A Hidden Edge in Week 18 to Capitalize on + Bets
There’s lots of talk about incentives being a big edge in Week 18 and it is… until every single person in the entire world knows about the incentives before the sportsbooks release lines.
What once was a big edge (and still might be) will undoubtedly start to dwindle in the coming years as sportsbooks become sharper and more aware.
When one edge fades away we must find another one. And we may have just stumbled across another week 18 edge that we can capitalize on for this year as well as the coming years.
I didn’t plan on publishing any studies this year, but felt inclined to put this one out here because I thought it was interesting (and also to reference in future years).
So what did we find? Let’s dive in.
Chaos is good
Week 18 is one of the most chaotic weeks in the season as teams are resting players at a much higher rate than any other week because of playoffs or just completely being out of contention.
Teams a lot of times will use this week as a glorified preseason to get some of their younger players more playing time or opportunities if they are eliminated.
This week allows us to capitalize exactly on this phenomenon.
Are Rookies better in Week 18 (formerly week 17)?
I went to go search to see if this theory rang true. If there were more opportunities for young players, would we see them have an uptick in production in this final week?
I really only looked at wide receivers here as running-back opportunities are very easy to predict coming into games.
For this study I went all the way back to 2013 and looked at rookie wide receiver production in weeks 12-16 (currently 13-17) and compared that on average to how they did in the final week of the season. Bear with me on the labels as the NFL adding an extra game makes this a little confusing, but just think of it as “the five games before the last week”.
I didn’t want to go too early into the season as we know it takes time for rookies to start earning more playing time as the season progresses. I felt this was a fair cutoff that allowed for a big enough sample.
I also filtered for all players drafted and to earn at least one target in the games in these weeks.
Rookie production in weeks 12-16 vs Week 17
There was a sample of 604 player games in this sample for weeks 12-16 and 143 in the final week.
We saw a 6.8% increase in production here in the final week of the year.
Seems interesting but is that enough to have an edge to bet on?
I then looked at games in which these rookies went for 80+ yards.
We see a 28% increase in 80-yard games in the final week of the season!
Filtering for draft position
Some of that info is interesting and seems actionable, but a decent chunk of that sample are the type of players that we won’t have the opportunity to bet on.
I wanted to get more of a profile of the type of players that we will bet on. Players drafted in the first three rounds of the NFL draft tend to make up a majority of the successes at wide receiver and also the rookies that get the most playing time than later picks.
This cut the sample to 357 games in Weeks 12-16 and 73 in the Week 17 sample.
Here were the results
This is a 13.6% increase in production in the final week for these players.
Here we see a 33.1% increase in these games! Certainly interesting and actionable for this final week.
I wanted to break it up a little more here into round one and then rounds two and three.
First Round Rookies
There were 121 games in the sample in weeks 12-16 and 24 in the last week sample.
An 11.5% increase for the first-round cohort.
Only a slight increase here and there’s a weird phenomenon at play. First of all, Odell Beckham is single-handedly making the Week 12-16 weeks high as he hit 80 yards in all five games (and then 185 in the final week).
Secondly, 16 of the 24 round-one rookies actually went under the average of 50 yards in the final week.
Considering there was only five of the 24 who had 80+ yard games I wanted to dive a little deeper and see if there were commonalities amongst these five.
Amongst these five they all had win totals of six or less heading into the final game. All these guys didn’t have much to play for and the team still fed them the ball.
Amongst all other Round 2 and 3 players to have 80+ yards the average win total was 9.4 (16 game season). I’m not sure how much weight we can hold to a five-person sample here, but it sure is interesting all these players played for bad teams.
The three main WRs to be in contention for rookie of the year in this sample were the following:
Odell Beckham
Justin Jefferson
Ja’Marr Chase
Chase only played a quarter in the last week to rest for playoffs, but had gone for 261 yards the previous week.
Beckham had 185 yards and Jefferson had 133 yards in their final game.
Jefferson ended up losing to Justin Herbert, but he broke the rookie record in the process and likely would’ve won the award in a majority of years.
Odell’s monster finish earned him these honors.
Now we have a few rookie WRs who fit this profile coming into the week:
Garrett Wilson
Chris Olave
Drake London
Jahan Dotson
All are currently on teams with six or seven wins right now with nothing to play for and are eliminated from playoff contention.
Olave and Wilson fall closest into that Odell/Jefferson comp. They obviously weren’t on that level as rookies, but both have been phenomenal nonetheless and are legit candidates for rookie of the year.
A monster game from one could easily propel them to winning the award and the teams could look to feed them this week. I’m going to be hammering both this week.
London and Dotson aren’t competing for the award, but can still finish the season strong and the teams could look to get them involved a lot in the final game.
Day Two Rookies
We get a bigger sample here with 236 in the Weeks 12-16 sample and 49 in Week 17.
We see a 15.1% increase in production in the last week of the season.
But most importantly - and most actionable - is that we see a 55% increase in upside games from this cohort in the final week of the season!
Hitting alternate lines on players that fit the bill seems like a strong move.
Some players such as:
Christian Watson
George Pickens
Alec Pierce
How to play this
I’m almost surely taking the full ladders on guys like Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave. They’re in a tight battle in the rookie of the year race and have both been outstanding this year.
London and Dotson could be fun plays as well depending on what their lines are at.
Alec Pierce and George Pickens are surely the best values at which to play alternate lines at this week.
They haven’t put out any Pierce lines yet, but I will keep a keen eye on those and hammer when they become available.
Christian Watson has a somewhat inflated line this week, but that’s mainly due to match up. I’m intrigued to take alts as well on him.