MENUNFL Divisional Futures - NFC North
By Peter Brooks
Published on July 05, 2023
Published on July 05, 2023
"The Authority in Online Gambling"
*This is part 4 of a series. See AFC East here, NFC East here, and AFC North here.
The true doldrums of the NFL offseason are upon us. The exciting trades of free agency have concluded, the anticipation and pageantry of the NFL Draft is over and done with, and preseason football still feels a long way off.
Inside the league, at this point NFL teams are more or less solidified. GMs are performing only the little extra work required to fill out the best 90-man roster possible, coaches are undergoing installation phases of the upcoming season’s gameplans, and players are slowly and steadily getting back into football shape after the offseason.
The next major milestone that the players will hit is training camp, but NFL fans across the nation have some training of their own to do before the season starts.
It’s time to make future bets.
But before we mention why it’s the perfect time of year to start making future bets, we should first make sure that we’re all on the same page for what a future bet is.
For the uninitiated gambler, the term “future bet” can be confusing, because technically speaking every wager placed on the outcome of a sporting event is a wager on a future outcome. What differentiates the category of “future bets” (or “futures”) from any other type of wager is simply the length of time that will pass before the outcome of the bet is determined.
For most bet types (such as bets against the spread or total score over/under bets), a wager is placed anywhere from a couple of days before the game up to the day of the game (or even during the game, with live betting). With futures, by contrast, wagers are generally placed weeks or months in advance.
The increased length of time is what gives future bets their primary defining characteristics: They are higher risk (because it’s harder to predict an outcome further in advance), and, correspondingly, they are higher reward (with better odds offered by sportsbooks than for other bet types).
Generally speaking, futures are mostly organized around who’s going to win what: Which teams are going to go over/under their projected win totals? Which teams are going to win their division? Which teams are going to win playoff games (including the Championship games and the Super Bowl)? Which individual players are going to win awards (such as Rookie of the Year or MVP)?
So there’s a definition of what future bets are. And here’s why right now is the right time to start considering potential futures to bet on.
As we mentioned above, at this point in the offseason there are very few secrets remaining. There are unlikely to be any major free agent acquisitions, the NFL draft is over, and from now until the start of the regular season there will be relatively new information available for gamblers to acquire that could help in the decision-making process.
Regular season football teaches us a lot about what each team is made of; preseason football teaches us next to nothing.
Perhaps, for one or two teams, the preseason will show us flashes of a rookie’s talent (such as 2016’s David Johnson), or will feature a key injury that completely changes the landscape for a team (such as 2016’s Dallas Cowboys).
But beyond these few anomalies (which are just as likely to happen during any point of the regular season), the decisions that a gambler will make about which future bets to place could just as easily be made in June or July as they could in late August.
In fact, the odds are almost always better the earlier you wager. In this case, the early bird gets the worm.
For this edition, we’ll take a look at the NFC North.
The NFC North was a very hot-or-cold division in 2016/17. In the first week of October the Vikings were 5-0, and correspondingly, going into Week 6, they had the highest chances of both making the playoffs and winning the Super Bowl of any team in the league.
A month later, it was the Lions who had surged forward to take control of the division, seeming to have an incredible knack for pulling out comeback wins in the 4th quarter.
By the first week of December, the Bears were already eliminated from playoff contention, the Vikings had somehow fallen to 6-6, the Packers had just undergone one of the worst months of football ever recorded in the Super Bowl era, and the Lions seemed to be in the driver’s seat for the division title.
Fast forward to the first week of January, and we see the Green Bay Packers beating the Lions in Week 17 for the division title, capping an incredible “run the table” comeback, and we see the NFC North sending two teams to the playoffs for the 10th time in the 21st century.
With such a competitive division that saw so many ebbs and flows over the course of last season, it becomes especially important for us to take a good look at each team individually, and really get a feel for where they are headed and whether or not they merit a look for this year’s future bets.
Let’s begin with the Chicago Bears.
The Chicago Bears are without a doubt one of the oldest and one of the most storied franchises in the history of the National Football League, and lay claim to having fielded what is now remembered as one of the greatest single teams to ever take the field (the ’85 Bears). With 18 division titles and 9 league championships, Bears fans have enjoyed some great stretches of football over the years.
However, the recent history of the Bears is not one of these stretches. Despite appearing in the Super Bowl in 2006 and the Conference Championship in 2010, the Bears have subsequently missed the playoffs for six consecutive seasons. In 2016/17, Chicago finished last in the NFC North for the third consecutive year and won only three games - their worst record in decades.
The predominant issue that the team faced over the course of the 2016/17 season was the lack of consistent play from their stable of quarterbacks, which included incumbent starter Jay Cutler, journeyman backup Brian Hoyer, and young project Matt Barkley. In short, throughout the course of the season all three of these quarterbacks showed promise, got injured, and looked terrible, though not necessarily in that order.
