Headline Play Guest: Take It

SEASON:

Take It

by Dennis Ranahan

If there were no surprises in the National Football League this season that would be a surprise.

Teams entering the 2022 season that are not considered prime candidates for meeting at Arizona’s State Farm Stadium next February in Super Bowl LVII might surprise this year’s standings like the Cincinnati Bengals did last year. Before the 2021 season kicked off, many were surprised that Jerry Jones had not pulled the plug on head coach Mike McCarthy. In his first season as the Cowboys head coach, McCarthy directed a disastrous 2020 campaign in which the Cowboys won only six games.

“I wouldn’t want anything to do with the shitshow going on in Dallas,” one radio announcer said on the eve of the 2021 campaign while producers scurried for the bleep button.

How did Dallas actually do last season?

They won twelve games, captured the NFC East title and had the best point spread record in all of football.

Why?

Because, their problems in 2020 were exacerbated by injuries and the disappointing campaign produced two positives entering last season. First, injured quarterback Dak Prescott, one of the key injuries from 2020, was back behind center. Second, the team prepared for the 2021 season with the sting and motivational boost from their 6-10 campaign the prior year.

What we have here is textbook motivation. It is as predictable as a doctor identifying a medical problem based on tests and proven practices. So, who do we have this year poised to enter into the “surprise” category based on what has come before?

Both the Bengals and Cowboys cashed all their chips last season, and both will struggle this year. For Cincinnati and Dallas, this year’s expectations exceed actual talent, which is in stark contrast to what they benefited from in 2021 when expectations in both cases were below actual talent levels.

While two of the mighty will fall, which teams are underestimated right now and poised to excel at a “surprising” level?

My Super Bowl pick, we will reveal it next Wednesday, has odds near 20 to 1 to win Super Bowl LVII, and by my charts they are the favorites. Another team with long Super Bowl odds, 20-1, are the Cleveland Browns.

Cleveland is one of the four NFL franchises to never advance to a Super Bowl. Two off that list have short histories, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans, while only the Detroit Lions are a long established franchise, like Cleveland, that has failed to crack a Roman Numeral game.

For Cleveland, the bite runs deep. They have had teams seemingly good enough to play for the final leg of the Vince Lombardi Trophy, but were twice upended by John Elway and his Denver Broncos in AFC Championship Games that earned names. The Browns were on the wrong side of “The Drive” and “The Fumble.”

In 1986, Cleveland had the Broncos backed up to their goal line late in the fourth quarter and the hometown fans were ready to celebrate their first Super Bowl trip. Then, Elway guided the Broncos on a length of the field drive that resulted in a touchdown and set up the Broncos overtime win. The following year, the Browns staged a furious second half comeback that was on the doorstep of being completed when runningback Earnest Byner fumbled the ball as he dove for the endzone.

Then, more salt into the Browns wounds, their team is moved from Cleveland to Baltimore, and twice the newly named Ravens have won the Super Bowl. Baltimore beat the New York Giants to complete the 2000 season and downed the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII.

In 2016 and 2017, the Cleveland Browns compiled the worst two year record in league history, 1-31. Their winless campaign five years ago was rock bottom, and their dismal play during the regular season for a number of years in a row offered the Browns high draft picks. Even an inept team can’t help but collect some talent when drafting at the top of the selection process for years on end.

The Browns didn’t miss every opportunity to add talent, even though they gave up on what they had hoped would be their franchise quarterback, Baker Mayfield. Cleveland had made Mayfield the first overall pick in the 2018 draft, yet the Oklahoma product had produced only one winning season, and the Cleveland brass made the brash move of signing a top flight quarterback that had caused problems for his previous team.

This offseason, the Browns added Deshaun Waston to their roster with knowledge that he was still confronting league sanctions based on some ill advised practices he employed during massage sessions. With legal problems looming, and the league looking to show support at the height of the “Me Too” movement, Watson became a pawn in the public relations game. He didn’t play at all last season while still on the Houston Texans roster, and the team from Texas was only too happy to unload his baggage this year when the Browns offered to take on his weight.

Once on the Browns roster, Cleveland moved to take his primary competition out of the equation, and off to the Carolina Panthers went Mayfield.

So, what are we left with in Cleveland?

A very talented roster with a respected head coach, Kevin Stefanski, and a career backup quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, in charge of the Cleveland offense for at least the first 11 weeks of the season while Watson serves the final leg of his league punishment.

