninety nine yard play was a touchdown,
it would say you're the greatest team in the history
of the world. But you'd be expected to regress, and
(13:32):
it doesn't tell you that, right, So it's a wonderful metric.
It tells you how teams have performed, but it doesn't
tell you how teams are probably going to perform going forward.
And I think that's one of the nice things about
the Luck rankings is it's forward looking. You mentioned simon
buying high or buying low or selling high on a team, Well,
you can buy low in a couple different ways. If
(13:55):
a team wins barely wins, you wouldn't really consider that
a buy low. But what they should have won by
twenty right, and they won by one point. That's a
way to buy low on a team, and people don't
often see that way. And I think that's something that's
really cool about the Luck rankings is we now have
a way to see that we have a way to
(14:15):
see we can buy low even if the team is
three and oh. You know, maybe they're three and oh,
and they should be three and oh with a plus
fifty point differential instead of three and oh with a
plus five point differential or something like that, just based
off the way the bounces have gone. And conversely, there
could be an oh and three team that we actually
don't want to buy low on because they should be
(14:35):
zero and three.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Right.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
So, uh, this is now a way for us to
really see how teams are doing compared to their record
or compared to their point differentials, you know, versus what
they actually should be.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So Simon is right.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I would say over the past two years since we
launched Luck Rankings, the number of times we have both
liked the side that we thought was against the numbers
that years past we definitely would have bet that game.
Since the Luck Rankings, we'll look at and like, by Thursday,
when the Luck Rankings have come out and like this
(15:14):
game would have been one of our top five games,
We'll be like, ah, fuck, the Luck Rankings.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Don't like it and like it changes. It makes us
so upset.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Sean, Yeah, last year's unluckiest teams and describe sort of
the teams and then how you're defining the percentage in
like how you're using percentages to define the luck and unlucky.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Yeah, so let's just talk three unluckiest teams, and I
guess it's kind of ironic they're all from the NSC South.
The unluckiest team from last season was the Carolina Panthers.
You know, they only won two games, but they were
expected to win around four and a half, which I
believe is their current win total right now. But you know,
they were arguably the worsting league and had quite a
(16:02):
bit of bout luck. So I think it's fair for
us to be down on them. But I think just
due to a lot of the underlying factors we've discussed,
maybe they weren't as bad as we thought. You know,
they went two and six and one score games. And
the thing with one score games is you would expect
most teams to be around five hundred when a game falls,
(16:22):
but within you know, one score, it's kind of lucky
when you win versus you know, if you were to
blow a team out of the water and win by
ten plus, it's less luck in that case. So you know,
they were on two wins fewer just looking at their
one score record. Plus you know, opponents made ninety six
percent of their field goals against them. That's something that's
kind of outside of the control and probably contributed to
(16:45):
them losing so many, you know, close games. They were
third worst in injury luck, which is kind of outside
of the luck rankings. But when it comes to looking
at their you know, twenty twenty four outlook, this is
a team that checks all the boxes of a team
that I think webably by on. I think they're going, oh,
you're shaking your head already. Oh, it's just.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Because I can't believe you're doing this to us.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
We bet the Carolina Panthers so often last year, so
many times.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Whose we oh you guys end of the season though,
end of season towards.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Das towards the end of season, like we were on
them constantly because a because of luck ranks, but be like,
at that point in the.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Year, they were so undervalued.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
We're getting free by points every week.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, and so like we were constantly betting them and
constantly losing on the pad and like.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
The worst ugliest fashion you can even imagine, though every
time it was pure heartbreak.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
But that's the thing is, like, you know, when teams
are unlucky and we bet on them, there's still only
a you know, I wouldn't say fifty to fifty chance,
but like there's they're undervalued in the market, but there's
still a chance they don't improve. Right, we expect regression,
but it they'lln't always happen. So that's the whole point. Like,
we haven't even talked about the record of the luck rankings,
(18:05):
but luck rankings hit it over a sixty rate, over
a long, big second size.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
We're going to get there. That is the That is
the kicker. That's what's going to keep people sticking around.
Is you tellent talking about the threshold and the percentage,
the win percentage against the spread, the luck rankings. We've
already talked about how the Panthers are going to be
a team. Simon and I have said this that we're
practically on every week and we can't believe we're going
to ask our listeners to do that again.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
So the most expensive they have the most expensive line
on football now chats. So I'm moving it's going to
eat people's pain. I'm like, hey, there's there's some logic
behind this, Uh parent Panthers love this year.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
So now we know was wearing the Panthers hat.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yep, yeph.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Who else? Who else? Is the bottom of the list.
You mentioned three teams.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
So the second unluckiest were the New Orleans Saints. You know,
they they did win nine games, but they're expected wintles
closer to eleven and a half similar situation where they
were three and six in one score games, so a
bit of you know, unluckiness there. But they had a
plus seventy five point differential. Just for reference, you know,
(19:12):
the Chiefs had a plus seventy seven point differential. You know,
they finished with eleven wins. The Lions had a plus
sixty six point differential. They had twelve wins. So you know,
the Saints played much better than the record. Now, having
said that, you know, they did have the seventh best
injury luck and they had the easiest schedule, so I'm
not saying that we can necessarily bank on them to
(19:34):
have more wins this year. So, out of the three
teams from the MC South that were the unluckiest teams,
they're probably the least likely team for me personally to
back their over because we can't bet on the over
on everybody in the NFC South. So they're a team
where they were certainly unlucky, but they didn't really check
the boxes for me of you know, twenty twenty four
bounce back or success or an improvement in win total.
(19:57):
I think it was just based on last year. They
played much better than their nine one record indicated, but again,
were there were other factors around that outside of luck.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Chad, you know, I'm a Derek Carr truther. I'll just
say this really quick. From week eleven to week eighteen,
number two quarterback and Pro Football Focus Derek Carr. So
I know it's not saying much because Derek Carr, they
didn't really win that many games in the stretch, but
he didn't play as bad as people perceived last year
once he got comfortable in the offense. That's kind of
my whole point with then just going to this year,
(20:27):
people should know bookmakers say right now they're the least
beat team in the futures market and win total Super
Bowl Divisional odds. No one believes in the Saints in
this upcoming season.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Well, you know what the problem is, and this is
something that's interesting to me about the luck rankings that
I don't want to go too deeply in now because
I want to give full context. But we don't like
the Saints because we think Dennis Allen is a terrible coach,
And what Sean is saying to me supports the idea
that their luck is partially driven by really bad strategy
(21:04):
and decision making and not putting them in a position
to succeed and to have any luck. So the Panthers
makes more sense, whereas the Saints it makes sense that
their luck ranking is so low because Dennis Allen is
just not very good at his job, Sean, who else?
Speaker 5 (21:24):
So the third unluckiest team again signing at the NF
his South, is the Atlanta Falcons. You know, they they
ended up only winning seven games, but they were expected
to win around eight and a half, which wasn't any
good for my over eight and a half win total
ticket for them last year. So I guess this is
one of those situations where Nick would agree that, you know,
maybe I was a bit unlucky backing their over last year.
(21:47):
But they're a team where there were certainly a ton
of signals of bad luck, you know, four and six
record one score games, opponents made ninety five percent of
field goals against them, so similar thing where you know
a lot of those close games maybe was driven by
bad field goal luck. You know, I think it's safe
to say that one of the drivers of the Falcons
seven win season was his poor quarterback play. You know,
(22:09):
Desmond Ridder was sort of certifiably bad. And if your
called the first time I actually walked the plank betting
on the Panthers wasn't till Week fifteen when they played
the Falcons, and I watched that entire game. It was awful,
and I would say Desmond Ridder literally lost that game,
Like if they had any other quarterback, they win that game.
So looking ahead to twenty twenty four, they are absolutely
(22:31):
correcting that by bringing in a veteran like Kirk Cousins.