However, anyone who watched the Bears play (and particularly the fans) would have immediately been able to see that it wasn’t just a simple Houston Texans situation, where the quarterback is the only real problem. Obviously, when a team wins only three games, there is a lot more going on.
A good portion of the difficulties that the Bears had can be traced back to the fact that Chicago recently made a leadership transition, and as such is still in the rebuilding process. In 2014/15, a scant three seasons ago, the Bears were the 10th oldest team in the league under the direction of head coach Marc Trestman and GM Phil Emery. Subsequently, the Bears fired both men and brought on head coach John Fox and GM Ryan Pace.
At the time he was hired, Pace was the youngest GM in the league at 37 years old. Unsurprisingly, within the next three seasons, the Bears moved from the 10th-oldest to the 3rd-youngest team in the league, demonstrating the influence of a young GM. When a team is this young and features so many rookie and sophomore contributors, it’s no wonder that they struggle in many areas, particularly with fundamental aspects of the game such as penalties, dropped passes, defensive discipline, and gap-soundness.
In this context, let’s take a look at the offseason that Ryan Pace and the rest of the Bears’ front office have pulled off so far, and see what this means for our NFC North future bets.
Fans of established, dynastic franchises who expect their team to be competitive each and every year most often enjoy very exciting action on the field during the regular season, but then later suffer through excruciatingly long and boring offseasons during which their team hardly changes at all.
Contrastingly, fans who root for a team that is very young and going through a rebuilding process very often have to sit through some depressingly terrible football during the regular season, but then afterwards enjoy a very exciting offseason, filled with the potential for drastic changes and major developments.
Now it’s pretty obvious which situation is preferable for a team - especially considering that the former situation is the ultimate goal of the latter - but in 2016/17, Bears fans were undoubtedly more excited about the potential for offseason changes than they were about the latter half of a terribly disappointing season.
And so far, the offseason has lived up to expectations: The Chicago Bears have gone through some drastic changes so far in 2017.
The first and most important suite of changes happened at the quarterback position. Within the first 48 hours of the new league year, the Bears (finally) parted ways with quarterback Jay Cutler.
To say nothing of Cutler’s ability or inability to be an effective team leader and an elite-caliber talent, the most obvious problem was simply his inability to stay on the field: After his first season with the Bears, in which he started all 16 games, Cutler averaged only 12 games per year for the remainder of his seven seasons with Chicago. It’s tough to build a franchise around a guy who appears in only 75% of the contests.
In addition to the release of Cutler (who promptly signed a contract with FOX to be a commentator), the Bears also shipped both of their backup QBs to the San Francisco 49ers, where they will now serve offensive wizard and newly-minted head coach Kyle Shanahan.
To replace these departures, the Bears started filling out a new stable of QBs with exciting Buccaneers backup Mike Glennon (the putative starter) and renowned (the putative veteran backup).
In addition to the quarterback position, the Bears made a host of other free agent moves. First off, the team resigned the following players: CB Johnthan Banks, ED Sam Acho, K Connor Barth, DL C. J. Wilson, S Chris Prosinski, C Eric Kush, and WR Deonte Thompson.
The Bears also saw 8 players arrive in free agency (in addition to the two quarterbacks), and 8 players leave in free agency (in addition to the two quarterbacks). The most notable departure was wide receiver Alshon Jeffrey, who went to the Philadelphia Eagles, and the most notable arrival was cornerback Prince Amukamara, from the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Much in the same way as their quarterback situation, with such a massive change to the Bears’ roster its nearly impossible to evaluate whether the team got better or worse. The more important point is that the team will look very different next season than last. And for a team that won only 3 games last season, this high volume of turnover is probably a very good thing, as it helps to get that losing taste out of the mouth of the team and the fan base.
While the Bears are still rebuilding, and thus likely a few seasons away from being competitive, GM Ryan Pace - now entering his fourth season - has had enough success in his previous three drafts to have earned the trust of the fan base. And either way, for a three-win team there aren’t a whole lot of ways to go wrong in a draft: the most important thing is simply to stock the roster with as many quality players as possible.
Even in this comfortable situation, however, the Bears still managed to create some drama on draft day. Chicago drafted the following players:
In the abstract, the fact that Chicago used their first-round selection to draft a quarterback shouldn’t be terribly surprising. Many NFL fans believed that Mike Glennon was acquired in free agency in order to be the long-term starter in Chicago. After all, he was a very hot trade commodity, with a lot of interest around the league.
However, the established wisdom in the league is that in order to secure enduring success for a franchise its necessary for a team to grow up around an elite quarterback acquired through the draft. Ryan Pace has demonstrated himself to be a shrewd GM, and so it should have been no surprise that he would fish for a quarterback in the draft despite having brought in Mike Glennon.
What was surprising, though, was that Pace would use a first-round pick to draft a quarterback immediately after picking up Glennon (rather than a year or two later). What was even more surprising was the fact that Pace would utilize the #3 pick overall to draft a quarterback. And of course, what was downright unfathomable was the fact that Pace would give up this #3 overall pick along with a 2017 third-rounder, a 2017 fourth-rounder, and a 2023 third-rounder in order to move up only one spot.
