Warren Sharp: Strength of Schedule & New OT Rules

it's the ross tucker football podcast but it's not just any ross tucker football podcast it is a monster monday that we're actually recording and posting on a sunday night presented of course by draftkings i'm ross tucker former nfl offense lyman five teams seven years classic journeyman you can see the helmets behind me those of you that check us out on youtube youtube.com slash ross tucker nfl the new week means new winners we love them we love you we love those of you try to be a winner spread the word winner via social media at ross tucker nfl at ross tucker pod looking for some facebook sharers looking for some twitter quote tweets at ross tucker nfl at ross tucker pod you guys know the sponsors are what make us go expressvpn awesome raycon earbuds amazing linkedin there's a bunch of them check them out over on the sponsor tab over at rosstucker.com love the youtube growth and love giving you guys the cameo style shout outs just hit the thumbs up at youtube.com rosstucker nfl and make any comment any comment at all on any of the videos i will see it and you'll have a great chance to get a cameo style video it's big showtime the big show so i try to talk to this guy at least multiple times a year because he makes me smarter he makes all of us smarter he is of course the great warren sharp at sharp football on twitter you should go to sharpfootballanalysis.com sharpfootballstats.com he's on nbc sports he's on the ringer with bill simmons kind of everywhere at this point and i feel like every year when i see these tweets i try to get him either on the ross tucker football podcast or on the even money podcast because it's strength of schedule time which i guess leads to this question warren why is now strength of schedule time we've known the schedules for a while in terms of opponents we don't know when the games are actually being played yet that comes out now i guess after the draft why is recently warren sharp strength of schedule season because prior to right now the only way that you could really forecast strength of schedule is if you are going to utilize win rate from the opponents you're going to play this year based upon what they did last year and we don't like to do that it basically doesn't help us predict anything so what we do is we look at the win totals that got released by the betting markets las vegas offshores wherever they are now and we're factoring those in as we calculate strength of schedule and we just got the win totals that came out for the first time i think a week and a half or two weeks ago that allows me to start calculating strength of schedule strength the schedule for us the way that i calculate it is a dynamic tool and it changes over the course of the entire offseason now a team that has the easy schedule now is not going to become 15th mo easiest you know it's going to stay relatively close but it's very important that you're utilizing strength of schedule methodology that's based upon the betting markets and not based upon what these teams did last season so i'm glad you said that because now it comes out here's my question how much does it change when we actually get the dates of the games and we see rest because i know that's a big thing for you is the inequities in the schedule yes yes good point ross inequities are going to happen all the time the nfl can't get it all the way to a perfect sign so that everybody has the same exact rest and schedule of opponent and uh bye weeks and negated by weeks there's so many different things that i look for with the schedule timing so right now we know what the schedule of opponents are and we know what the strength of schedule is based upon that just who you're playing all the 16 uh sorry 17 games that you're playing this season what we don't know is the schedule timing which will come out after the draft most likely the first week or two in may and at that point i then start crunching the schedule and looking for those inequalities i'm looking for who starts off with a difficult schedule like we're looking at the afc the afc is so stacked that i personally think it's fruitless to try to go and bet super bowl futures on the afc right now but what i am going to look to do is if the chargers start out with a brutal schedule and they drop a couple games at the beginning of that schedule because it's so tough but i know that the schedule is going to improve after that i might wait until they lose a couple of games at the start of the season and then i'll bet their super bowl future at that point in time so the schedule timing is very important it doesn't change the overall strength of schedule but it's going to change how we're going to bet on these teams when we're going to bed on them and it might also impact how much we want to i guess delve into like regular season win totals if a team is really at a disadvantage this season we might not feel as good about their strength of schedule because the scheduled timing is so terrible so we definitely have to factor that in once it comes out and i do that i love it that's almost one of my favorite days of the year is when they release the schedule because so many people out there say oh who cares we already know who they're playing no it matters big time when you are playing these opponents and the rest that those opponents are on as they face you there's so many complicating factors with regard to the schedule release itself well warren i'm gonna i'm gonna be on you again after that comes out to get you on the even money podcast with me and fezic for the schedule inequalities for sure because you know i've seen other people that do a strength of schedule analysis after the