They have all the pieces there, but just bring in,
you know, a quarterback like Kirk Cousins and that can
just really boost the incoming regression anyway. So that's why
I do like them. But they did make the bizarre move,
you know, in terms of short term prospects by drafting
Michael Pennix in the top ten. But you could argue
(22:53):
that they had one of the potentially better backup quarterbacks,
which can you know, raise their team's floor or whatnot.
They're a team similar to the Panthers where I'm definitely
interested investing twenty twenty four. I think they check all
the boxes of a team that you know will bounce back.
And I know the market's probably higher on them than
the Panthers, but they're one of those teams that I
(23:15):
think is they definitely have a lot of signals of
bouncing back and exceeding expectations this season.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, They're fascinating to me, and you know, our listeners
know we're an Atlanta Falcons podcast. We cannot quit the
Atlanta Falcons. And I feel badly for Arthur Smith. I
think the guy kind of got shafted. They didn't give
him any players to really run that offense, and so
how can he be blamed for not being able to
(23:42):
utilize Jon or Kyle Pitts or even Drake London to
the extent that he's able to And they've got nobody
who can throw the ball and is constantly losing you games. Simon,
We're going to be betting a lot of the most irrelevant
division in all of football this year.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
We'll see because I as much as I do like
what Atlanta's done offensively, they lost their DC who I love.
I mean obviously their head coach. He's specialty is defense,
But that's a big deal to me. And their D line,
Chad I got them the greatt my third worst D
line head into the season. So yeah, they might be
one of the easiest teams to run the ball against
this upcoming season. I mean, I think their top two
(24:23):
pass rushers left, so it is a big deal. Like
it is a big deal Atlanta. Atlanta's defense might be bad,
but again, if we're talking fantasy and offense, that's even
better if you like the Atlanta offense. So Nick, give
it to us man. Who is you know the twenty
twenty three luckiest teams? We just went from the worst
two were the luckiest. I already know one. I'll stop
(24:43):
my head. Let's break it all down real quick.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
If you all remember, not last year, but the year before,
who was one of the luckiest teams that was the
Kirk Cousins led Minnesota Vikings. Right right now, he's with Atlanta,
so you know, I got you guys mentioned coaching. I
think there could be a little bit to the style
of quarterback play that also can lend itself to being
high or lower, and the luck rankings, we'll talk about that.
(25:08):
But the luckiest team from last year was the Pittsburgh Steelers.
They topped our luck rankings almost weekly last year. Not
every week, but a lot of the weeks. They were
the luckiest team if we look prior to to week eighteen, right,
because in Week eighteen they played the Baltimore Ravens with
(25:29):
Aul Lamar Jackson. But prior to Week eighteen, the Steelers
had a minus twenty seven point differential. It was even
lower in expected point differential. And the Steelers went overall
last year nine and two in one score games nine
and two. That's yeah, that's crazy. That's completely unsustainable. And
another thing that was unsustainable was the way they scored.
(25:52):
And this is part of why they were so lucky.
When we you know, I talk about all those ninety
nine yard touchdowns, I wasn't exaggerating almost with the Steelers, beak,
they had the fourth highest touchdown rate off of explosive plays.
If you look at all their touchdowns and then take
the ones that were from explosive plays, they had the
fourth highest rate of that. But they had the highest
(26:12):
rate of touchdowns that came from sixty plus yard plays,
number one in the NFL. And that's crazy because as
far as their overall explosive play rate, they were just
a mid pack team. So that's way above their expectation.
That's something you would absolutely expect to regress and completely
unsustainable way of scoring. And I remember through the first
(26:33):
like six or seven weeks of the season, they only
had one like normal touchdown. Everything else was either a
defensive touchdown, a sixty plus yard touchdown, or like a
fifty plus yard field goal. I mean, you can't sustain
winning that way, especially.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Like this was a team who all season, like the
knock was on how bad their offense was, like just dreadful.
So that's stat which I didn't even know, is so
reflective of luck and opportunity that comes in a flash
that you cannot count on. And it's the exact reflection
(27:11):
of a team like the Steelers being lucky.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yeah exactly. And you know I mentioned they.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Go freaking brilliant.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
Oh my god, they got a backup quarterback in the
last week of the rego season. Well other six divisional games,
four of them came against backup quarterbacks. Now, that's not
particularly lucky in terms of the luck rankings because it
adjusts for that, right you're playing a worst quarterback or
something like that, that's already accounted for. But that's just
something else that kind of inflates their record compared to
what it could have been, you know. So it's something
(27:40):
to consider when we're talking about maybe potential future win totals.
So the Pittsburgh Steelers the unluckiest or sorry, the luckiest
team in the NFL last year. Simon knows where I'm
going to go with the next one.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Yeah, I was gonna say, pretty shocking, chat Mike. This
has been my twelfth or thirteenth year as a career
professional better and this is the first time I've ever
read a summer of talking to pros taking the under
on Pittsburgh, Like wait to we get into the later
in the season. Their schedule Chad brutal this upcoming year,
and Nick just touched on it. They had so much
injury luck last year in their division that Joe Burrow
(28:14):
was down. They called Lamar with a back when the
Ravens had a backup, and even if you remember that
game against the Ravens, they're losing the entire game. I
think there was like a turnover or pick or something
like that. All a sudden they're up seventeen to ten
with two minutes ago against the Ravens. It's just things
always bounced their way, and I think the pros are
finally going against them this upcoming season.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Chad uh Nick, who was number two, number two, let's
stay in the state of Pennsylvania and go to Simon
Hunter's Philadelphia Eagles. And I mean, Simon knows they were
definitely a lucky team. Last year started ten and one,
ended eleven and six, losing five to the last year predictalous.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
So you guys, you said it for You and Sean
were both saying it for about three four weeks. We're like,
they're gonna go off a cliff here. Eventually they're gonna
off the cliff, and Boyd and me and Chad ride
that and going off that cliff. We needed it to
finish a buff five.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Yeah, you remember when that Do you remember when they
started going off the cliff. It was when we were
all together. Yeah, when we're all together for.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
They went off the cliff that forty nine Ers Eagles game,
and we were all on the Niners. But it was
the week before they had an overtime game against the Bills,
and that, to me and Simon and I did our
show that night, that was the beginning of the end.
Like they were getting beat up, they were exhausted. It's
also when like you know, you could see their defensive
(29:34):
line starting a crater, like that's when we lost our
Rookie of the Year bet with was it Jordan Davis?
Like right right, So.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
You're so right. That was the beginning of the end.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
That's the greater point with the luck rankings is like
these guys saw through all the bullshit and they were
like telling you for weeks this team isn't as good
as people perceived. The public is overrating this team, and
that again we're trying to hammer home here is that
this the luck ranking is look at it differently than
you and I can ever look at it.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Well. I do want to talk a little bit about Nick.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I want you to give give your third team before
I ask my follow up question.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Sure, so the third team, and you know there's kind
of a third and a fourth team, but we'll just
stick with the Indianapolis Colts as the third team. They
were six and three and one score games. They were
two and one in overtime games, so definitely some close
game luck if we exclude week eighteen, because Week eighteen
always has the weird, weird stuff going on with players
(30:33):
being arrested, et cetera, motivations. Through week seventeen, Indianapolis had
a minus fifteen point differential, but they were nine and seven.