Cleveland did not earn a winning record in Mayfield’s first two years behind center, they were 7-8-1 in 2018 and 6-10 in 2019. In both those seasons, the Browns expectations exceeded their actual talent level. Then, in 2020, the Browns enjoyed a breakout season, winning 11 games and advancing to the AFC playoffs. In his first postseason action, Mayfield led the Browns to an upset win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, 48-37. The following week, at Arrowhead Stadium, the Browns season ended with a narrow loss to the defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs, 22-17.

What, by my account, was surprising about the Browns 2020 season, was that they had their first winning campaign in more than a decade and yet they were overrated week-in-and-week-out on the point spread. I had never before chronicled a team that had their first winning season in years and did not also have a winning point spread record. In 2020, the Browns 11-5 straight-up record resulted in a 6-10 point spread mark.

In my more than 40 years of chronicling NFL results, this was the first time I encountered a team to even have their point spread record less than their straight-up mark in their first winning season after years of losing. How did the Browns become overrated before they ever won? How did this team have their point spread mark come up four games below .500 while their straight-up record was six games over?

Expectations versus actual talent.

But now, after they had their inevitable decline last season, they were 8-9 straight-up in Mayfield’s final season playing for the Dawg Pound and 7-10 against the number, the Browns have reached a fork in the road.

And, in the words of Yogi Berra, when you reach a fork in the road, “Take it.”

For the first time, at least for the first 11 games this season, the Browns are both talented and underrated. Brissett is not the guy they think is going to lead them to the promise-land, but at the helm of a motivated team with a rock solid defense he is in a perfect position to excel.

I’d be willing to bet that the success the Browns enjoy out of the gate this year will have some questioning whether they should even immediately shift to Watson when he becomes available in November.

What does this mean?

For the first time in years the Browns become a good bet, both week-to-week and on the season win total that has them pegged at 8½.

Ending, First

by Dennis Ranahan

The Cincinnati Bengals.

Last year, they were in a typical spot to have a very bad year, particularly against the point spread. They had gone from years of last place finishes to the Super Bowl, such a meteoric rise commonly generates an off-year the following season.

It started that way for the Bengals, they went from losing the Super Bowl to the Los Angeles Rams to opening the 2022 season with a home loss to division rival Pittsburgh, 23-20. In second week action, the defending American Football Conference champs got beat in Dallas by a Cowboys team forced to play a second string quarterback following Dak Prescott’s opening week injury.

Then, the Bengals expected decline reversed field like a rocket. The talent and leadership of quarterback Joe Burrow had Zac Taylor’s team win all but two point spread decisions the rest of the season. They also took the Kansas City Chiefs to the brink in defense of their AFC title before surrendering a three point decision, 23-20, at Arrowhead Stadium.

How did they do that?

How did they go from losing to a struggling Steelers team on their home field, and falling to the Cowboys as a road favorite, before catching fire in a season that should have continued down the rocky road shown the first two weeks?

More importantly, how will the Bengals respond this year after winning when they shouldn’t have last year?

I’m telling you, I’ve got empirical evidence to support a colossal collapse or Super Bowl win.

Take your pick.

Nothing in the middle for the Bengals in 2023, they either win it all or drop like a rock.

Here are the possible scenarios that could play out. The winning season last year, despite being caught in a traditional down season, only adds more credence for a fall in 2023.

Conversely, the Bengals just might be so good that they can come off another year where a Super Bowl title has eluded them and this time grab the golden ring.

It’s early, but as of now, I think the Bengals win it all with a Super Bowl LVIII triumph at Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders.

Hoops

by Dennis Ranahan

The NCAA Basketball Tournament is the best sporting event every year.

The Super Bowl is great, the World Series seemed more important when I was a kid, and the NBA playoffs can generate a lot of excitement. Yet, the three weeks of college basketball leading up to the National Championship Game, this year staged in Houston on April 3, is glorious from the beginning. Every team that starts play on Thursday and Friday, once the field has been thinned to 64 teams, has a chance to capture the top prize.

In college football, the possibility of a national champion is reduced to four before the nearly 100 teams participate in their postseason bowl games. Football can’t really do it any other way, and assuring head-to-head competition for the National Championship adopted in recent years is a step forward.

In all likelihood, one of the high seed teams in this year’s tournament will win it all, but we have already had two top seeds eliminated this year. Only once in the past twenty seasons have all four teams seeded first in their region advanced to the Sweet 16.