This, by all accounts, feels like the kind of panicky, sell-the-farm maneuver that one would expect from the Cleveland Browns, not from shrewd Ryan Pace.
It’s true that Mitch Trubisky is getting buzz as a potential rookie of the year candidate, and certainly has the potential to be great. But the reason his odds sit at +1600 (closer to the back of the pool than the front) is because it’s not even a guarantee that he’ll get the starting job. Unless Trubisky comes out ahead of Glennon in training camp and earns the job as regular starter, we don’t like his odds to win ROTY, and either way we’re not sure we think it was a good value to essentially spend four picks on him.
Of course, if Mitch Trubisky turns out to be the next Andrew Luck or the next Marcus Mariota, then history will judge Ryan Pace’s 2017 Draft much more favorably. However, if Trubisky turns out to be a bad or even an average NFL quarterback, then the Bears’ recent draft will simply be seen as delaying the development of the team unnecessarily.
Despite the fact that the Bears won only three games last season (their worst total in decades), Bears fans should have much more reason for confidence than most of the other bottom-of-the-barrel franchises in the league. Based on the amount of confidence that we have in head coach John Fox and GM Ryan Pace, we truly believe that the franchise is not imploding, but rather rebuilding.
Furthermore, the moves that Pace has made over the last three offseasons (as well as so far this fourth offseason) indicate that he is committed to rebuilding the franchise in the slow and steady way that ultimately wins the race. There are no quick fixes in the NFL - it takes time to build a team from the ground up. And Pace feels like the man for the job.
Pursuant to this, transitioning out of the Jay Cutler era by shipping out all three of last year’s starting quarterbacks and bringing in Mike Glennon and Mark Sanchez felt like a very necessary “turn over a new leaf” moment for the fan base. Drafting an exciting young quarterback prospect to groom for the next few seasons also clicked into place as a smart move.
Of course, the fact that Pace had to give up three Day 2 draft picks in the 2017 and 2023 drafts in order to move up one measly spot to the #2 selection overall was a painfully costly bargain. For a team trying to restock the roster with quality players, these blue chip draft picks are invaluable.
Ultimately, though, it will be a few years before we can truly evaluate whether or not Trubisky was worth the cost. In the meantime, the Bears are likely to miss the playoffs and stay near the bottom of the barrel for the next few seasons. For 2017/18, the Bears’ Championship odds sit at +4000 (third-worst in the conference) and their Super Bowl odds sit at +10000 (tied with the Jags and Bills for 3rd-worst in the league). Naturally, we wouldn’t recommend wagering on either of these.
Statistically, the Bears played more like a 5-win team than a 3-win team last season, and there’s no appreciable difference in how difficult their schedule will be this year compared to last year. With trust in Ryan Pace and optimism for Mike Glennon, as well as the general belief that a young team rapidly improves after a year or two of good coaching, we’re strongly inclined to give the Bears the benefit of the doubt.
With positive odds for the over (indicating that few gamblers know what we know about the Bears) and a conservative win total at 5.5 (we think it possible that the Bears could win 7 games), in our estimation the Bears’ over is one of our best future bets of the 2017/18 season.
Though they may not be the flashiest franchise in the league, over the past half-century the Minnesota Vikings have quietly been one of the winningest franchises, with the 3rd-highest win percentage in the league and four Super Bowl appearances.
One of the primary reasons that the Vikings have been unable to convert any of these Super Bowl appearances into Lombardi Trophies, however, has been their lack of an elite quarterback, a fault that has also plagued them over the course of the last decade.
After trying out several aged superstar quarterbacks in order to get over the hump (including Daunte Culpepper and later Brett Favre), in the 2010s the Vikings started drafting quarterbacks to try and find their next franchise star. Despite the fact that Tarvaris Jackson and Joe Webb didn’t pan out, fans held out hope that promising young Teddy Bridgewater could be the guy.
Unfortunately, the development of Bridgewater and the rest of the team around him was halted by a particularly gruesome knee injury sustained in preseason of 2016. Suffice to say that everything that could have blown in Teddy Bridgewater’s knee did, and all of the veterans present said that it was the worst knee injury they had ever seen.
Still believing that they had the potential to push for a Super Bowl without Bridgewater, the team traded for experienced veteran Sam Bradford, and when they started out 5-0 with the best record in the league and the highest odds of winning the Super Bowl, it seemed as though they were right.
However, over the latter two thirds of the season everything that could go wrong with the Vikings season did: Adrian Peterson got injured, a half-dozen offensive linemen went down, and defenses quickly figured out the dink-and-dunk offense that appeared to be all that Sam Bradford was capable of running.
The Vikings went from Super Bowl favorites to playoff snubs in two short months.
In this context, the 2017 offseason has brought up some important questions for the franchise, and it becomes incumbent on us to take a good look and see what this all means for our future bets.