You'd expect them to be more like seven and nine,
so they're kind of two wins above expectation and they're
expected point differential. They had a minus fifteen, but they're
expected was minus forty five, and a lot of that
(30:53):
just comes from it was little things. It was a
lot of little things. They were twenty second in offensive
success rate through week seventeen and only twenty first in
defensive success rate, so bottom half, almost bottom ten, and
both offensive and defensive success rates through week seventeen, yet
they were nine and seven. That's just not a again,
not a sustainable formula for a winning team. They also
(31:17):
had the third most defensive touchdowns, which you know, again
defensive return touchdowns, interceptions for tds, pick sixes, strip sack sixes,
those kinds of things. They're nice and there are teams
that are better at it, but they still were a
little unsustainably high this past year, I think so. I
think that was mostly but honestly, it was just a
(31:38):
lot of little things. They didn't really stand out in
a bunch of categories that were like super lucky. I
think it was just a lot of little luck adding
up for the innate. It is min you magic, that's right,
Garner Michell, That's.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
All what it was.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Well, I will say What's interesting to me and sort
of a theme that I've been trying to that this
has been leading us to is coaching. And if you
look at the teams from last year, Nick, I'm glad
you went to the Colts Steelers. Mike Tomlin, traditionally a
coach who motivates his teams wins in underdog situations, has
(32:11):
never been under five hundred in his career.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Eagles a team last year that.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
A lot of folks thought Nick Sirianni was in over
his head, especially because he was without his two coordinators
offensively and defensively. One of those coordinators, Shane Steichen, went
to the Colts. And so what I'm wondering is are
the luck rankings a good representation of coaching factor. Dennis
(32:39):
Allen is at the bottom. His team outscored opponents by
sixty six points. The other teams that did that had
significantly more wins and went into the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Shane Steichen, his.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Team is underperforming in terms of points allowed and points scored,
yet they were overachievers. Do coaches have a play affect
in putting their teams in position to be lucky, lucky
or unlucky? Sean, I don't want to get your take
on that first.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
I think that's that's a great point, and that's certainly,
you know, probably an underlying variable that's kind of hard
to quantify. But if a team is constantly overachieving, what
better reason than the coaching staff. So I do take
that into account, and if your call, I was more
comfortable backing the Panthers and Falcons heading into the season
because they replaced their coaching staffs with with people that
(33:30):
I think are there to kind of correct what the
problems are, whereas the Saints they still have Dani Sallen,
So that could still be an underlying factor. So that's
something that Nick and I we talked about throughout the
season a lot. We're aware of it. But again Nick's
done so much back testing on it that if you
were just blindly bet these I don't know if he's
(33:51):
gone over all the numbers yet, you'd be doing really good.
So we, you know, certainly trust in these. But I
think that is one thing that we're we're always kind
of cognizant of, is yes, some of these teams that
are really unlucky could be to do bad coaching and
the lucky team's good coaching. It's just hard to really quantify,
but that is something that we're always aware of.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Can you name the fastest growing ticketing app in the
United States?
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Game Time?
Speaker 1 (34:17):
That's right, It's game Time. I love Game Time for
two reasons. First, they still sponsor their show. Second, I
actually use game Time all the time. They have amazing
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speaking of which, I'm actually opening the game Time app
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what I can get in to see New York Yankees
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(34:41):
No matter where you live, download the game Time app,
get out have some fun this week.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
You deserve it.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
You can redeem code favorites for twenty dollars off your
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app and use code Favorites for twenty dollars off your
first purchase. Last minute tickets most prices gair run Tee. Well,
I do want to get to the record for luck
rankings and luck rankings last year was really revolvatory when
(35:06):
it came to totals over unders. The one more thing
I'll say about coaching is the Packers were minus one
percent in terms of luck, the Rams minus two percent,
the Ravens minus two percent. The Chiefs and the Niners
(35:28):
were both bottom ten. These are all playoff teams that
have some of the best coaches in the NFL that
overcame bad luck to put themselves in positions to go
all the way to the Super Bowl in the case
of the Chief of the Niners, and then win the
Super Bowl. That to me says a lot about how
good Matt Lafleur, Sean McVay, John Harbaugh, Andy Reid, and
(35:52):
Kyle Shanahan are as coaches. Those continue to be safe bets.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
To me, Yeah, it's interesting plot. You know, over the
last let's say six years of the luck rankings times
teams end up in the top quarter or top third
or top two or three. We would expect one team
to have made the top three of the luck rankings
in something like four or five out of the six years,
(36:19):
and there's one team that has done it is the
Pittsburgh Steelers, and of course that's Mike Tomlin. Now is
that coaching I don't know, because that's exactly the number
of teams we'd expect. Is it just randomly Mike Tomlin?
Or is it the one team because it's Mike Tomlin.
And then we do the same thing for unlucky teams,
and we see there's one team that's done it for
(36:40):
out of the six years in terms of being really unlucky.
So the distribution almost fits perfectly where you'd expect these
things by random chance. But it still feels like there
is a coaching element that comes into play. I also
think there's a little bit of a quarterback play style
that comes into play. We look at some of the
unlucky teams Atlanta Falcons, Desmond Ritter, Chicago Bears justin fields,
(37:05):
they're really good with their legs, but they aren't necessarily
as good throwing the ball, and they were really unlucky teams.
Then we look at the really lucky teams a lot
more pocket passing type quarterbacks. We've seen Kirk Cousins in
the past, all the Steelers, different quarterbacks they had. Last year,
Baker Mayfield was fourth in Gardner Minshew. You know, obviously
(37:27):
the Eagles could be a little bit of an exceptions.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
As much second half of the year, So I'm agree
with you on that.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
So there could be a little bit of quarterback archetype
in there as well in terms of lucky versus unlucky,
a little bit of coaching, but it's hard to like
tease all that out, so I mostly just ignore which
who the coach is, who the quarterback is, because over
a long enough time period, you know, the distributions have
played out to fall into exactly the ways we'd expect them.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Give us the thresholds, what are the you know, the
percentages at which you cover against the spread based on
the luck percentage.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
Yeah, so we'll just real quick. So in our luck
rankings rank one to thirty two, and if there's at
least a twenty four place difference in that ordinal luck ranking,
we can say the unlucky team is a team we
might back to cover the spread, or if the luck
percentage number that we have the difference between those two
(38:30):
teams is at least fifty percent. Again, we can back
the unlucky team here, and last year those sides went
sixty percent against the spread fourteen, nine and two. And
for totals, we have three different factors we can look
at if a luck total and we haven't really talked
about luck totals, right, We've only talked about backing unlucky
(38:51):
teams or lucky teams. But if teams are scoring more
or allowing more points than expected, we would expect that
to regress, and vice versa. Teams are not scoring enough
or having really lucky defensive stands or things like that,
we'd expect them to regress towards more higher scoring games.
So we can bet on totals using the luck rankings,
(39:11):
and we have three luck total thresholds. A luck total
above positive ten after week three, a luck total above
positive five after week eleven, or a luck total below
minus five anytime after week three, So three different criteria,
and luck totals last year went thirty five, nineteen and
(39:32):
one in the direction of which we'd expect, which is
sixty four and a half percent. So overall prior to
week eighteen, forty nine, twenty eight and three on our
luck based bets, which just clears sixty three percent. And
every year we've had the Luck Rankings, even just back
testing the luck rankings have had positive years in all
(39:54):
but one and the other one was barely losing year.
And that's what we would expect. We're not gonna just
blind betting. The luck rankings isn't always going to win.
You're going to have years that where unlucky teams stay
unlucky and lucky teams stay lucky and things like that.
But overall, you know, the Luck Rankings have a very
positive record over sixty percent both on you know, backing
(40:16):
sides in on totals.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, it's a genius stat And the beauty of everything
you've just said is if you go to Action Network
and these things really start to kick into gear once
we've got about a month of the season under our belt.
So as we get into the season, you want to
(40:39):
be going to Action Network, checking it out in the app,
checking it out in the web, and finding the luck rankings.
I think we normally post them Wednesday and Thursday.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Right Yeah, we usually have them up Tuesday, right after
Monday Night football is done, and then I have them
ready to go on Tuesday. But honestly, the luck rankings
for betting sides kicks in a gear right away. Week two,
we're ready to go. Two weeks two, three, and four
have some very high win rates against the spread, and
(41:07):
that also is when the most number of games occur
in terms of the season, and the luck rankings are
a little unlucky last year and that we had fewer
games to bet on in terms of unlucky teams than
we normally would have in the given years. So hopefully
we get a lot more unlucky versus lucky matchups early
in the season this year than we had last year.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
How can we use luck rankings to help us with
win totals? Crooner, You talked a little bit about that
earlier in the show.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Yeah, so I usually have my win totals guide sometime
in August, but I definitely leverage these along with some
of the other factors I mentioned, like injury luck, like
strength of schedule, jump or drop in strength of schedule,
things like that, So I leverage these or coaching changes.
