Pigeon Picks | Vol. 1, No. 1

With the NFL’s first preseason game in the books, it is time to start projecting out Week 1 in the regular season.

As it stands right now the point spread in the NFL’s opening game featuring the Detroit Lions visiting the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs is seven points, with the Lions getting those points as an underdog.

We will discuss why that may be too large of a spread, and then we will be making our very first Pigeon Pick of the 2023 NFL season.

Reminder that to get every Week 1 Pigeon Pick, and every week there after, upgrade your sub to Pigeon Picks now. The Pigeon Picks model had a 91% ROI in 2022. It pays for itself!

Are The Lions Being Undervalued?

I think it is possible the books are undervaluing the Lions in this game. Right now, the books seem to place the Lions in a sort of middle tier of NFL teams. They are favored to make the playoffs (-170) and the NFC North (+195). Clearly the books see them as competitors.

However, they are seen far below the caliber of the Chiefs. Kansas City is minus odds to win the AFC West (-175) and even bigger minus odds to make the playoffs (-500).

In fact, the Chiefs are favored to win the Super Bowl at +600, while the Lions are ninth at +2200.

And, to yourselves, you might be saying “no sh**, Brett”. To which I couldn’t blame you.

But consider this: I do not think the gap between the Chiefs and Lions FOR AN OPENING NIGHT game, is as big as the season long odds suggest. Here is why:

Traditional Stats Don’t Account For Behavior Change

Behaviorally, the Lions ended 2022 as one of the better teams in all of football, on both sides of the ball.

Traditional measures, like points per game, would tell you that the Lions finished 2022 ranked fifth best on offense, and third worst on defense. Being the third worst team on defense is NOT what you want to be going up against the Kansas City Chiefs.

But what these traditional statistics do not account for is behavior, and it’s exponential trends over time.

Consider this: the Lions defense that ended the year is not who they were at the beginning of 2022.

The traditional stats show they gave up an average of 25.1 points per game. But that number includes the first four games of the season where they gave up a staggering 1.14 points per minute of possession time on average. That equated to 34 points per game.

However, those traditional stats don’t account for the behavioral trend that took place once their environment changed. The coaching staff made dramatic changes to the scheme on defense, simplifying it. That created a trending behavior change that led to 20% improvement week over week.

Over their final 13 games, they gave up an average of 0.745 points per minute of opponent possession time, a 34% improvement from their first four games. What’s more, their best five performances came in the final eight weeks of the season, two of which came against playoff teams, and a third in a do or die game against a division rival on the road.

But Don’t Forget About The Offense

The Kansas City Chiefs finished ranked number in in scoring behavior, averaging 0.928 points per minute of possession time through the 20 games they played in. Impressively, they did this while having logged no “extreme” outliers.

An extreme outlier is when a performance behavior occurs more the 0.15 outside of the bounce envelope, which is what measures a team’s consistency.

The Lions finished ranked 7th in scoring behavior at 0.775 points per minute of possession time.

However, the Lions had two extreme outliers in weeks 5 and 7 of 2022 when they scored zero and six points, respectively.

If you remove those two outliers, in the other 15 games they averaged 0.958 points per minute of possession time. The would have ranked them higher than the Chiefs.

Also, with the news that new pass rusher Charles Omenihu will be suspended for the first six games of the regular season, he will miss this game. Chris Jones has still not reported for camp due to his contract dispute. The Chiefs defense will be down at least one, maybe more, key pieces when this game takes place.

Doesn’t Mean That The Lions Will Win, But…

It potentially means the current 7 point spread could be too large. Behaviorally speaking, as it stands right now, the gap between these two teams isn’t a full touchdown.

Using the Football Behavior Margin Of Error Score, the Lions are ranked 15th. However, if we insert their 15 game scoring behavior number, removing those two extreme outliers, they jump up to 6th…one spot behind the Kansas City Chiefs.

With the first preseason game out of the way, we have run our first Pigeon Picks model projection of this game. Keep in mind, this is the first of many before the official model is run. This does not account for what may happen when the starters take the field in the preseason and we learn more, as we mentioned in our last newsletter.

So, now its time for our first…

Pigeon Pick

Our first Pigeon Pick of the 2023 NFL season is to grab the Lions at +7 against the spread. We think that spread is likely too big based on the behaviors of each team, and the stability of their environments carrying over from 2022.

The projection so far has the Chiefs winning by just one point, 25-24. Now, a lot can happen between now and September 7th. Most likely, the current 7 point spread is going close a bit. Doubtful it gets any bigger. We are grabbing it now before that happens.

While Week 1 is the most unpredictable week of the NFL season, 5 out of the last 8 seasons have seen the NFL’s opening game decided by 7 points or fewer, though it should be said that fact has no real bearing on what will happen in this game.

Of Note: The Pigeon Picks Model went 80-46-8 against the spread in 2022.

Remember, to get final score predictions and Pigeon Picks for each and every game of Week 1, and all of 2023, upgrade to the Pigeon Picks sub now so you don’t miss out!