These days sports betting sites are popular among players. Most of the online casinos are now offering various sports to bet like cricket, baseball, hockey, races, football or soccer, golf and many others. Online casinos like 7 Reels casino, Rich Casino and many other such casinos offer sports betting. There are various types of bets on all of the sports to stake and gamble. Here let’s see and know defensive evaluation of football games in sports betting.
Most players watch games for entertainment, and the offense is the part of the game that’s most entertaining. When the betting punters evaluates football games, they tend to concentrate most of their efforts on the offensive side of the ball. But smart sports bettors know they need to evaluate the entire football game, and the defense is as important as the offense. It shows you how to tear apart every aspect of defensive football by team so you can make smart evaluations on upcoming games. If you want to be a profitable football bettor, you need to work harder than losing gamblers. Find here the points to evaluate the defensive side of football games in sports betting.
Points to Evaluate the Defensive side of football in Sports betting
1. Points per Game
The simplest way to start evaluating the defense of a football team is by tracking how many points per game they give up. This number is a good way to quickly compare defenses of two or more teams. Though this seem easy, but the raw numbers only give a small and incomplete picture of the overall performance of a team’s defense.
Also not every point a team gives up is allowed by the defense. Interception and fumble returns for touchdowns are given up by the offense, and punt and kickoff returns for touchdowns are given up by the coverage teams. The points given up when a defense starts with poor field position and how many points are given up with a big lead are also important considerations.
2. Yards per Game
Yards per game surrendered by each defense are the next thing to evaluate. Just like points per game, you have to dig deeper into the yards per game statistics to get a complete picture. A team with a strong offense tends to give up more yards per game defensively simply because the defense tends to be on the field more. The same often happens when a team has a poor offense.
3. Bend but don’t break defenses
The other thing to consider is that some defenses are “bend but don’t break” defenses. They tend to give up a great deal of yards in the middle of the field, but are able to clamp down when the opposing team gets close to the red zone. A “bend but don’t break” defense may give up a lot of yard and field goals, but they don’t give up many touchdowns. This type of defense does a good job of keeping their team in a game and giving their offense a chance to win the game with a big play or two. When you combine your evaluation of a defensive team’s points per game and yards per game, you have a solid way to compare two or more teams.
4. Average rushing yards and passing yards per play
Now you want to break up the yards per play into averages for rushing and passing. You use these numbers when evaluating a defense against a team that passes or runs more. A great defense is able to control both the passing and running game, but most defenses excel at one or the other. Sometimes the hardest games to handicap are the ones where one team has a great pass defense and the other has a great pass offense, or a great run defense is facing a great running offense.
When you evaluate average rushing yards and passing yards per attempt for the defense against the same numbers for the offense they’re facing, you can start to get a feel for how each team will perform. The results will usually be close to the average of each team’s prior numbers, but a dominant team on one side of the ball can completely shut down the other team. The reason average yards per play is more important than total yards is because it’s a more level playing field when evaluating games. You need to look at all statistics in the way that gives you the most realistic comparison.
5. Minutes per game
The average number of minutes played by each defense per game is important as well. Defenses that are forced to play more minutes are more likely to wear down toward the end of games. Teams that have offensive counterparts that eat up a lot of clock are kept fresher and are more able to keep at their top performance level. The teams that have to play more minutes also tend to have more injuries on defense. This is simply because playing tired and making more plays leads to greater chance of injury, but the end result is all that’s important.
Like most of the ways you evaluate defenses, you also need to compare the average defensive minutes against the average offensive minutes for the next opponent. Once again, the results are usually close to an average of the two numbers. While a few winning football bettors are able to just watch games and evaluate them for betting purposes, most of them rely on statistics. So you need to learn how to use as much math as possible when picking games.
6. The Turnovers
Turnovers are such an important part of the outcome of football games that they should be evaluated on their own. Every time a defense creates a turnover, they keep the other team from scoring, and either score or give their offense an opportunity to score.