Like I just said, I'm kind of with you where
(41:58):
I think the coaching changes can certainly helped correct a
lot of these things that the teams were unlucky in.
So I'm factoring all that and when I'm kind of
creating my power ratings, but this is a huge, huge
part of that, and I kind of talk about that
through each team. But again that'll be sometime in August.
But I set all these up in my season sim
to get you know, divisional odds, things like that, the
(42:21):
last undefeated team that forty nine ers bet I had
last year, fun markets like that. A lot of that
is kind of fueled by this data that we have
from last season.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
I'll give Sean a have the more props too. Is
it do you and Chris start up the Fantasy Show
this next week or has it already begun? Because last
year before our guy Sean here was a number one
ranker and all of Fantasy football number one.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
Our guy here, Sean, You're embarrassing, but now me and
that I don't like to be embarrassed, and the Fantasy
Flex is now underway as of Yes, let's go, We're back, baby.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Go listen to Fantasy Flex with Raybond and Kroner.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I believe.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Last year the independent third party ranking service Fantasy Pros
called Sean Kerner, who has now been number one, I
think three or four times.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
The goat, the goat, the goat.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
What was it, Sean?
Speaker 5 (43:21):
Yeah, four times? Four times?
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Sorry for let's go By the way, Nick Nick would
never correct me. He'd be like, I don't even want
to talk about it.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
Shawn's a legend. I mean you go back and listen.
Sean was Oliver Pooka. I mean there's just a bunch
of times where like you've saved my ass.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
Especially it was something like the first year ever where
Seawan was top ten in every position as well.
Speaker 5 (43:40):
Yeah you count kicker and defense, but I take those
very seriously, so I you know, it was top ten
in those as well.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Also, by the way, for everybody who has watched Convince
Me or should watch Convince Me our Sunday morning preview
show that both Simon and Sewan are on, everybody knows
Sean knows more about referee stats and how they can
impact total. Yes, or anybody in the handicapping business.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
Or stat keepers when it comes to like adition out
tackles things like that.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Oh true, Oh my god, I had a mass Crosby
over seven tackles prop last year only big on what
you said, and I think he got on the first half.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
That was a fun one. Yeah, I forgot the game.
He tackled the like it wasn't even a sack, he
just tackled the quarterback in the backfill or something that.
Those are always fun. Look for more of those this year.
I'm going to find that model.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Look for it all.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Follow Sean Kerner in the Action Network app. Follow Nick
Giffen in the Action Network app. You can listen to
them on various shows. They're both on Green Dot Daily
Fantasy Flex. Like Simon just mentioned, everywhere all over the app,
Happens That What Happens Live absolutely my favorite show in
(44:57):
the Action Network universe, starting Doctor Nick Giffim. As a reminder,
the Favorites podcast is presented by Bet three sixty five.
Bet three six five doesn't do ordinary. That's why you
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six five boost specific markets, your winnings and even parlays.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
And they don't stop there.
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Keep an eye for the biggest and best odds with
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(45:39):
Simon or I will return whether our next episode of
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Feedback is gift until next time.
Speaker 4 (46:01):
Love you. Action Network reminds you please gamble responsibly.
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Welcome to The Favorites, the podcast presented by about three
six five.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We are part of the Action Network.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I am Chadmillman, chief Content Officer of the Action Network,
joining me today.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Dude, this is such a big show.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
My co host, my companion, my compadre might BFF professional
better Simon hunter Head.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Oh so I'm in, Hello Chad?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
What are we? Six seven weeks out from the start
of the season. Brother Rome was there?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
We are so close since we last spoke, Caleb Williams
and Roman Dunesa. I've officially signed their contracts with the
Chicago Bears.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Next week we begin our annual NFL Division previews, and
so we want to seize the moment. Today is training
camps open across the NFL. To bring on two of
my favorite leagues could be Action Networks smartest people. They're
(01:06):
going to discuss, Simon. I think you and I can agree.
The luck rankings have revolutionized how we've looked at games
the past couple of years. This is like, it's very
infrequent that a new stat is created that has such
(01:28):
a huge impact on how we look at the games,
and that is so accurate in terms of reflecting quality
of play, quality of teams, separating signals from the noise
in how we do our jobs.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
You know, I love it. I know that you love it.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, they've taken some of that stupid people like me.
They say, well, I'm buying loan a team and actually
put some math behind it. So for years I always
talked about me and Chad love buying low on teams.
I get embarrassed, especially in primetime games. And then he
become a couple of geniuses that actually can put the
data behind it. And uh, you know, even even when
me and you don't even see an edge, they come
to us of these luck rankings. We go, Okay, that's
(02:08):
actually a pretty huge edge in that game. So yeah,
we love it.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Welcome to the show, the engine of our predictive analytics team.
Two of the most respected people in the industry, Sean
Kerner and doctor Nick Giffen Fellas.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Patty, what's going on. It's been a long off season.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
It has been a long off seas. I mean, you
don't have an off season, no, doctor Nick.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
With basketball and NASCAR.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
And his true story, true story, I was interviewing a
candidate for a job and this is always a really
good indicator to me of whether or not someone knows
our business, because everyone always like, I'm so excited about
Action Network blah blah blah blah blah blah. And so
I'll be like, tell me about your how did you
find Action Network? And so he started telling me that
(03:01):
originally he was betting a lot of hockey and was
trying to make hockey models, but then discovered the Action
Network app and started to bet Nascar, and he named
not ass Like, tell me, you know, who do you
like to follow in the app? The first person he
(03:21):
named doctor Nick Giffen because of Nascar. That's how you
know somebody loves Action And of course we immediately hired
that person.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Nick's a little low right now because he's he's injured.
Otherwise I feel like he'd be jumping out of his
seat with the recognition.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I don't know it kind of yeah, I don't know.
I get a little embarrassed on the recognition sometimes.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I told you, my favorite Nick story is we're all
in the office together, Chad and I think we hit
It was like a seventeen to one or ten to
one guy to score a touchdown and we're all going crazy,
we're all celebrating, and Nick is just right back on
his computer looking for the next guy to bet live.
I was just like, this guy is a machine. Truly,
you are a.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Machine, Nick, You know what, Shawn Kerner's not that either.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
These are right.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
As a reminder, the Favorites Podcast is presented by Bet
three sixty five Bet three six five. Doesn't you ordinary?
That's why you get more boosts with them than with
anyone else. Every day they pill out the odds one
hundreds of bests to give you a chance to win more.
Bet three sixty five boost specific markets, your winnings and
even parlays, and they don't stop there, keeping at for
their biggest and best odds with the incredible super Boost.
(04:33):
Check out the boost and see why it's never ordinary
at Bet three sixty five. Must be twenty one or
older and present in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina,
New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, or eighteen and older in Kentucky.
Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or one eight
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(04:59):
we're excited to share that are popular college sports betting brand,
BBOC is launching its very own YouTube channel. Get every
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(05:21):
July twenty fifth. Whether you're into college football, college basketball,
college baseball, any other college sports, our new BBOC is
the channel for you. Make sure to subscribe now so
you don't miss any of the fun college football action
this season. All right, Cerner, Yeah, we love the luck rankings.
(05:48):
I remember exactly where we were when the idea for
the luck rankings was hatched. Explain to people what the
luck rankings are. Why you do all this work, why
create these things?
Speaker 5 (06:04):
Yeah? So, you know, Simon actually hit the nail on
the head when he was saying, you know, we're looking
for teams to buy low sell high on. So I
had been using a similar concept to the luck rankings
years ago when I was trying to attack you know,
season long win totals and you know, the ideas that
a team's record, you know, is a factual thing, but
(06:25):
it can be misleading because there's a ton of other
factors at play, a lot of which are due to luck.
