When an NFL team takes the field on offense, their goal is simple: Gain enough yards on each play to set up an eventual first down, thus moving the chains and starting the whole process all over again, until a goal is scored. field or preferably a touchdown, is placed on the scoreboard.

First attempts can be accomplished in many different ways, of course; either through the air, or on the ground; via the big play, or by using a more conservative approach that involves more short-yardage conversions in third-down situations.

Regardless of whether a team is built around speedy Pro-Bowl receivers shredding opponents’ defenses for long gains or takes a more traditional route, involving ‘punch in the mouth’ runs up the middle with a combination short-yardage pass attempts. included for good measure: all coaching staffs will use the players they have on the field and the skills that come with them to the best of their ability to get that next first down or score.

The important question for those of us looking to beat the Vegas Point differential is: are there certain styles of offense that, in the right situations, cover the differential at a higher rate than others?

The answer is yes and this article will briefly explore an attacking style that has produced very good results against spread over the last 7 years when a certain statistical benchmark is reached.

The particular style of offense I’m talking about involves teams that produce a high yardage percentage of big passing game as part of his total yardage gained when shooting the ball.

My official label for this stat is BPY%F (Big Passing Yard Percentage For) and it is a measure of the percentage of the team’s total passing yards that came from passing plays of 20 or more yards.

Dallas led the league in this category in 2007. 42.5% of the Cowboys’ passing yards this season came from plays of >= 20 yards. Green Bay and San Diego rounded out the top 3. The league average for BPY%F has generally been around 40% in most years over the past decade, but it dropped to 37.5% in 2007.

In fact, it was a good year compared to the margin of teams that rely on the deep ball: the top 8 teams in the league in BPY%F had a combined ATS of 75-45 and none of the top 8 had an ATS record less than .500. By contrast, the last 8, led by Baltimore’s brutal passing attack (they had a BPY%F of just 25.5%) was a dismal 50-74 ATS.

These interesting results have not developed consistently in the last 7 years; however, and in some years, teams with high BPY%F have only been mediocre compared to the overall number, while those at the lower end of the scale have been closer to .500 ATS.

When we look at teams entering a game with a extremely high BPY%F (greater than 50%); however, a consistent pattern is beginning to emerge.

Since 2001, which is when I started tracking BPY, teams have had an excellent ATS of 145-119 (54.9%) going into a game with a BPY%F above 50% on the season.

Teams that have this high percentage of big passing game yardage are typically only seen in the first 6-7 weeks into the season, before an increasing number of pass attempts begin to bring the BPY%F down to a more normal league-wide level. That’s not to say that some teams haven’t been 50% until the end of the season (2006 Philadelphia is a good example, they had a BPY%F well above 50 at the end of that season) just that, this This situation plays on teams that are extremely efficient with the deep ball from the gate.

What we have here is good so far, but there is one more main condition that needs to be added to this situation before things really start to take shape and that is about how ‘game ready’ the adversary of our focus team happens to be, at this early stage of the season.

Here’s the crux of this situation: I’ve found that teams with a large Passing Yardage Percentage > 50%, playing a team with a Play Book Execution Penalty per game average against (PBEPA) of 1.3 or more they are a very strong 56-20 ATS (73.7%) since 2001, winning $3400.00 on betting $110 to win back $100.

Which are Playbook Running penalties I might be willing to ask for? For those who haven’t read my NFL Play Sheets Guide, I classify penalties under a total of 6 different headings and this particular category involves calls like: Illegal Procedures, Formations, Turns, Motions, Participation, Snaps and Substitutions; intentional grounding; Game delay; 12 men in the field; Ineligible recipients, and so on, essentially those flags generated by the breakdown of plays, mostly on offense. The league average for PBEPs is normally around 0.7 calls per game (on each team).

It is a category of sanctions that acts as a good yardstick for measuring the quality of a team’s coaching staff and also provides an indication of whether players are being used in schemes in which they feel comfortable and have the necessary skills to succeed.

The combination of a team that is having great success with the deep ball early in the season, with a team that is perhaps at the other end of the spectrum in terms of ‘preparation’, offensive efficiency and creativity, creates line value. that the astute punter can accomplish.

In addition to the main conditions described above, there are some secondary conditions that serve to harden the record of this trend.

First of all, all games with an Over/Under of more than 48 are excluded and our focus team should also come out of a game where their Time of possession it was 23 minutes or more (TOPF is an excellent barometer of the general health of a team, both in attack and defense).

Additionally, teams coming off consecutive SU wins of >= 14 points are also excluded as they are more likely to be overrated or at risk of disappointment in the current game.

Lastly, teams that faced their current opponent at the beginning of the season or at any time within the previous 2 seasons and had a rotation differential (TOD) of primary conditions (building blocks)

1) % of big passing yards for (BPY%F) > 50%.

2) Average Opponent Playbook Execution Penalty Against (PBEPA) > 1.3.

Secondary conditions (tensors)

1) Exclude More/Less (OR) >= 48.

2) Exclude time of possession by (TOPF) in the last game of = 14 points in the last 2 games.

4) Exclude Location Statistics from Billing Differential (TOD)

ASMR: +0.8

% housing: 55.4

Dog%: 42.9

TDIS%: 65.6

% by weight: 75.0

APR: -0.40

Best teams: PIT(7); ATL(6); CAR(4); KEY(5)

location records

Overall (since 2001): 48-6 ATS

2007 season: 6-1 ATS

2006 season: 9-0 ATS

2005 season: 15-1 ATS

2004 season: 11-1 ATS

Last 3 results. Select between parentheses.

2007 WK6-CLE 41 MIA 31 (CLE-4.5)W

2007 WK5–WAS 34 DET 3 (WAS -3.5) W

2007 WK4–IND 38 DEN 20 (IND -9.5) W