Gronkowski, Schmonkowski: GOSTkowski May Be Patriots Super Bowl Secret Weapon

January 27, 2012 - by David Hess

Yesterday’s analysis of Super Bowl prop bets brought a Kelly Clarkson fan out of the woodwork. Whose passions will we stir today?

Both of today’s prop bets are about on the field action. Sorry — no Gatorade colors, national anthem durations, Tim Tebow mentions, or coin toss probabilities today.

Hey, don’t blame us, we’re just doing the people’s bidding. If you’re bummed, leave a comment to influence what makes the cut next time.

Which Team Will Kick More Field Goals?

Hat tip on this one to a reader who emailed us about how he’s been winning field goal prop bets all through the playoffs.

NYG makes more FG’s -110
NE makes more FG’s -110

Obviously the first step here is to look at how often each team kicked and allowed field goals:

	Stat	New York Giants	New England Patriots
Team	FG made	1.3	1.8
	FG attempted	1.7	2.1
	FG%	78%	86%
Opponent	FG made	1.5	1.3
	FG attempted	1.8	1.5
	FG%	82%	85%
Net	FG made	-0.2	0.5
Net	FG attempted	-0.1	0.6

I feel like I must be missing something here. Why is this an even odds bet? There hasn’t been a Stephen Gostkowski injury, has there?

The Patriots, on average, make more field goals than the Giants. They also allow fewer. New England’s net field goals per game is +0.5, while New York’s is -0.2. Seems pretty simple.

I thought perhaps this was due to quirky opponent tendencies, so I checked the average field goals made and allowed over the whole year by each team’s opponents. New England’s opponents made 1.6 field goals per game and allowed 1.6. New York’s opponents made 1.7 field goals per game and allowed 1.6. No meaningful difference.

Have their tendencies changed towards the end of the year? Our NFL field goals made per game page shows each team’s average over the last three games. Aha, here it’s even — over their past three games, both teams have made 2 field goals per game and allowed 1.

Going on that tiny sample size, this is an even bet, and the odds are correct. However, since when is three games a valid sample? Even 16 is small, which makes me tempted to look at last year’s stats. (OK, I did. According to 2010 field goal stats, the Patriots again have the edge.)

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Patriots are the right choice here. The only way the bet appears even is if you place extremely high priority on the past few games. That doesn’t seem necessary, so…

Conclusion: NE makes more FG’s -110 looks like the way to go.

Will Either Team Score Three Consecutive Times?

Analysis of this Super Bowl prop bet was requested by a reader whose tastes — judging by his alias — run more towards the Big Lebowski than Kelly Clarkson.

Either team 3 straight scores -190
No team 3 straight scores +165

We don’t have play by play data in our database, so I’m going to have to do a rough estimating job on this one, by going through some box scores by hand.

First, let’s look at how often this scenario happened during each team’s season. One team scored 3 times in a row in 13 of 18 Patriot games — that’s 72%. In Giants games, it happened only 8 of 19 times (30%).

That’s a pretty big disparity. What if we break it down by final score margin?

In Giants games decided by a touchdown or less, a team scored three times in a row only 2 of 9 times (22%). In games decided by more than a touchdown, the number jumps to 6 of 10 (60%).

On the Patriots end of things, the margin didn’t seem to matter this year. In close games, it happened 5 of 7 times (71%); in other games 8 of 11 (72%).

So, if the game is decided by a touchdown or more, it seems there is a 60%+ chance that one team scores three times in a row. If the final margin is within a touchdown … who knows, really? If we average the Giants and Patriots results, that gets us 47%, but I’m not going to take that to the bank.

Let’s look at the break even rates for the lines on this Super bowl prop bet.

Either team scoring three times or more (-190) would need to have at least a 66% chance of winning for it to be a fair bet. I think it’s pretty clear we can’t conclude the rate is that high.

Going the other way, no team scoring three straight times (+165) would need to have at least a 38% chance of winning in order to be fair. Even in New England’s close games this year, that bet would have been an overall loser. And that is knowing ahead of time that the game is close, which we obviously don’t know about the Super Bowl.

Conclusion: The limited amount of data I collected isn’t enough to settle on either bet, and obtaining more data that actually helps us with this problem would take quite a while. I’m going to have to go with a Lay Off verdict on this one. … Though, if absolutely forced to choose, I would lean towards “No team 3 straight scores +165″ since A) this game has a small line, and B) the trend in close Giants games to not have 3 straight scores is slightly stronger than the trend in close Pats game to have 3 straight.

Just a reminder: if there’s a specific prop bet you want analyzed, leave a comment below, and we’ll try to tackle it next time.