So I was just looking at more high level things
like a team's one score records, strength of schedule, injury luck,
opponent field goal luck, and other factors. So the idea
was just to get a sense of which teams are
probably over or underachieving and look to you know, buy
(06:49):
or sell the upcoming season. During the season, you know,
I would, I would kind of play around with it
and you know, kind of use that for my spread bets.
But you know, eventually I realized, you know, this is
probably a really good idea that can be like formalized
and used in season. And you know what better person,
the genius that is Nick get him to come up
(07:11):
with the formalized version of this. But that was kind
of the overall idea of it. And I was just
you know, rubbing two sticks together. And then Nick, you know,
invented sort of the convention oven of like just making
it work. But that was kind of the idea behind it,
kind of because we all have our own perceptions of
teams and stuff which can be skewed. So just a
way to kind of look at the underlying data, underlying
luck factors and kind of, you know, really gauge which
(07:33):
teams we should be betting on or fading hearnery.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You set up Nick so nicely, and I know he's
super shy and doesn't like the attention, but Nick, please
explain the actual mechanics. What are we talking about here?
What do they quantify? How did you test these?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Yeah? So obviously Sean approached me about this, and uh, I,
you know have I basically got my start in sports
analytics with college basketball and Ken Pomeroy has a luck
column on his you know, his homepage there, and I've
(08:18):
always been super interested in, you know, like the saber
metrics behind sports, whether it's baseball or basketball or anything
like that. And so there's something called Pythagorean expectation or
Pythagorean wins, and very often that's used as a way of,
you know, saying which teams were lucky or which teams
were unlucky, which is based off of your point scored
(08:41):
and your points allowed. However, points Gordon points allowed can
be a little misleading, which is where we get to
the idea of the luck ranking. So instead of doing
points Gordon points allowed and just you know, taking that expectation,
I went another level with it, and there's actually multiple
levels you can go, and there's some called second order
(09:01):
Pythagorean wins or third order Pythagoreon wins, and second order
is basically saying, instead of using your point differential, we'll
use your expected point differential, right, because if you get
a lot of ninety nine yard touchdowns, that's not sustainable,
but that shows up in your point differential, but it
wouldn't really be your expected point differential. So that's kind
(09:23):
of the idea. But instead of just using scoring plays
or luck based plays, right, like maybe if you're on
defense and you're the opposing team drops a wide open pass,
yeah that's lucky or fumble luck, those kinds of things.
Instead of just using those purely luck based plays, I
use every single play in the whole game, and I say, okay,
(09:46):
it's first and ten from the twenty five yard line.
What does this team do against the opposing team on
first and ten from the twenty five yard line? If
we replayed this a million times, and then what happened
on this specific play? Did that come over or under
the average expectation? If we replayed that situation a million times?
And the nice thing is it adjusts for the team's strength. Right,
(10:09):
So we're talking about if it's the Eagles versus the
New York Giants or something like that, you know, and
the Eagles offense and the Giants defense, we're expecting the
Eagles to have a better baseline than if it was
the New York Giants offense versus the forty nine Ers
defense or something like that. So it adjust relative to
each team strength as well. So it's not just saying
the average NFL play, saying the average NFL play based
(10:31):
off these team strengths, and that automatically injury adjusts because
if you have one of your best players injured, the
expectation changes as well. So it really is a true
measure of team luck. And it takes every single play
from the whole NFL season and then produces an expected score.
How many points should this team have scored in the
(10:52):
game and how many points should they have allowed in
this game? And you know, like I said, a lot
of things go in to it every single play, team strengths,
play volume, FUELD position, all that stuff goes into it,
and we get an expected score and from there we
can derive an expected win or loss percentage. Compare that
(11:13):
to a team's actual women loss, and then we can
get what we call our luck percentage.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Samon, I know you want to jump in. Let me
just ask Nick to do one thing.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Explain to people why you're called doctor Nick, because I
think it's worthwhile for them to understand the baseline from
which you come to be able to do this kind
of math.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Yeah. So I have a background in mathematics. Both my
parents were mathematics teachers at University of Virginia, and so
naturally I fell into a math background as well. I
got my undergrad in mathematics, but then I also got
my PhD in mathematics, which is why I am a
doctor of mathematics. So that's why you call me doctor Nick.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
And I'm sure Nick got sick of me and Chad
couldn't anytime we lose a bet. I feel like every
time chat, we're texting doctor Nick here and being like, hey,
we're on the right side. Right the maths work didn't
work out for us, but mathematically we were on the
right side. Nick's just nicely, He's like, yeah, you guys
probably had a seventy percent chance of covering that game.
You really shouldn't and Yeah, that's that's why we love
throwing in and we talk about the time, it's probability,
(12:25):
all the math behind this. I mean, it's just so
heavy and people get annoyed abyt the like you guys
talk about the numbers so much and trust in your system.
It's like, you know, you can't always go against the numbers, right.
There's like there's times here me and Chat talking on
the show, we like a side. If these guys are
on the other side their luck rankings and a couple
of other stuff, the trends on the other side of it,
Me and Chat will walk away from those bets, right,
And more often than not, it's worked out from us.
(12:47):
So I know it sounds crazy for people, but there
really is. There's a rhythm behind this. So just to
follow up one and Nick, there's a difference right between
what you guys are doing here in DVOA.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Correct, absolutely, And you know that was one of the
things I like to talk about. So DVOA measures and
it's a great metric. I love DVOA. We use it
all the time, but it measures.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
What happened on man's numbers, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
It's it's I mean, there's a lot of high level
map that goes into that as well, but it measures
what happened on the field, so it doesn't measure luck.
It is saying, this is what happened. And if you're
the luckiest team in the world and every bounce your
way and every ninety nine yard play was a touchdown,
it would say you're the greatest team in the history
of the world. But you'd be expected to regress, and
(13:32):
it doesn't tell you that, right, So it's a wonderful metric.
It tells you how teams have performed, but it doesn't
tell you how teams are probably going to perform going forward.
And I think that's one of the nice things about
the Luck rankings is it's forward looking. You mentioned simon
buying high or buying low or selling high on a team, Well,
you can buy low in a couple different ways. If
(13:55):
a team wins barely wins, you wouldn't really consider that
a buy low. But what they should have won by
twenty right, and they won by one point. That's a
way to buy low on a team, and people don't
often see that way. And I think that's something that's
really cool about the Luck rankings is we now have
a way to see that we have a way to
(14:15):
see we can buy low even if the team is
three and oh. You know, maybe they're three and oh,
and they should be three and oh with a plus
fifty point differential instead of three and oh with a
plus five point differential or something like that, just based
off the way the bounces have gone. And conversely, there
could be an oh and three team that we actually
don't want to buy low on because they should be
(14:35):
zero and three.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Right.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
So, uh, this is now a way for us to
really see how teams are doing compared to their record
or compared to their point differentials, you know, versus what
they actually should be.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So Simon is right.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I would say over the past two years since we
launched Luck Rankings, the number of times we have both
liked the side that we thought was against the numbers
that years past we definitely would have bet that game.
Since the Luck Rankings, we'll look at and like, by Thursday,
when the Luck Rankings have come out and like this
(15:14):
game would have been one of our top five games,
We'll be like, ah, fuck, the Luck Rankings.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Don't like it and like it changes. It makes us
so upset.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Sean, Yeah, last year's unluckiest teams and describe sort of
the teams and then how you're defining the percentage in
like how you're using percentages to define the luck and unlucky.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Yeah, so let's just talk three unluckiest teams, and I
guess it's kind of ironic they're all from the NSC South.
The unluckiest team from last season was the Carolina Panthers.