The Vikings’ GM Rick Spielman has a proven track record of success. Before being promoted to GM in 2012, Spielman spent six seasons as Minnesota’s Vice President of Player Personnel, where he was involved in the savvy acquisitions of Adrian Peterson, Sidney Rice, Percy Harvin, Toby Gerhart, and Kyle Rudolph, among others.
Since he has become GM, his track record has only improved, with the drafting of Matt Kalil, Harrison Smith, Xavier Rhodes, Cordarrelle Patterson, and probable future franchise QB Teddy Bridgewater among others.
So despite the fact that the Vikings’ “win-now” strategy last season ultimately looks ill-fated in hindsight (and may well have been the reason for the mid-season departure of offensive coordinator Norv Turner), the Vikings’ offseason at least starts off with full confidence in the ability of the GM to improve the team.
With this in mind, the 2017 offseason first saw the Vikings try to take on their issues at offensive line. The team released guards Brandon Fusco and Mike Harris before the start of free agency, and also re-signed tackle Jeremiah Sirles. Subsequently, in the opening two days of free agency the team tackle Riley Reiff, from the Detroit Lions, and tackle Mike Remmers, from the Carolina Panthers.
Over the following week, the Vikings signed defensive end Datone Jones, cornerback Terrence Newman, and running back Latavius Murray. Later on, the team re-signed wide receiver Adam Thielen, released d-lineman Scott Crichton, and signed cornerback Terrell Sinkfield, tight end Nick Truesdell, wide receiver Mitch Matthews, punter Ryan Quickly, and quarterback Case Keenum.
Finally, it’s important to note that the Vikings also lost a good number of players in free agency. Most notably, the team decided not to pick up the option for future-Hall of Famer Adrian Peterson, who ultimately signed with the New Orleans Saints. This marks the end of an era in Minnesota, but $18 million for a 32-year old player that gained only 72 yards last season is just too much.
In addition, 34-year old linebacker Chad Greenway retired, offensive tackle Andre Smith Jr. went to the Bengals, tight end Rhett Ellison went to the Giants, wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson went to the Raiders, cornerback Captain Munnerlyn went to the Panthers, offensive tackle Matt Kalil went to the Panthers, and punter Jeff Locke went to the Colts.
All told, in free agency the Vikings released two offensive guards and essentially played musical chairs with their offensive tackles (losing two guys and bringing in two new guys), and thus didn’t really make any significant improvement on the offensive line. Meanwhile, the losses of Peterson, Munnerlyn, and Patterson were not adequately addressed by accompanying acquisitions, leaving the team with some clear needs to address in the draft.
While many teams in the NFL sometimes pursue a “win-now” philosophy, few of them realize that this “win-now” is always accompanied by a “pay-later.” For the Vikings, in order to bring in Sam Bradford on such short notice and push for a Super Bowl in 2016/17, the team had to send away the ensuing season’s first-round draft pick. This left them in 2017 with no drafts picks in the first 40, meanwhile several teams such as the Browns and the Saints had three in that same span.
Overall, the team’s needs were at offensive line and running back, as well as in the defensive secondary. In the end, the Vikings drafted the following players:
Considering the fact that the team had only two draft picks in the top 100, the fact that the Vikings ended up with a whopping 11 players drafted - tied with the Bengals and the Seahawks for the most in the league - indicates just how proficient GM Rick Spielman was at getting something for nothing.
Naturally, players in higher rounds are less likely to pan out, but in a league where an average of 30% of snaps are taken by rookies, it’s always important to bring in as many candidates as possible to compete in training camp and preseason.
The Vikings’ first selection in the draft, Dalvin Cook, is getting some buzz as a potential rookie of the year candidate, with his odds at +700 currently sitting at the third best in the field at the Bovada sportsbook despite being taken outside of the first round. We don’t feel confident at all in Cook as a ROTY candidate, considering the fact that Minnesota also acquired Latavius Murray, and wonder whether the gamblers driving down the odds for Cook have forgotten this fact.
Other than Cook, the Vikings got a steal with their second pick, selecting the best center in the draft in Pat Elflein. With another offensive lineman taken in the 5th round, Minnesota clearly took strides at addressing their needs at o-line.
In addition, the Vikings managed to use 5 of their 11 picks to continue to build on what was already an excellent defense last season, which is a classic hallmark of a good draft. Focusing exclusively on need without trying to improve on what you did well is precisely what turns a good team that had a bad season into a bad team.
In summary, we’ve seen that the Vikings didn’t do quite enough in free agency to make up for the losses that they suffered, and it was questionable whether they improved very much on the offensive line given how many members of their starting five the sent packing.
The Vikings’ draft was a bit of a mixed bag: none of their league-leading 11 draft picks fell in the first round, and only two were among the top 100 picks. Notwithstanding, they used those two picks to nab a quality running back to place alongside Latavius Murray and the best center in the draft. In addition, spending 5 out of 11 draft picks on the defense was a shrewd move for the team’s future.