season win total comes out nobody goes as in depth as you do with the schedule inequities let's let's let's hold that part of it for the even money podcast for what we know right now just based on the sports book season one told and let me let me take a step back actually warren because i think i usually do have you on even money podcast we probably have people here on the rostec football podcast they might not even know what season win totals are and why that's so important so season win totals the sports books set a number eight and a half wins nine wins nine and a half wins how many wins do they forecast that a certain team is going to get in this upcoming season they go through all 32 teams they understand who they're playing they understand the players they got they're waiting until most of the dominoes fall during free agency they want to see where some of these big quarterbacks are going in trades or other moves once it the dust settles a little bit they'll come out with their win totals now i will say at this point in the off season it is relatively early like it you a lot of times they've waited until after the draft to post those but it's just like with everything else in the betting markets now ross the sooner you can get things up the sooner they'll start taking your money the longer they get to hold on to it and so they've been pushing it earlier and earlier every single year so that's what season win totals are when we say that it's just how many games for the upcoming season does the sports book predict that you're going to win and then people can come in and bet that you'll win more than that or that you'll win less than that all right so what is the analysis that we know the impact it has the next year in other words a lot of times the season win totals are wrong so we're going based on the season win totals now and that's their best guess on how many wins what do we know about after the fact right so in other words uh and i encourage everybody to check out warren on social media at sharp football but you have five easiest schedules commanders bears eagles colts seahawks five hardest schedules raiders niners rams jets and chiefs so i guess there's two questions here number one how much how sticky are these like when we review it after the season how much variance is there from what we thought were the toughest and easiest schedules before the year typically that is a great question number one because to me question number two then becomes what can you do with this information can you bet on it what can you do with it so let's talk about the first one first and that is is this sticky so what we care about when we're discussing strength to schedule we don't care ross about a team that's ranked number 13 and oh they're got a easier schedule if number one is the easy schedule we don't care number 13 is a little bit easier than number 16 right like those types of discrepancies don't really matter to us what we want to know is the extremes who has the top five or top 10 easiest who has the top five or top 10 most difficult that's what we really care about and so when we talk about how sticky are these numbers here's an example last year at the end of the season there were eight teams that had the most difficult schedules the hardest schedules in the nfl that was in january when the final game concluded back in april before the season even started before the summer even was here i predicted seven of those eight teams would have the top eight most difficult schedules so this methodology the strength of schedule methodology using season win totals and as you said the win totals aren't always right a lot of the times some of them are off by wide margins but in terms of predicting the extremes in terms of most difficult we peg seven of the eight in terms of the easiest schedules we pegged seven of the top 10 easiest schedules so we were very good with predicting the extremes now the question becomes if we're good at predicting the extremes what can we do with that information and one of the interesting things that i then looked at was season win totals let's look back at season win totals of the 10 teams that actually had the hardest schedules last year so by january these 10 10 teams had the most difficult schedules only three of the 10 went over their win total in other words it's very difficult to exceed expectations that the books set if you're dealing with a very very difficult schedule and on the other side of the coin of the 10 teams that had the easiest schedules only three went under their win totals so again it's very easy to exceed your expectations it happens very regularly when you're playing a super easy schedule so you take those two things and combine them you say the difficult and the easy teams that actually play difficult or easy schedules by the end of the year these ten these teams tend to go over or under their win total based upon how difficult their schedule is can we use this strength to schedule analysis to forecast the teams that might have an easy or difficult schedule and the answer is yes so it is quite useful as a tool not so much predicting 13 versus 16 and the mid-range but focusing on the extremes it has done very well over time how much change will there be after the schedules actually announced and you account for rest in other words if i'm someone that listens or watches the even money podcast do i act on warren's toughest and easiest schedules now or do i wait until the actual schedule comes out because there's a decent amount of variance or is the variance because of the rest so small that there's no reason to wait well in in the instance like the washington commanders who have the easiest schedule even