You know, they only won two games, but they were
expected to win around four and a half, which I
believe is their current win total right now. But you know,
they were arguably the worsting league and had quite a
(16:02):
bit of bout luck. So I think it's fair for
us to be down on them. But I think just
due to a lot of the underlying factors we've discussed,
maybe they weren't as bad as we thought. You know,
they went two and six and one score games. And
the thing with one score games is you would expect
most teams to be around five hundred when a game falls,
(16:22):
but within you know, one score, it's kind of lucky
when you win versus you know, if you were to
blow a team out of the water and win by
ten plus, it's less luck in that case. So you know,
they were on two wins fewer just looking at their
one score record. Plus you know, opponents made ninety six
percent of their field goals against them. That's something that's
kind of outside of the control and probably contributed to
(16:45):
them losing so many, you know, close games. They were
third worst in injury luck, which is kind of outside
of the luck rankings. But when it comes to looking
at their you know, twenty twenty four outlook, this is
a team that checks all the boxes of a team
that I think webably by on. I think they're going, oh,
you're shaking your head already. Oh, it's just.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Because I can't believe you're doing this to us.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
We bet the Carolina Panthers so often last year, so
many times.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Whose we oh you guys end of the season though,
end of season towards.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Das towards the end of season, like we were on
them constantly because a because of luck ranks, but be like,
at that point in the.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Year, they were so undervalued.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
We're getting free by points every week.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, and so like we were constantly betting them and
constantly losing on the pad and like.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
The worst ugliest fashion you can even imagine, though every
time it was pure heartbreak.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
But that's the thing is, like, you know, when teams
are unlucky and we bet on them, there's still only
a you know, I wouldn't say fifty to fifty chance,
but like there's they're undervalued in the market, but there's
still a chance they don't improve. Right, we expect regression,
but it they'lln't always happen. So that's the whole point. Like,
we haven't even talked about the record of the luck rankings,
(18:05):
but luck rankings hit it over a sixty rate, over
a long, big second size.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
We're going to get there. That is the That is
the kicker. That's what's going to keep people sticking around.
Is you tellent talking about the threshold and the percentage,
the win percentage against the spread, the luck rankings. We've
already talked about how the Panthers are going to be
a team. Simon and I have said this that we're
practically on every week and we can't believe we're going
to ask our listeners to do that again.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
So the most expensive they have the most expensive line
on football now chats. So I'm moving it's going to
eat people's pain. I'm like, hey, there's there's some logic
behind this, Uh parent Panthers love this year.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
So now we know was wearing the Panthers hat.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yep, yeph.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Who else? Who else? Is the bottom of the list.
You mentioned three teams.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
So the second unluckiest were the New Orleans Saints. You know,
they they did win nine games, but they're expected wintles
closer to eleven and a half similar situation where they
were three and six in one score games, so a
bit of you know, unluckiness there. But they had a
plus seventy five point differential. Just for reference, you know,
(19:12):
the Chiefs had a plus seventy seven point differential. You know,
they finished with eleven wins. The Lions had a plus
sixty six point differential. They had twelve wins. So you know,
the Saints played much better than the record. Now, having
said that, you know, they did have the seventh best
injury luck and they had the easiest schedule, so I'm
not saying that we can necessarily bank on them to
(19:34):
have more wins this year. So, out of the three
teams from the MC South that were the unluckiest teams,
they're probably the least likely team for me personally to
back their over because we can't bet on the over
on everybody in the NFC South. So they're a team
where they were certainly unlucky, but they didn't really check
the boxes for me of you know, twenty twenty four
bounce back or success or an improvement in win total.
(19:57):
I think it was just based on last year. They
played much better than their nine one record indicated, but again,
were there were other factors around that outside of luck.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Chad, you know, I'm a Derek Carr truther. I'll just
say this really quick. From week eleven to week eighteen,
number two quarterback and Pro Football Focus Derek Carr. So
I know it's not saying much because Derek Carr, they
didn't really win that many games in the stretch, but
he didn't play as bad as people perceived last year
once he got comfortable in the offense. That's kind of
my whole point with then just going to this year,
(20:27):
people should know bookmakers say right now they're the least
beat team in the futures market and win total Super
Bowl Divisional odds. No one believes in the Saints in
this upcoming season.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Well, you know what the problem is, and this is
something that's interesting to me about the luck rankings that
I don't want to go too deeply in now because
I want to give full context. But we don't like
the Saints because we think Dennis Allen is a terrible coach,
And what Sean is saying to me supports the idea
that their luck is partially driven by really bad strategy
(21:04):
and decision making and not putting them in a position
to succeed and to have any luck. So the Panthers
makes more sense, whereas the Saints it makes sense that
their luck ranking is so low because Dennis Allen is
just not very good at his job, Sean, who else?
Speaker 5 (21:24):
So the third unluckiest team again signing at the NF
his South, is the Atlanta Falcons. You know, they they
ended up only winning seven games, but they were expected
to win around eight and a half, which wasn't any
good for my over eight and a half win total
ticket for them last year. So I guess this is
one of those situations where Nick would agree that, you know,
maybe I was a bit unlucky backing their over last year.
(21:47):
But they're a team where there were certainly a ton
of signals of bad luck, you know, four and six
record one score games, opponents made ninety five percent of
field goals against them, so similar thing where you know
a lot of those close games maybe was driven by
bad field goal luck. You know, I think it's safe
to say that one of the drivers of the Falcons
seven win season was his poor quarterback play. You know,
(22:09):
Desmond Ridder was sort of certifiably bad. And if your
called the first time I actually walked the plank betting
on the Panthers wasn't till Week fifteen when they played
the Falcons, and I watched that entire game. It was awful,
and I would say Desmond Ridder literally lost that game,
Like if they had any other quarterback, they win that game.
So looking ahead to twenty twenty four, they are absolutely
(22:31):
correcting that by bringing in a veteran like Kirk Cousins.
They have all the pieces there, but just bring in,
you know, a quarterback like Kirk Cousins and that can
just really boost the incoming regression anyway. So that's why
I do like them. But they did make the bizarre move,
you know, in terms of short term prospects by drafting
Michael Pennix in the top ten. But you could argue
(22:53):
that they had one of the potentially better backup quarterbacks,
which can you know, raise their team's floor or whatnot.
They're a team similar to the Panthers where I'm definitely
interested investing twenty twenty four. I think they check all
the boxes of a team that you know will bounce back.
And I know the market's probably higher on them than
the Panthers, but they're one of those teams that I
(23:15):
think is they definitely have a lot of signals of
bouncing back and exceeding expectations this season.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, They're fascinating to me, and you know, our listeners
know we're an Atlanta Falcons podcast. We cannot quit the
Atlanta Falcons. And I feel badly for Arthur Smith. I
think the guy kind of got shafted. They didn't give
him any players to really run that offense, and so
how can he be blamed for not being able to
(23:42):
utilize Jon or Kyle Pitts or even Drake London to
the extent that he's able to And they've got nobody
who can throw the ball and is constantly losing you games. Simon,
We're going to be betting a lot of the most irrelevant
division in all of football this year.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
We'll see because I as much as I do like
what Atlanta's done offensively, they lost their DC who I love.
I mean obviously their head coach. He's specialty is defense,
But that's a big deal to me. And their D line,
Chad I got them the greatt my third worst D
line head into the season. So yeah, they might be
one of the easiest teams to run the ball against
this upcoming season. I mean, I think their top two
(24:23):
pass rushers left, so it is a big deal. Like
it is a big deal Atlanta. Atlanta's defense might be bad,
but again, if we're talking fantasy and offense, that's even
better if you like the Atlanta offense. So Nick, give
it to us man. Who is you know the twenty
twenty three luckiest teams? We just went from the worst
two were the luckiest. I already know one. I'll stop
(24:43):
my head. Let's break it all down real quick.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
If you all remember, not last year, but the year before,
who was one of the luckiest teams that was the
Kirk Cousins led Minnesota Vikings. Right right now, he's with Atlanta,
so you know, I got you guys mentioned coaching. I
think there could be a little bit to the style
of quarterback play that also can lend itself to being
high or lower, and the luck rankings, we'll talk about that.
(25:08):
But the luckiest team from last year was the Pittsburgh Steelers.
They topped our luck rankings almost weekly last year. Not
every week, but a lot of the weeks. They were
the luckiest team if we look prior to to week eighteen, right,
because in Week eighteen they played the Baltimore Ravens with
(25:29):
Aul Lamar Jackson. But prior to Week eighteen, the Steelers
had a minus twenty seven point differential. It was even
lower in expected point differential. And the Steelers went overall
last year nine and two in one score games nine
and two. That's yeah, that's crazy. That's completely unsustainable. And
another thing that was unsustainable was the way they scored.