In addition to roster movement, when we look at the advanced statistics we see that the Vikings played very much like an 8-win team last season (which makes sense, because they won 8 games), and while their schedule hung right around league average in terms of difficulty in 2016/17, it is not set to become any more difficult in 2017/18.
All things considered, if the Vikings did not get any better at all, we would expect them to hold right at 8-8, dead center in the middle of the league. And with NFC Championship odds at +1400 (tied with the Cardinals and Panthers in the middle of the conference) and Super Bowl at +3300 (smack dab in the middle of the league, tied with the Colts, Cardinals, and Saints), it seems that odds-makers feel the same way.
Ultimately, the success of the Vikings in 2017/18 will depend on several factors: most importantly, whether their new offensive linemen are an improvement over the old; whether a young Latavius Murray is an upgrade from an aging and injured Adrian Peterson; whether Sam Bradford has the capability to play any better than he did last season after a whole offseason in the playbook.
Assuming (as we do) that the Vikings will do the smart thing and hold Teddy Bridgewater out for another year (even if he is physically capable of returning), with a healthy dose of optimism we do believe that the Vikings will win one or two more games than they did last season.
However, as the line of 8.5 and the equal over/under odds reflect, there’s about an equal chance that they won’t.
The Detroit Lions have had some really incredible eras of football in their history, most notably in the time of Barry Sanders. Unfortunately, however, the 21st century did not start well and the franchise bottomed out in 2008, becoming one of the few teams in the history of the league to go 0-16.
As is the nature of the NFL, though, their winless season in 2008 earned them the #1 overall pick in the 2009 NFL Draft, which they used to select franchise quarterback Matthew Stafford. While Stafford’s Hall of Fame credentials may be far from established (due to a conspicuous lack of postseason success), there is absolutely no denying that he is one of the elite quarterbacks in the National Football League, and has been a competent starter for Detroit these past 8 seasons.
The Lions then came into the 2016/17 season under new management, with new GM Bob Quinn coming over from the New England Patriots and making some immediate changes to the Lions’ roster. The season to follow was marked by an abnormally large number of fourth-quarter comebacks that tricked most of the league - and perhaps even the team itself - into thinking that it had the grit and drive necessary to win a playoff game for the first time in more than a quarter-century.
Unfortunately for the fans, however, the team’s run of success around midseason (winning 7 out of 8 games) was ultimately demonstrated to be mostly smoke and mirrors, as the Lions went from having a commanding lead in the division to limping into the playoffs with a Wild Card spot, and in their back-to-back losses in Week 17 and Wild Card Weekend they were exposed as having a very one-dimensional offense.
In hindsight, the holes in the Lions’ roster unfortunately ran pretty deep in 2016/17, with an overall lack of depth that couldn’t hold up against the inevitable injuries that affect every team, but the biggest areas of need were identified as the offensive run game and the defensive line.
In this context, the Lions started out the 2017 offseason - the second under new GM Bob Quinn - hoping to improve their fortunes. Let’s take a look and decide if they did or not, and what this means for our future bets.
In his second offseason with the team, general manager Bob Quinn stormed in and immediately made some big moves. As he is so new in his role, the jury is still out on whether his moves are trustworthy, but by all accounts everything that we’ve seen out of Detroit so far in 2017 has been positive.
First and foremost, Quinn and the Lions took on the task of rebuilding their offensive line. The Lions went 7-9 in 2014/15 and their biggest franchise asset, Matthew Stafford, was sacked 45 times. Of the five starting offensive linemen who were on the team at that point, only one remains under contract, and at this point it’s not even certain that he’ll have a job.
In the opening days of free agency, Bob Quinn went out and got two of the most sought-after free agents in the league: offensive tackle Ricky Wagner, from the Baltimore Ravens, and offensive guard T. J. Lang, from the Green Bay Packers. Quinn also brought in defensive tackle Akeem Spence, defensive end Cornelius Washington, linebacker Paul Worrilow, cornerback D. J. Hayden, tight end Darren Fells, and wide receiver Keshawn Martin.
In exchange, the Lions released linebacker DeAndre Levy, and saw 10 players leave in free agency: offensive tackle Riley Reiff, offensive guard Larry Warford, defensive tackle Stefan Charles, wide receiver Andre Roberts, defensive end Tyrunn Walker, safety Rafael Bush, linebacker Jon Bostic, tight end Clay Harbor, defensive end Devin Taylor, and tight end Orson Charles.
In the end, the verdict is that with demonstrated needs in the trenches on both sides of the ball, Bob Quinn did a fantastic job of continuing to shore up the offensive line, which over the course of two years has steadily gone from one of the worst to one of the best in the league, and put in some dedicated effort to the defensive line as well.
After such a strong showing in free agency, Lions fans must have been excited to find 6 of their original draft picks intact at the #21 slot, and no doubt looked forward to continuing to develop the team in the draft.