if their schedule timing is one of the most brutal it's not going to change their ranking from probably number one to like number 15 and an average schedule they're probably still going to be top seven at the worst in terms of easiest schedule so there might be a little variance but the interesting thing is the act the announcement of the fact that they have a difficult schedule timing like the rest stinks and they're playing teams that have extra rest and they're always playing these road games on short weeks and their bye week is negated because their opponent has a bye week the same week is there by week if all of these things are going against the washington commanders what is going to happen is that the betting market might take their win total from let's say what is their win total right now uh i want to say it's like seven and a half they might take their win total from seven and a half down to seven and their opponents they might tick up a couple of the opponent's win totals well then all of that all the win total movement gets accounted for as i rerun this model and thus it's all going to be taken into consideration and that's what's going to cause those slight tweaks in the schedule so i think some of the more eye-opening schedules you should go ahead and look to just grab them now if you if you really feel like oh wow this is lending something to the analysis that i wasn't contemplating before once i factor it in i do want to fire on washington over or the giants win total over something like that i would wait to do that i would do some of those now but the more information you get the more confidence we'll have in these projections is there a way to calculate warren what the difference is between the easiest and the hardest meaning right now you have the commanders with the easiest schedule if they had the hardest schedule what what what difference would that make in your mind in their season win total so right now i think you said they're seven and a half with the easiest if they were flipped and they were the chiefs and they had the hardest what would that mean is there a way that over the years you figured out what that number is or is that impossible i wouldn't say that it's impossible i have not calculated it because it's of no value to me to to play in the world of the hypothetical i would venture to say it's probably no more than a win to a win and a half on a win total but there's a lot that's substantial when we're talking about the betting market and where that would put them that would put them down with like the panthers and the lions at six wins if they were playing the most difficult schedule in the nfl so like if you took them out i guess the best way the best analogy would be if you plucked washington out of the nfc east and you gave them the schedule of the kansas city chiefs in the afc west who are playing a first place schedule in the afc west this year yeah i would say it's probably about a win and a half uh a difference now the reality might be that you would still want to bet they're under in that situation um but i i don't see it being substantially more than that and i also i'll be honest ross i utilize a lot of strength to schedule during the course of the season and i have found inefficiencies in the betting market i don't think the betting market takes into account strength of schedule enough um i don't think they do that on a weekly basis i don't think they do it on a future looking basis you know like because you can bet futures on these teams there are inefficiencies embedding division futures and conference features based upon straight to schedule early on in the season significant ones yeah and uh not this week but next week on the even money podcast steve and i are going to take our first glance at the draftkings sportsbook season win totals and and i want to make it clear here this is not supposed to be necessarily for everybody listening doesn't have to be a betting conversation it's just you can all look at warren's twitter you can look at sharp football analysis you can see exactly how difficult your team's schedule is which matters for your tickets for watching on tv for their playoff chances you know look i think the chiefs still have a pretty good chance to make the playoffs but the jets with the second hardest schedule the new york jets good luck to zach wilson and the boys speaking of the chiefs uh warren last thing i i have to ask you the new overtime rule for the playoffs i'll have two questions here but the first one i like to give guys like you of a blank slate just your thoughts on the new overtime rule if they came to you is this what you would have recommended do you think it's equitable your thoughts on in overtime in the postseason both teams getting a possession i love it i love it i think it was necessary because of the rules construct that has been implemented over the years to make the nfl such an offensive driven league with the quarterbacks and the passing efficiencies and defenses that are gassed by the time you get to overtime so all the people all just play defense one drive i don't know where you even fall on it ross so not to uh offend you in no no no but if i i simply think that um those people hey now both teams get that have to play defense but i think it was a great rule now is it fair yes i actually think i saw some of the models that were run 12 000 simulations of this new overtime rule by brian burke over at espn and it showed that it was the most equitable overtime rule sudden death rule that we have ever had in the nfl the team that gets the ball first tends to win those games in the simulation i want to say it was like 50.6 of the time um versus the team that gets