SharpClarke's Week 7 Betting Recap: Re-Thinking the 6-1 Giants

The NFL is... different in 2022. For years, if you didn't have an elite quarterback, you didn't have a strong chance of succeeding meaningfully in the NFL. But this season we have seen major drop-offs from Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Russell Wilson, and Matthew Stafford. Offenses across the league are struggling to combat defensive schemes that are primarily built to take away the explosive pass play. Only two teams are actually succeeding by following the elite quarterback model—the two teams with superhuman quarterbacks in Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. Outside of that, the avenue to winning looks different. This brings us to the New York Giants.

I was low on the Giants coming into the season, in part, because I was worried Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka would try to turn Daniel Jones into Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes. Jones is not, and will never be, that caliber of player. So I assumed the Giants were destined for a rebuild. But Daboll disagreed. He looked at the pieces on the roster he inherited and decided he was going to try to win the only way he could. Offensively, that meant simplification. It meant taking away the multiple, diverse receiving options that populate the spread offense in Buffalo and adding blockers to protect Jones. It meant limiting the route trees so Jones has easy decisions to make, without having to scan the entire field. This offense would make no sense for Allen or Mahomes. But for Jones, it's perfect because it limits mistakes and reduces negative plays. It also involves a lot of running by Jones, which is an acceptable risk when Jones is not the key to your team's future the way Mahomes and Allen are.

I don't think Daboll knew that the quality of offense in the NFL would be so bad that he could actually compete with this roster. But I do believe he understood the defensive scheme shifts and he had to build an offense that could win on the ground in order to offset the defensive strengths. As defenses loaded up on safeties and became lighter to flood the secondary, Daboll countered with big sets and designed runs for Jones. My biggest red flag for Jones was his inability to keep his eyes downfield and make throws on the run, the way Allen and Mahomes do. But Jones has been coached to make his read and fully commit to the pass or run quickly. When he tucks it, he isn't looking to make a play downfield. He is taking the 5, 6, 7, or 19 yards the defense is giving him. His acceleration and speed are strong, even if he lacks the agility of other mobile quarterbacks. And he is using defensive aggressiveness against the defense by inviting pressure that opens up running lanes. He is not sitting in the pocket hoping to make a play, which has led to many of the biggest mistakes in his career. Basically, Daboll has unlocked everything Jones has to offer.

Defensively, Wink Martindale has had fun designing exotic blitz packages to create variance in games. Creating variance is a good thing when you are less talented than many of your opponents. The Giants have embraced this philosophy, and even though they haven't been great on defense, they have made big plays in big moments. These plays in big moments are tough to quantify and fail to show up meaningfully in most metrics. That's why I, like most metrics-based analysts and even PFF, have had a much lower opinion of the Giants than more casual observers.

When using a model or methodology to make bets, you must be able to identify your own blind spots. In my case, I am willing to recognize that the Giants are somewhere in between where my metrics have them and where their record stands. But aside from the overall quality of play, it's also important to start recognizing at this point in the season when a team is improving. The Giants are gaining confidence. Wan'Dale Robinson has made a big difference on offense. They suffered a few injuries against the Jaguars, but if they can get back healthy, they can continue to improve. I still do not believe the Giants are a great team, but it can be a mistake that leads to compounding losses to cling too tightly to preseason priors or even early-season priors as a team evolves. This mistake cost bettors a lot of money fading the Bengals down the stretch last season as they meaningfully improved.

Now, they have been very fortunate to win six games. They have not graded well on my effectiveness ratings, which is why I have looked for angles to fade them. But they just played their best game of the season against the Jaguars, finishing with a season-high 6.32 effectiveness rating on offense, compared to the Jaguars' 5.80. Even though I bet on the Jaguars, and a few key plays went in the Giants' favor (again), they actually earned this win by playing good football, particularly down the stretch. If they can string together a few more games like this, we must re-evaluate who this team is.

In today's NFL, the Giants can be an average team. And an average team in today's NFL can win games. I will continue to look for matchup advantages to identify spots where the Giants are worth backing or fading, but I will not simply bet against them because they didn't show up well in my metrics early in the season. The NFL is changing, and it's increasingly important to re-evaluate each week. This week, I'm re-evaluating the Giants.

SharpClarke Week 7 Betting Recap

Week 7 was my worst NFL betting week ever. My bets finished 2-7 for -11.52%. That means I lost over 10% of my NFL betting bankroll in one week. Some were tough breaks (as always), but some were also bad bets or missed reads. For example, I leaned too heavily into the angle that Bill Belichick would dominate Justin Fields when there was enough evidence to predict that truly mobile quarterbacks can get the better of the Patriots' slow but smart defense. Losing is difficult and it has forced me to self-scout my process.

For those who don't know, my process involves watching every snap of every game and grading the overall effectiveness on each side of the ball. The goal is to identify when teams are better or worse than expectation, with the hope of identifying matchups and situations that are predictive of future performance. My strength is not understanding which teams are better or worse, because the NFL betting market is generally efficient in that area. My strength comes from understanding each team as a specific system, with its own dynamics. This season I have noticed a strong trend in my bets and analysis between what I call "matchup angles" and "misleading angles." The misleading angles involve fading teams I think are getting too much respect in the betting market and betting on teams getting too little respect. This has been a fairly good angle in the past but has led to several bad bets this season. The "matchup angles" involve betting on teams in situations where I expect them to thrive, regardless of what the exact spread is (and vice versa). These have performed very strongly.

The number always matters and I will continue to factor it in. The spread can also impact the situational angles because some teams are built to play with the lead, or are better when playing from behind. But I will be primarily leaning on matchup angles moving forward. This does not reflect any fundamental changes in my approach; it just affects which bets will be fired off and which will be left off the card. Hopefully, this will help sharpen the results as I climb back from my season deficit of -14.53%. The best time to back a winning better is off a losing streak, so I hope you'll follow along.

For all my bets and analysis, you can join the 4for4 Discord via a 4for4 betting subscription (10% off with code SharpClarke) and follow @SharpClarkeNFL on Twitter for alerts. This sheet from Dan Rivera tracks all my betting picks (and those from the rest of the betting staff) on the year. Just click on the tab with my name on it for the results.