After it was all said and done, Bob Quinn and the Lions drafted the following players:
Unfortunately, all in all the fans can’t have been as enthusiastic about the draft class as they were about the free agent acquisitions. The team’s needs at pass rush and running back were not addressed, leaving the team’s two most vulnerable positions in 2016/17 still vulnerable.
Adding help at cornerback and wide receiver is certainly helpful, and an extra tight end was a shrewd pickup to put some pressure on Eric Ebron to perform as he enters into the final year of his rookie contract. In addition, while there may not have been a need at quarterback, Brad Kaaya was an excellent value that late in the draft, and could certainly be a quality backup for Matt Stafford for years to come.
In the end, Detroit may have hit on several of their early draft picks, but without sufficiently addressing their needs it’s hard to believe that the fans aren’t left wanting something more.
In summary, in his second offseason as general manager of the Lions Bob Quinn stormed out of the gate and made some dramatic free agent acquisitions, most notably picking up two of the best offensive linemen in the league in tackle Ricky Wagner and guard T. J. Lang. From a unit that was among the worst in the league a few short seasons ago, if all goes well the Lions should trot out one of the best offensive lines in the NFL in 2017/18.
In the draft, however, the fans must have been disappointed at the team’s refusal to spend draft capital on a pass rusher to complement Ziggy Ansah or on a running back to beef up a weak backfield. While the team had some good value picks strewn throughout and seems to have hit on their first two picks, it’s undoubtedly true that they did not adequately address their needs.
In this way, the Lions certainly did improve their roster at the offensive line and a few other position groups this offseason, but it’s still uncertain whether they have done enough to address the primary deficiencies that manifested themselves late in the season - namely a one-dimensional offense caused by a lack of a running game and an anemic pass rush.
In addition to the change in their roster, it’s important to take into account statistical and scheduling factors. Last season, despite the fact that they won 9 games, their Pythagorean Expectation (an advanced sabermetric statistic) demonstrated that they pointed more like an 8-win team, and so we should think of them as an 8-win team that accidentally limped into the playoffs rather than a 9-win team that earned a Wild Card spot.
Considering the amount of fourth-quarter comebacks that the team had, it’s not hard to understand how one game could have slipped unfairly.
In terms of strength of schedule, we see that the Lions played a schedule of average difficulty in 2016/17, and in 2017/18 the news gets slightly better: the Lions will play the 9th-easiest schedule in the league next season.
In simplest terms, the Lions are an 8-win team that got significantly better on the offensive line over the course of the offseason, but did not improve measurably in many other areas.
Nonetheless, considering the fact that the team underwent its second season under a quality new GM, maintained its same quality head coach, and kept on with its elite quality quarterback, there’s no reason to assume that the Lions should get any worse, barring catastrophic injuries.
For this reason, we are puzzled by the fact that the Lions’ NFC Championship odds are as low as +2800 (the 5th-worst in the conference) and their Super Bowl odds are at +6600 (tied for the 5th-worst in the league). We’re much higher on the Lions than the 5th-worst odds in the league, and think that they have just as much of a shot if not a better shot to get hot late and make a run than they did last season.
In conclusion, we find great value in the Lions’ Championship and Super Bowl odds, and don’t understand why the gambling public is betting that the team will go under 8 wins much more than they are betting that the team will go over. We like the Lions, and we’d recommend giving serious consideration to any of these bets: there’s good value to be found.
The Green Bay Packers have been competitive in the NFC North for nearly three decades now, being one of those lucky franchises that is able to seamlessly transition from one elite quarterback (e.g. Brett Favre, Petyon Manning) to another (e.g. Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck). Since Rodgers hit his stride and the Packers won a Super Bowl in 2010, the team has been a perennial championship contender.
It was a tale of two seasons for the Packers in 2016/17. From the first game of the season on Green Bay fans heard rumblings around the league about how things weren’t clicking; about how Aaron Rodgers didn’t look like Aaron Rodgers; about how their time as the unquestioned leaders of the NFC North was officially over.
While it’s true that future Hall of Fame quarterback undoubtedly seemed to be in a bit of the slump in the early part of the season, the bigger story was injuries. The Packers lost their first, second, and third string running backs over the course of a few weeks, and over the course of the season saw their first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth string cornerbacks all miss multiple consecutive games, with the #1 corner missing essentially the entire season, and the #2 and #3 CBs both going down for essentially the whole month of November.
While injuries happen to every team every season, it’s much more rare for two entire position groups to get completely wiped out all at the same time, and consequently it’s much more difficult to recover from. Due in large part to their atrocious play at cornerback, the Packers endured one of the worst months of November in league history, giving up an absurd amount of points and dipping below .500.
However, with six games remaining in the season Aaron Rodgers issued a prophetic statement during a locker room interview, saying that he believed the Packers could “run the table.” As it turned out, this is exactly what they did, going from 4-6 to 10-6. Their incredible run was capped by a Week 17 win over the Lions that gave them the win in the division for the fifth time since Aaron Rodgers became quarterback, and sent them back to the playoffs for the 8th consecutive season.