the ball second whereas the current rule with the coin flip the team that selected and took the ball i mean they were winning the games in overtime like 75 to 80 of the time uh in the pl in the nfl playoffs so i'm super happy that they have this new rule and it now presents an entirely new set of choices for these teams to make do i want to take the ball first or do i want to take the ball second if i have the ball second and am i going to go for two if i do match the first team and score a touchdown so there's a lot of a lot new questions that are going to be asked of these coaches and decision makers well that's my second question warren you led me right into it um i don't know if you've run the numbers yet but should you kick off and in that way it's almost like college over time where you get the ball second you know you're getting it second you know what you need they got a field goal okay they got nothing okay they got a touchdown okay or do you still want the ball because you believe there's a good chance that there's a third possession and you want to be the team that gets the third possession i got to be honest i don't know the answer to this i think you can make a a strong argument either way especially if you decide to kick off and you're committed to going for two if you score meaning it's going to be a two possession game right so the numbers say by slightest of margins over a thousand like this would never play out in any of our lifetimes right so the reality is um these numbers take it with a grain of salt but the numbers say that going first having the ball first getting telling the other team where we we want the we want to receive the ball here not deferring to the second possession that will give you a slight slight edge and that's because if both teams scored the same amount of points at the end of those first two possessions then you get that third possession which is sudden death and so the edge that is gained as you mentioned by going second and having four downs to convert a first down because you know you have to at least get a field goal or at least get a touchdown here there is an edge inherent in having that second position from knowing what you need but it is offset and then some by getting that third possession afterwards so the way that i personally would play it particularly if i was the team with the ball last in regulation i would want to force that defense that's probably already tired to go back out on the field again i would want the ball first i would go down i would try to score a touchdown and i would be looking to just kick the extra point and forcing that other team to take the ball and needing them to score a touchdown to match and that way if they do i get the ball third to just score any points to win the game the one caveat would be if it becomes if if one team or two teams try this at first and then every single team thereafter decides to go for two on that second possession which i would absolutely advocate that all of the teams if the first team scores a touchdown the second team should be scoring the touchdown going for two if that second team tends to always go for two then you may not want to be in that situation where you're kicking first but it it's it's so close it's so close to being even in terms of well you could argue this or that that i think is the perfect overtime rule i really love the way that the nfl has come down on this and the fact of the matter is russ it's only in the playoffs where maybe we'll be lucky and see it happen once this upcoming season right i hope that we do but it's not like we're going to see this so frequently um there's going to be really interesting to see how the teams decide uh things with regard to deciding to receive the ball or going for two after they score touchdowns so here's the deal with warren okay nobody's better with the numbers but he's also incredibly passionate about this and his delivery is awesome like i i'm not surprised at all that you're a star warren and there's still people that don't know like you are us like you've got all three you've got the knowledge the passion and your delivery is excellent really appreciate the time thank you so much check him out on social media at sharp football thanks warren hey thanks ross for having me man that guy is hired and he's got a couple small businesses as a small business owner you're juggling a hundred balls in the air and don't have time to interview candidates who just aren't qualified for your role linkedin jobs makes it easier for you to find the people you want to interview faster and for free you can create a free job post in minutes on linkedin jobs to reach your network and beyond the world's largest professional network of over 770 million people then add your job and the purple hashtag hiring frame to your linkedin profile to spread the word that you're hiring so your network can help you find the right people to hire it's why small businesses rate linkedin jobs number one in delivering quality hires versus leading competitors linkedin jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to faster did you know every week nearly 40 million job seekers visit linkedin post your job for free at linkedin.com ross that's linkedin.com slash ross to post your job for free terms and conditions apply tux takes hi ross let's start today with the dolphins uh quarterback xavier howard gets a record-breaking quarterback deal most money first year's first three years most guaranteed money for a cornerback ever yeah this is really something because he's gotten i don't even know what year this is for xavier but this is at least the third new contract he's gotten he got the one early wasn't happy about