(25:52):
And this is part of why they were so lucky.
When we you know, I talk about all those ninety
nine yard touchdowns, I wasn't exaggerating almost with the Steelers, beak,
they had the fourth highest touchdown rate off of explosive plays.
If you look at all their touchdowns and then take
the ones that were from explosive plays, they had the
fourth highest rate of that. But they had the highest
(26:12):
rate of touchdowns that came from sixty plus yard plays,
number one in the NFL. And that's crazy because as
far as their overall explosive play rate, they were just
a mid pack team. So that's way above their expectation.
That's something you would absolutely expect to regress and completely
unsustainable way of scoring. And I remember through the first
(26:33):
like six or seven weeks of the season, they only
had one like normal touchdown. Everything else was either a
defensive touchdown, a sixty plus yard touchdown, or like a
fifty plus yard field goal. I mean, you can't sustain
winning that way, especially.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Like this was a team who all season, like the
knock was on how bad their offense was, like just dreadful.
So that's stat which I didn't even know, is so
reflective of luck and opportunity that comes in a flash
that you cannot count on. And it's the exact reflection
(27:11):
of a team like the Steelers being lucky.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yeah exactly. And you know I mentioned they.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Go freaking brilliant.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
Oh my god, they got a backup quarterback in the
last week of the rego season. Well other six divisional games,
four of them came against backup quarterbacks. Now, that's not
particularly lucky in terms of the luck rankings because it
adjusts for that, right you're playing a worst quarterback or
something like that, that's already accounted for. But that's just
something else that kind of inflates their record compared to
what it could have been, you know. So it's something
(27:40):
to consider when we're talking about maybe potential future win totals.
So the Pittsburgh Steelers the unluckiest or sorry, the luckiest
team in the NFL last year. Simon knows where I'm
going to go with the next one.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Yeah, I was gonna say, pretty shocking, chat Mike. This
has been my twelfth or thirteenth year as a career
professional better and this is the first time I've ever
read a summer of talking to pros taking the under
on Pittsburgh, Like wait to we get into the later
in the season. Their schedule Chad brutal this upcoming year,
and Nick just touched on it. They had so much
injury luck last year in their division that Joe Burrow
(28:14):
was down. They called Lamar with a back when the
Ravens had a backup, and even if you remember that
game against the Ravens, they're losing the entire game. I
think there was like a turnover or pick or something
like that. All a sudden they're up seventeen to ten
with two minutes ago against the Ravens. It's just things
always bounced their way, and I think the pros are
finally going against them this upcoming season.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Chad uh Nick, who was number two, number two, let's
stay in the state of Pennsylvania and go to Simon
Hunter's Philadelphia Eagles. And I mean, Simon knows they were
definitely a lucky team. Last year started ten and one,
ended eleven and six, losing five to the last year predictalous.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
So you guys, you said it for You and Sean
were both saying it for about three four weeks. We're like,
they're gonna go off a cliff here. Eventually they're gonna
off the cliff, and Boyd and me and Chad ride
that and going off that cliff. We needed it to
finish a buff five.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Yeah, you remember when that Do you remember when they
started going off the cliff. It was when we were
all together. Yeah, when we're all together for.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
They went off the cliff that forty nine Ers Eagles game,
and we were all on the Niners. But it was
the week before they had an overtime game against the Bills,
and that, to me and Simon and I did our
show that night, that was the beginning of the end.
Like they were getting beat up, they were exhausted. It's
also when like you know, you could see their defensive
(29:34):
line starting a crater, like that's when we lost our
Rookie of the Year bet with was it Jordan Davis?
Like right right, So.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
You're so right. That was the beginning of the end.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
That's the greater point with the luck rankings is like
these guys saw through all the bullshit and they were
like telling you for weeks this team isn't as good
as people perceived. The public is overrating this team, and
that again we're trying to hammer home here is that
this the luck ranking is look at it differently than
you and I can ever look at it.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Well. I do want to talk a little bit about Nick.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I want you to give give your third team before
I ask my follow up question.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Sure, so the third team, and you know there's kind
of a third and a fourth team, but we'll just
stick with the Indianapolis Colts as the third team. They
were six and three and one score games. They were
two and one in overtime games, so definitely some close
game luck if we exclude week eighteen, because Week eighteen
always has the weird, weird stuff going on with players
(30:33):
being arrested, et cetera, motivations. Through week seventeen, Indianapolis had
a minus fifteen point differential, but they were nine and seven.
You'd expect them to be more like seven and nine,
so they're kind of two wins above expectation and they're
expected point differential. They had a minus fifteen, but they're
expected was minus forty five, and a lot of that
(30:53):
just comes from it was little things. It was a
lot of little things. They were twenty second in offensive
success rate through week seventeen and only twenty first in
defensive success rate, so bottom half, almost bottom ten, and
both offensive and defensive success rates through week seventeen, yet
they were nine and seven. That's just not a again,
not a sustainable formula for a winning team. They also
(31:17):
had the third most defensive touchdowns, which you know, again
defensive return touchdowns, interceptions for tds, pick sixes, strip sack sixes,
those kinds of things. They're nice and there are teams
that are better at it, but they still were a
little unsustainably high this past year, I think so. I
think that was mostly but honestly, it was just a
(31:38):
lot of little things. They didn't really stand out in
a bunch of categories that were like super lucky. I
think it was just a lot of little luck adding
up for the innate. It is min you magic, that's right,
Garner Michell, That's.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
All what it was.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Well, I will say What's interesting to me and sort
of a theme that I've been trying to that this
has been leading us to is coaching. And if you
look at the teams from last year, Nick, I'm glad
you went to the Colts Steelers. Mike Tomlin, traditionally a
coach who motivates his teams wins in underdog situations, has
(32:11):
never been under five hundred in his career.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Eagles a team last year that.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
A lot of folks thought Nick Sirianni was in over
his head, especially because he was without his two coordinators
offensively and defensively. One of those coordinators, Shane Steichen, went
to the Colts. And so what I'm wondering is are
the luck rankings a good representation of coaching factor. Dennis
(32:39):
Allen is at the bottom. His team outscored opponents by
sixty six points. The other teams that did that had
significantly more wins and went into the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Shane Steichen, his.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Team is underperforming in terms of points allowed and points scored,
yet they were overachievers. Do coaches have a play affect
in putting their teams in position to be lucky, lucky
or unlucky? Sean, I don't want to get your take
on that first.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
I think that's that's a great point, and that's certainly,
you know, probably an underlying variable that's kind of hard
to quantify. But if a team is constantly overachieving, what
better reason than the coaching staff. So I do take
that into account, and if your call, I was more
comfortable backing the Panthers and Falcons heading into the season
because they replaced their coaching staffs with with people that
(33:30):
I think are there to kind of correct what the
problems are, whereas the Saints they still have Dani Sallen,
So that could still be an underlying factor. So that's
something that Nick and I we talked about throughout the
season a lot. We're aware of it. But again Nick's
done so much back testing on it that if you
were just blindly bet these I don't know if he's
(33:51):
gone over all the numbers yet, you'd be doing really good.
So we, you know, certainly trust in these. But I
think that is one thing that we're we're always kind
of cognizant of, is yes, some of these teams that
are really unlucky could be to do bad coaching and
the lucky team's good coaching. It's just hard to really quantify,
but that is something that we're always aware of.