After a strong 25-point win over the New York Giants and an exciting comeback victory over the heavily favored Dallas Cowboys, the Pack were simply outmatched by the dynamic offense of Kyle Shanahan and the Atlanta Falcons, and bowed out at the Conference Championship level for the second time in three years.
For perennial championship contenders like the Packers, the Patriots, and the Steelers, (among others), the question is not whether the team will be good, or even whether or not they will compete for a playoff spot, but rather whether or not they have made any significant moves in the offseason that will impact their chances going forward.
Let’s take a look at the offseason that the Green Bay Packers have had, and see whether the Packers have made any such moves, and what this all means for our NFC North futures.
To provide a bit of context, the Green Bay Packers are one of the most envied teams around the league in terms of front office stability and productivity.
And you don’t even need to look at the Packers’ front office itself to understand why this is the case: Instead, check out the job that John Dorsey did turning around the Chiefs, or the job that Reggie McKenzie did turning around the Raiders, or the job that John Schneider did turning around the Seahawks. Each one of these GMs - renowned in their own right - started out working in the Packers’ front office under current Packers GM Ted Thompson.
The reason we bring this up is simply to illustrate that the decision-making of Ted Thompson is generally considered to be completely bulletproof. Much like the Baltimore Ravens, whose fans sport the oft-repeated mantra “In Ozzie We Trust,” Green Bay Packer fans likely say the same thing about Ted Thompson.
One of the things Thompson is most known for is his reluctance to make free agent acquisitions, instead championing the “draft and develop” approach that has kept the Packers continuously at or near the top of the list of drafted player percentage and drafted starter percentage during the entire duration of Ted Thompson’s tenure.
With this in mind, Packer fans did not start out with high hopes that the 2017 offseason would feature many (or any) major free agent acquisitions. However, they ended up being surprised.
First, the Packers released their #1 corner, Sam Shields, and #2 running back, James Starks, both due to injury concerns. Subsequently, on the opening day of free agency, the Packers re-signed key free agent outside linebacker Nick Perry. The surprise came on Day 2 and Day 3 of the new league year, when Green Bay signed two big-name tight ends: Martellus Bennett and Lance Kendricks.
It’s important to note that these two signings (as well as several other subsequent free agent acquisitions) appear to have been made because of the large number of free agency departures suffered by the Packers. Within the first week of free agency, the team lost 3 of its 6 playoff captains from the year before, namely outside linebacker Julius Peppers, offensive guard T. J. Lang, and defensive back Micah Hyde.
In addition, the Packers also lost starting offensive lineman J. C. Tretter, #1 running back Eddie Lacy, former first-round draft pick outside linebacker Datone Jones, and tight end Jared Cook. In response, over the next several weeks of free agency the Packers picked up cornerback Davon House (a former draft pick), defensive tackle Ricky Jean Francois, and offensive guard Jahri Evans, mostly to fill gaps left by departures.
All told, the Packers lost their two starting running backs, traded out one of the best offensive guards in the league for a serviceable veteran, swapped two quality outside linebackers (including a future Hall of Famer) for one defensive tackle, flipped one elite tight end into two elite tight ends, and swapped out two starting defensive backs for one.
Other than tight end, this meant an overwhelming net loss in free agency for the Packers, with the team ending up down two running backs, one front seven player, and one defensive back. Clearly, they had their work cut out for them in the draft.
Of course, the only way to get away with making few free agent acquisitions is to draft well, and this is another hallmark of the Ted Thompson approach.
In fact, as it turns out, the whole cycle of the offseason is predicated on draft success in Green Bay: Strong draft classes lead to a surplus of good players; a surplus of good players leads to a perennial net loss in free agency; a perennial net loss in free agency leads to compensatory draft selections; compensatory draft selections means a lot of draft capital to use for trades; these in turn lead to a large number of draft picks; which ultimately helps ensure, in the end, a strong draft class.
For the 2017 edition of this draft saga, the Packers ended up with the following players:
The Packers likely angered some of their fans by trading out of the first round. While it did net them an extra pick or two, the move from #29 to #33 meant that the Packers missed out on the opportunity to draft T. J. Watt, whose family reputation precedes him and who went #30 to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Ultimately, though, the Packers had their heart set on starting out with two defensive backs (a smart move, considering how depleted that unit got last season), and got excellent value with both picks. Subsequently, the Packers continued to stick to their positional needs, addressing the net loss in free agency in the defensive front seven by drafting a defensive tackle and a linebacker.
Their fifth selection, running back Jamaal Williams, is getting buzz as a potential Rookie of the Year candidate, with his odds at +1400 sitting right in the middle of the field. But rest assured, by no means should you put money on Jamaal Williams to win the Rookie of the Year. First of all, at #134 he is the latest selection present in the rookie of the year pool. If you take out Williams from the pool of Rookie of the Year candidates, the average selection slot is just over 25.