On Friday, the Purdue Boilermakers became only the second top seed to lose their opening round game when they fell to upset bound Farleigh Dickinson. Five years ago, the University of Maryland, at Baltimore County, upset the Virginia Cavaliers in the first ever number one seed to fall to a 16.

Virginia bounced off that loss in 2018 with a National Championship in 2019. That would be the kind of response the Boilermakers will be looking for following their stunning defeat.

This year, the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights not only became the second 16th seed to win their opening game, they also gave nationally ranked Florida Atlantic all they could handle in their second round game. The Knights' dreams finally ended in a single digit loss to the talented Owls, 78-70.

People who have enjoyed our football picks on this site want to know if we do basketball?

Last week, two games we did select were observably dominate physically over their opponents, something we only came to know after the games started. The Miami Hurricanes clearly had the advantage Charles Barkley described as “kids against adults” while observing the same attributes with San Diego State versus overmatched Furman.

The National Football League is what we do, and while the numbers I weigh decisively pointed to Miami over Drake and San Diego State over Furman, I didn’t realize their physical advantage until I saw the games. In the NFL, I would not be surprised by how the team strengths matchup while owning both a clear understanding of team strengths and the line moves and wagering patterns that illuminate winning point spread plays.

Picking point spread sides purely by the numbers generates solid returns, but without a true appreciation of team strengths and weaknesses those presumed best selections can’t be delivered with the same level of maximum confidence.

Full season football clients get our NCAA and NBA Playoffs picks by text, it is an added benefit that isn’t sold separately because we do football first. If we had a bad run in basketball, like we did two years ago, the worst thing would be to lose football subscribers based on basketball plays.

Our wagering recommendation for the NCAA Basketball Tournament is equal amounts on both the first half score and final result. Over the first four days of this year’s action Qoxhi releases were 16-9 on final results, a solid 64% winning margin.

The first half results did not fare nearly as well, even the aforementioned game between Miami and their superiority over Drake didn’t have the first half result match the final winning result. In all, the first half record of 10-12-3 reduced a nearly 10% profit margin on opening account balances to a 6.1% profit margin.

Wagering on the first half in college basketball, and quarters in football, adds risk to a solid investment that can either enhance profits or reduce the bottom line. The first two years the Triple Play NFL plan was available online, it showed winning margins of 36% in 2019 and 39% the following season. Two years ago, the Triple Play strategy suffered a losing record, while rebounding in 2022 with their best year, returning a 75% profit margin over the entire 18 week regular season.

Winning final selections statistically more often wins the first half result too. The fact that the first half results in the opening week of NCAA Basketball Tournament play were negative could be viewed as an anomaly, and that would commonly be followed by a robust winning run.

If you want the NCAA Tournament for the remaining schedule, and all the NBA Playoff selections texted to you, sign up for the Qoxhi football season now.

Early Edge

by Dennis Ranahan

Art Rosenbaum worked at the San Francisco Chronicle for 60 years, 25 of those as sports editor. In 1981, he was ten years before his retirement and visiting me in my east bay office the first year I opened Qoxhi Picks.

A man that covered numerous Olympics and had been to every major sporting event was sitting in my Concord office. It was a friendship forged during my years with the Oakland Raiders. Rosenbaum had a wide range of interests, and one of them was the point spread side of National Football League games.

During our visit he told me of a handicapping service named “Volition.” They didn’t release a pick until the third week of the season, based on a theory that sides could be more accurately chosen after the teams revealed who they were in a couple weeks of regular season play.

I couldn’t have disagreed more.

The best time, I contended to Art, was early in a season when our collateral data was based on current strengths and the public was still backing last year’s results. I emphasized that enough to Art that he ended the subject with a smile, wave of his right hand, and the comment that he’d take my side on this matter.

Good call.

Four years ago, the Indianapolis Colts opened in San Diego against the Chargers as a six point underdog and our top pick of the week. The Colts lost the game, but pushed on the point spread, 30-24. That push is the worst result for a top pick in the first four weeks of the past four seasons. Fifteen consecutive point spread wins including ten underdogs that won straight up.

What I was counting on to gain an early season edge forty years ago is still what works today, but in 2023, we have so many more tools to access pertinent factors. I’m a realist, I’d bet against us never losing, but sure like our position on future success.

HEADLINE PLAY