it they adjusted last year now he gets huge money i mean he's already under contract for a couple more years to now get this good for him good for his agent david cantor does a terrific job here's what's very clear the miami dolphins are not messing around this year they don't want to have any issues with guys with money they want to be loaded up they want not only do they want to see what tua can do i tend to think that either steven ross said hey i don't care what it takes let's make sure we have a good year or maybe chris greer the gm things on the hot seat because they are not messing around that much is obvious duck stakes sticking with the dolphins they trade devante parker and a fifth round pick to the patriots and in turn get a third round always interesting when you trade a guy within the division we have to assume that that's the best offer that the dolphins got and really probably by a decent amount if anybody else had offered him that you'd think they would have rather traded him out of the division so i think that's pretty telling i'm you know look he's making over 8 million so maybe some teams didn't like that and he's been up and down in his career but that's a fascinating trade anytime you do it in division the the patriots have had a lot of success bringing in dolphins receivers like wes welker it's interesting to me that the dolphins would go to that well again frank gore the third all-time leading rusher in nfl history is going to retire and he is signing a one-day contract with the 49ers to retire as a niner yeah i always think it's interesting how good do you have to be first of all frank gore had a ridiculous career to tear both his acls in college and become the third all-time leading russian nfl history is bananas i mean bananas you know how many running backs there are out there you know how many kids there are that play running back and this guy tore both his acls in college and still became third all-time in nfl history that is ridiculous absolutely absurd and you know he spent most of his career with the niners i guess supposedly he's gonna go in their front office there which is cool tux takes let's get to some of the recent signings and we'll start with running back geo bernard back to the tampa bay bucks a one-year deal bucks also re-signed quarterback ryan griffin raiders signed quarterback nick mullins vikings uh signed guard chris reed and the saints resigned safety pj williams brady wanted geo bernard back i think i saw somewhere where this is ryan griffin's eighth year with the bucks that is unreal is that a real stat or eight years for ryan griffin to my knowledge i don't think he's ever gotten in a game i don't think he's ever started a game nick mullins got over a million dollars guaranteed from the raiders he could not have been worse in the preseason last year for the eagles i mean he was awful vikings keep getting that o-line depth with getting uh jesse davis from the dolphins now chris reed and pj williams has been the saints his whole career i think tux takes uh are your buddy danny snyder may be in a little more hot water if this uh this story i'm about to say is actually true apparently washington allegedly had a scheme to hold back some ticket revenue that they did not share with the rest of the teams in the league that is according to aj perez from front office sports who has some connection either in the media or with somebody that used to be in washington or this congressional committee daniel snyder will have to sell the washington commanders if this is accurate if they have proof of this he will be done honestly what i've seen from the most part so far is like celebration from commanders fans who are hoping this is right so that he has to sell the team it's so sad i mean you get to that point that is so sad that you're rooting for your owner to have stolen money from the other owners so that he has i mean it's just so sad what's become of that organization and it stinks because that's where i started and finish my career we'll see they have to share 40 percent of their ticket revenue with the other owners supposedly they here's the thing little life lesson if you do illegal or inappropriate things and then you fire people they might tell people about the illegal inappropriate things that you did that's the problem that's a major major problem first of all doing illegal inappropriate things is a problem secondly letting go of the people that were in on it major major problem you know what's not a problem the fact that we're gonna have the college draft and even money podcasts up tomorrow so we can talk masters and unc kansas national championship game with my buddy will brinson on the even money podcast shout out to all of our patrons including our newest patron stuart mcdonald gosh i love when we get new patrons patreon.com r t media of course the shout outs go to evergreen economics steakhousesports.com humanheadnyc.com go dash bangles dot com pizza boy brewing and sporticulture i think we're done here thanks for listening to the ross tucker football podcast make sure to also subscribe to the fantasy feast even money business of sports and college draft all available at apple podcasts rosstucker.com or wherever podcasts can be found a lot of times on the show i mentioned draftkings here's what you need to know you got to be 21 or older new jersey indiana or pennsylvania only new customers only restrictions apply see draftkings.com sportsbook for details gambling problem call 100 gambler or indiana 109 with it by the way if what i was talking about included a deposit bonus doesn't always sometimes it does deposit bonus requires 25 times play through and deposit bonuses are paid out in site credit