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I do want to get to the record for luck
rankings and luck rankings last year was really revolvatory when
(35:06):
it came to totals over unders. The one more thing
I'll say about coaching is the Packers were minus one
percent in terms of luck, the Rams minus two percent,
the Ravens minus two percent. The Chiefs and the Niners
(35:28):
were both bottom ten. These are all playoff teams that
have some of the best coaches in the NFL that
overcame bad luck to put themselves in positions to go
all the way to the Super Bowl in the case
of the Chief of the Niners, and then win the
Super Bowl. That to me says a lot about how
good Matt Lafleur, Sean McVay, John Harbaugh, Andy Reid, and
(35:52):
Kyle Shanahan are as coaches. Those continue to be safe bets.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
To me, Yeah, it's interesting plot. You know, over the
last let's say six years of the luck rankings times
teams end up in the top quarter or top third
or top two or three. We would expect one team
to have made the top three of the luck rankings
in something like four or five out of the six years,
(36:19):
and there's one team that has done it is the
Pittsburgh Steelers, and of course that's Mike Tomlin. Now is
that coaching I don't know, because that's exactly the number
of teams we'd expect. Is it just randomly Mike Tomlin?
Or is it the one team because it's Mike Tomlin.
And then we do the same thing for unlucky teams,
and we see there's one team that's done it for
(36:40):
out of the six years in terms of being really unlucky.
So the distribution almost fits perfectly where you'd expect these
things by random chance. But it still feels like there
is a coaching element that comes into play. I also
think there's a little bit of a quarterback play style
that comes into play. We look at some of the
unlucky teams Atlanta Falcons, Desmond Ritter, Chicago Bears justin fields,
(37:05):
they're really good with their legs, but they aren't necessarily
as good throwing the ball, and they were really unlucky teams.
Then we look at the really lucky teams a lot
more pocket passing type quarterbacks. We've seen Kirk Cousins in
the past, all the Steelers, different quarterbacks they had. Last year,
Baker Mayfield was fourth in Gardner Minshew. You know, obviously
(37:27):
the Eagles could be a little bit of an exceptions.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
As much second half of the year, So I'm agree
with you on that.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
So there could be a little bit of quarterback archetype
in there as well in terms of lucky versus unlucky,
a little bit of coaching, but it's hard to like
tease all that out, so I mostly just ignore which
who the coach is, who the quarterback is, because over
a long enough time period, you know, the distributions have
played out to fall into exactly the ways we'd expect them.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Give us the thresholds, what are the you know, the
percentages at which you cover against the spread based on
the luck percentage.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
Yeah, so we'll just real quick. So in our luck
rankings rank one to thirty two, and if there's at
least a twenty four place difference in that ordinal luck ranking,
we can say the unlucky team is a team we
might back to cover the spread, or if the luck
percentage number that we have the difference between those two
(38:30):
teams is at least fifty percent. Again, we can back
the unlucky team here, and last year those sides went
sixty percent against the spread fourteen, nine and two. And
for totals, we have three different factors we can look
at if a luck total and we haven't really talked
about luck totals, right, We've only talked about backing unlucky
(38:51):
teams or lucky teams. But if teams are scoring more
or allowing more points than expected, we would expect that
to regress, and vice versa. Teams are not scoring enough
or having really lucky defensive stands or things like that,
we'd expect them to regress towards more higher scoring games.
So we can bet on totals using the luck rankings,
(39:11):
and we have three luck total thresholds. A luck total
above positive ten after week three, a luck total above
positive five after week eleven, or a luck total below
minus five anytime after week three, So three different criteria,
and luck totals last year went thirty five, nineteen and
(39:32):
one in the direction of which we'd expect, which is
sixty four and a half percent. So overall prior to
week eighteen, forty nine, twenty eight and three on our
luck based bets, which just clears sixty three percent. And
every year we've had the Luck Rankings, even just back
testing the luck rankings have had positive years in all
(39:54):
but one and the other one was barely losing year.
And that's what we would expect. We're not gonna just
blind betting. The luck rankings isn't always going to win.
You're going to have years that where unlucky teams stay
unlucky and lucky teams stay lucky and things like that.
But overall, you know, the Luck Rankings have a very
positive record over sixty percent both on you know, backing
(40:16):
sides in on totals.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, it's a genius stat And the beauty of everything
you've just said is if you go to Action Network
and these things really start to kick into gear once
we've got about a month of the season under our belt.
So as we get into the season, you want to
(40:39):
be going to Action Network, checking it out in the app,
checking it out in the web, and finding the luck rankings.
I think we normally post them Wednesday and Thursday.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Right Yeah, we usually have them up Tuesday, right after
Monday Night football is done, and then I have them
ready to go on Tuesday. But honestly, the luck rankings
for betting sides kicks in a gear right away. Week two,
we're ready to go. Two weeks two, three, and four
have some very high win rates against the spread, and
(41:07):
that also is when the most number of games occur
in terms of the season, and the luck rankings are
a little unlucky last year and that we had fewer
games to bet on in terms of unlucky teams than
we normally would have in the given years. So hopefully
we get a lot more unlucky versus lucky matchups early
in the season this year than we had last year.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
How can we use luck rankings to help us with
win totals? Crooner, You talked a little bit about that
earlier in the show.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Yeah, so I usually have my win totals guide sometime
in August, but I definitely leverage these along with some
of the other factors I mentioned, like injury luck, like
strength of schedule, jump or drop in strength of schedule,
things like that, So I leverage these or coaching changes.
Like I just said, I'm kind of with you where
(41:58):
I think the coaching changes can certainly helped correct a
lot of these things that the teams were unlucky in.
So I'm factoring all that and when I'm kind of
creating my power ratings, but this is a huge, huge
part of that, and I kind of talk about that
through each team. But again that'll be sometime in August.
But I set all these up in my season sim
to get you know, divisional odds, things like that, the
(42:21):
last undefeated team that forty nine ers bet I had
last year, fun markets like that. A lot of that
is kind of fueled by this data that we have
from last season.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
I'll give Sean a have the more props too. Is
it do you and Chris start up the Fantasy Show
this next week or has it already begun? Because last
year before our guy Sean here was a number one
ranker and all of Fantasy football number one.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
Our guy here, Sean, You're embarrassing, but now me and
that I don't like to be embarrassed, and the Fantasy
Flex is now underway as of Yes, let's go, We're back, baby.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Go listen to Fantasy Flex with Raybond and Kroner.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I believe.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Last year the independent third party ranking service Fantasy Pros
called Sean Kerner, who has now been number one, I
think three or four times.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
The goat, the goat, the goat.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
What was it, Sean?
Speaker 5 (43:21):
Yeah, four times? Four times?
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Sorry for let's go By the way, Nick Nick would
never correct me. He'd be like, I don't even want
to talk about it.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
Shawn's a legend. I mean you go back and listen.
Sean was Oliver Pooka. I mean there's just a bunch
of times where like you've saved my ass.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
Especially it was something like the first year ever where
Seawan was top ten in every position as well.
Speaker 5 (43:40):
Yeah you count kicker and defense, but I take those
very seriously, so I you know, it was top ten
in those as well.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Also, by the way, for everybody who has watched Convince
Me or should watch Convince Me our Sunday morning preview
show that both Simon and Sewan are on, everybody knows
Sean knows more about referee stats and how they can
impact total. Yes, or anybody in the handicapping business.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
Or stat keepers when it comes to like adition out
tackles things like that.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Oh true, Oh my god, I had a mass Crosby
over seven tackles prop last year only big on what
you said, and I think he got on the first half.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
That was a fun one. Yeah, I forgot the game.
He tackled the like it wasn't even a sack, he
just tackled the quarterback in the backfill or something that.
Those are always fun. Look for more of those this year.
I'm going to find that model.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Look for it all.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Follow Sean Kerner in the Action Network app. Follow Nick
Giffen in the Action Network app. You can listen to
them on various shows. They're both on Green Dot Daily
Fantasy Flex. Like Simon just mentioned, everywhere all over the app,
Happens That What Happens Live absolutely my favorite show in
(44:57):
the Action Network universe, starting Doctor Nick Giffim. As a reminder,
the Favorites podcast is presented by Bet three sixty five.
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Speaker 2 (45:15):
And they don't stop there.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Keep an eye for the biggest and best odds with
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(45:39):
Simon or I will return whether our next episode of
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us from Spotify, Apple Pods wherever you get your pods,
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