Furthermore, the Packers selected three running backs in the draft and at this point it’s not at all clear which of these three backs will even make the team. And as if all of this wasn’t enough, keep in mind that the Packers have never been a running team, and so it’s very unlikely that any running back - even an Adrian-Peterson-in-his-prime-caliber back - would be able to generate enough numbers to merit Rookie of the Year consideration.
(Not to mention their two starting playoff running backs from last season - converted wide receiver Ty Montgomery and fullback Aaron Ripkowski - are still on the team.) (Long story short, don’t put money on Jamaal Williams to win Rookie of the Year.)
After these first selections, by all accounts Ted Thompson and the Packers felt that they had covered all of their positional needs and went back to a “best player available” strategy, which accounts for the rather odd choice to bring in two additional running backs.
In addition, with two wide receivers and an offensive lineman, the Packers continued to contribute fresh meat to two of their strongest position groups on the team, which (as we saw with the Minnesota Vikings) is a classic hallmark of good drafting. All told, the Packers addressed their areas of positional need in the first half of the draft, and bolstered their areas of positional strength in the second half.
In summary, the Packers sustained a massive net loss in free agency, as is customary for teams that have an embarrassment of draft riches and can’t afford to pay everybody. Specifically, the Packers saw a serious net loss at running back, as well as losses in the defensive front seven and the secondary. However, they did bring in two elite tight ends to replace the departing Jared Cook.
In response, Ted Thompson and the Packers’ front office pulled off an excellent draft, spending the first four picks on the needs of the defense (which proved to be their Achilles heel last season), bringing in three running backs, and spending the remaining three picks on the Packers’ areas of positional strength (namely wide receiver and offensive line).
All told, this appears to be a classic wizardly Ted Thompson offseason, and is very good news for Packer fans. But it’s not just roster movement that Packer fans should feel good about.
When we look at advanced statistics and scheduling factors, there’s no reason to believe that the Packers should perform any worse next season than they did last season. The advanced sabermetric statistic Pythagorean Expectation shows that based on the way that the Packers pointed last season, they should have won exactly 10 games (and they did). Furthermore, their schedule in 2016/17 was the 19th-easiest in the league, based on average DVOA, and their schedule in 2017/18 is set to be the 19th-easiest in the league again, based on average opponent win percentage.
In sum, all signs point to the Green Bay Packers being just as competitive next season as they were last season, and odds-makers are aware of this. Green Bay’s NFC Championship odds (+550) are tied with the Seahawks for the second-best odds in the conference, behind only the Cowboys. In addition, their Super Bowl odds (+900) are alone at the second-best slot in the league, with only the Patriots ahead at +375 and the Falcons, Cowboys, Seahawks, and Raiders all logjammed immediately behind, at +1200.
We like what we see out of Green Bay and we find good value in all of these odds. There’s definitely a chance that the Packers get on a roll at the right time and make a run at a Super Bowl in 2017/18. If you are thinking about spreading around some capital between several different contenders for Championship and Super Bowl future bets, there is no reason whatsoever not to include Green Bay.
Last season, the primary thing holding the Packers back from going above 10 wins was an early slump from Aaron Rodgers and absurdly terrible positional luck with injuries. Given that these two lightning bolts are not likely to strike twice in two seasons, we’re completely happy giving the Packers the benefit of the doubt in 2017/18, and have no trouble seeing them get to 11 or 12 wins, or even higher.
In summary, when most people look at the NFC North they see the same old narrative - the Packers at the top, the Bears at the bottom, the other two fighting in the middle. And the odds reflect this. But when we looked at the division, the biggest thing we saw was four excellent general managers who are all pushing their teams in the right direction, leading to a rare prediction that all four teams will go over their posted win total.
Specifically, while we’re not sure how the Bears’ QB situation turns out, if Mike Glennon starts 16 games (which would be the smart move), the Bears could be significantly better. The Vikings have a low ceiling with Sam Bradford, and we have no idea why people think they have a better shot at winning the division than the Lions. But assuming they sit Bridgewater for another year (which would be the smart move), they’ll be competitive, if ultimately limited.
The Lions’ offensive line seems to have sneakily just become one of the best in the league, and if anybody on their team is even remotely able to run the ball through the holes they create, then the problems with one-dimensional offense that limited them last season might disappear. They still need a pass rush, though. And for the Green Bay Packers, it’s business as usual - it’s their division to lose, and they have as good a chance to make a run at a Super Bowl as any other year.
Currently, the odds at the Bovada Sportsbook for the NFC North race are as follows:
In terms of value, there’s not much to be found here. We truly believe that the Green Bay Packers have the best chance of winning the division, and at -140 there’s no reason to make the wager at all. These are worse odds than you get picking an individual game, but with much, much more risk. Thank the overactive Packer fan base for driving down the odds, as usual.
To repeat, we have no idea why the Vikings are getting better odds than the Lions - this is a stayaway. Of course, the flip side of this coin is that the Lions’ odds at +425 shine through all the brighter, and this is a fine value if you prefer. But once again, our money’s going on the Packers.