This can create a swing as high as 14 points. Some teams are good at creating turnovers, and others aren’t. The important thing to know when evaluating games is which teams are likely to create a turnover, because a single turnover can be the difference between winning and losing. You can easily find plus/minus turnover numbers for teams, and you should use them when evaluating games, but also look at just the turnovers created by the defensive units.
When you evaluate them for every team in the league, you can see which teams are better at it than others. Just make sure that you understand how things work in statistics when one or two numbers are far outside the norm. When a number is far outside the norm, it doesn’t fit with the rest of your numbers.
7. Sacks and sack percentage
Teams that are able to sack the opposing quarterback more are better than those who can’t. This is common sense, but you need to fully understand what a sack does. Each sack eliminates a down and increases the number of yards needed for a first down. It also helps create better field position when the team is forced to punt.
But total sacks are only part of what you need be aware of. A better way to track sacks is to determine the percentage of times a defense is able to record a sack-per-pass attempt. This number gives a better way to compare two or more defenses. Sacks aren’t as important as turnovers created, but they’re close. A sack in an important situation can turn a game around just like a big turnover can.
8. Hurries and quarterback hits
Hurries and quarterback hits aren’t popular statistics, but every time a quarterback is hurried, it creates a situation where a mistake can be made. Also each hit a quarterback takes increases the chance of injury and fatigue.
Even if a team doesn’t get as many sacks as another team, if they can hurry and hit the quarterback a high percentage of the time, they can still be effective. Every time the defense forces a mistake, it helps their team win the game. Many interceptions are created by the quarterback being hurried. Track hits and hurries for each defense and also track them per pass attempt. When you track hits and hurries by pass attempt, it offers an accurate comparison from team to team. It also helps you predict how many are likely when a team is facing a team that tends to throw more or less than other teams.
9. Stops for loss
These are almost the same as sacks, but sports bettor mostly avoid them. They eliminate a down and add to the total yards needed for a first down. They also improve the field position on eventual punts. You can count them the same as sacks when evaluating games.
Track total stops for loss, the average yards lost on each stop, and the percentage of stop-for-loss plays per run play overall. A team that does a good job of getting a few stop-for-losses and sacks each game can be a powerful defensive unit, even if they don’t do as well as other defenses in other categories. Every stop for loss and sack puts additional pressure on the opposing offense, which can lead to more mistakes and turnovers.
10. Opponent average starting field position
It’s important to know the average starting field position the team’s defense begins drives on. This is created by the offense, kick-off team, and punt team, but it helps evaluate the true effectiveness of a defense. A team that constantly has to try to stop the opposing offense on a short field is at a distinct disadvantage to a team that starts with the opposing team deep in their own territory.
11. Football offenses are based on timing and precision blocking and throwing
The more offensive plays a team must take, the higher the chances of a mistake. Mistakes made by offenses help the defense. Of course, the more plays the defense is forced to play, the more tired they get. This often balances out over the course of a game and season, but you can’t assume that this is always the case. If you want to be a winning football bettor, you need to look for every small advantage you can find. When you evaluate defenses, you need to know everything you possibly can about them to make accurate predictions. The opponent’s average starting field position won’t tell you much by itself, but when you incorporate it with your other evaluation methods, it helps you use the entire picture.
You can evaluate the defensive results in football based on the competition. A team that has played a series of weak offense teams will have better defensive statistics than should be expected against better teams.
12. Coordinators
You should consider the defensive coordinators and sometimes the other defensive coaches in each matchup. The tendencies of defensive coordinators can offer the final thing you need to know to make a profitable pick, especially in a game with a tight line. If you find yourself thinking about how hard it is to thoroughly evaluate the defensive side of the ball in football, you’re right. But this is a good thing if you want to be a winning sports bettor, because most people are too lazy to do what they need to do to become winners.
Synopsis
All said above about defensive evaluation of football games in sports betting, you now know everything you need to know to make profitable wagers against football sports betting. (source: various football analysis sites)
