Introducing YPP and applying it to the Week 2 lines

We’ve talked about a few different metrics thus far here on BSN Against the Spread. Probably the most important principle that BSN ATS is built on is being an informed bettor, using numbers and stats to establish a baseline, thus informing your ability to both efficiently bet and evaluate your betting strategy.

But truly BSN ATS was built because of NetYPP; a metric the BSN family is a big believer in, because it’s success rate is tried and true. Just ask our boss Brandon Spano who’s managed to make a healthy chunk of change off of this system (read the link above if you don’t believe).

So what is NetYPP? YPP stands for yards-per-play. In essence, it’s a way to look at team’s success rate on a micro level. You are basically analyzing who’s gaining and losing the most yards; off of that, you can generate lines for each team based simply on their YPP differential, which takes into account a team’s defensive yards allowed and offensive production on a play-by-play average.

The numbers you get are quite interesting. For example, in 2015 the Denver Broncos had a higher YPP differential than the Carolina Panthers, or any AFC adversary and were first in the metric in the entire NFL, tied with the Arizona Cardinals. With YPP and home field through the playoffs, calling the Broncos Super Bowl run as underdogs, in several games, would have been easy.

Another interesting finding with the final tallies from 2015 is that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 6-and-10 last season, were fifth in the entire NFL. So while some of the other metrics we’ve talked about like the Pythagorean Theorem, didn’t project a big improvement from the Buccaneers, the YPP differentials suggest they were a much better team than their record.

Here are the numbers thus far this season. As you can see, despite being a week in (major disclaimer on that coming) we already can find some interesting findings. For example, the Washington Redskins, who lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers, had a NetYPP of 0.6, a large number considering they lost by 22 points. This is a perfect example of both how YPP can tell you things the scoreboard might hide, while also underlying how unreliable NetYPP can be this early in the season.

In fact, it’ll take three weeks before we can truly count on YPP and it’s reliability will only increase as the sample size gets larger.

While we’re introducing the stat, we’re going to have some fun and take a look at how the Week 1 numbers translate to the Week 2 lines. We’re not suggesting any bets here, but we’ll take a look at the most interesting findings (full chart below).

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What encourages or discourages our other suggested lines:

Buffalo Bills by 5

One of the few lines that is almost exactly the same as our Vegas against the spread suggested line, is Buffalo should be favored over the New York Jets this week. The Bills are actually a 5-point favorite in NetYPP. The Thursday night game’s line has actually shifted to the Jets by one, Wednesday night.

Detroit Lions by 4.5

The Lions line against the Tennessee Titans is also very close to both the actual spread and our other suggested line. Detroit is a 4.5 point favorite per the NetYPP line, suggesting you take the points on the Tennessee Titans even more so than our 5-point suggested line.

Cincinnati Bengals by 8.5

Simple betting logic, with two teams who are very evenly matched, would suggest a three-point line for the home favorite, which is what’s happened. While our other numbers and conventional wisdom might suggest Pittsburgh being favored, their YPP differential against Washington (mentioned above) was not good, with the Bengals being an 8.5 favorite. It should probably be under the “wacky” section, but it’s just enough to scare me that the Steelers won’t cover. Don’t listen to me, trust the other numbers, but it is interesting.

New England Patriots by 4

We talked about how our other numbers suggesting a New England cover is in partly affected by the Patriots high win total that implies help is on the way (ie: Tom Brady). After Miami put up a fight in Seattle a smaller line is comprehensible and NetYPP supports that logic, even if unreliable it sure makes you think twice.

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What’s wacky: 

Washington Redskins by 13.5

Ok, we mentioned how the Redskins positive 0.6-yard differential was impressive and surprising, given a tough loss on Monday Night in Week 1. Given that, they are a 13.5 point favorite over the Dallas Cowboys this Sunday, a full 11 more than the actual spread. Crazy, 2.5 is much more reasonable and supported by our other metric.

San Francisco 49ers by 5

The largest spread in the first two weeks of the NFL season is the Carolina Panthers by 13.5 points on the 9ers at home, a line that was fully in-line with our other model. However, the NetYPP line favors San Francisco by five, a full 18.5 point swing from the actual line. Now that’s wacky!

As we said, the figures on NetYPP are far from reliable right now.  We’ll keep an eye on them the next two weeks until we can truly unleash them on the world.