Tail Outcomes: Commanders Week 5 Bets; Browns Unlikely To Slow Jayden Daniels Down

A showdown featuring rookie phenom quarterback Jayden Daniels and the Commanders looms against the struggling Deshaun Watson and the Browns. One of the central questions before placing any Browns vs. Commanders bets lies in how much to price in-season performance and how much to cling to previous years priors. 

The goal of this weekly column is to filter through much of the noise of stats and data to highlight those stats that matter as a framework for betting that betting apps might not capture well. As always in my work, I will try to orient my research towards tail outcomes, which are more difficult for sports betting sites to price. These tail outcomes orient risk on a bettor’s side while not needing to win your NFL picks more than half the time in order to profit.

NFL Week 5 Alternate Spreads: Commanders Bets vs. Browns

Click on the odds in the table to bet now. Read on for all the reasons why I do not believe the Commanders’ price is too high yet in this particular matchup.

Commanders vs. Browns By EPA Per Play

Here we have the EPA tiers courtesy of Ben Baldwin, showing that from a production standpoint, the Browns have been an average defense and the second-worst offense, while Washington’s offense has been, by far, the best in the NFL and is currently one of the two worst defenses in the NFL. 

Courtesy of PFF’s Timo Riske, we can see a similar story with Washington the best on offense along with Cleveland as a bottom offense and middling defense.

Is the Washington Commanders Offense for Real?

These charts–or any of the same kind–would suggest that Washington is mispriced as only around two-point favorites when accounting for home field. But we know better than to simply look at four weeks of production and bet accordingly. We should instead view that as a framework from which to do further analysis. 

Any way you slice it, even looking outside of production metrics, and this Washington offense has been dominant. On plays where there is no disruption, or a good measure of plays where the QB can “stay within the system and scheme” Daniels has been terrific. 

It is not only that Daniels has one of the highest EPAs in the NFL on these plays, but looking at some of the process metrics reveals an even better story.

Jayden Daniels by “Destroy Rate”

Destroy Rate looks at plays when there is no disruption and tracks if a QB nukes a play by either:

1. taking a sack
2. scrambling for negative expectancy
3. making a throw to a non-open receiver.

Daniels has by far the lowest destroy rate indicating that he is rarely making mistakes on these scheme plays and his production is likely no fluke. 

Jayden Daniels by “Create Rate”

Daniels has also been among the best at the NFL in “creating,” defined as either engineering a throw to an open receiver or scrambling for positive expectancy. And let us not lose sight of the rate of disruption which is also one of the lowest in the NFL. That is likely a function of good processing and scheme.

As one of the stable week-to-week metrics, there is little reason to think that will change especially for week 5 against the Browns. 

Commanders Offensive Line Run Blocking Well

With the mobility of Daniels, the rushing attack has been clicking with one of the highest rates of perfectly blocked runs in the NFL to go along with a team that is winning after contact as well.

Commanders Offense Conclusions

No matter how you slice it, even with process-oriented stats for both the run and pass games, it reveals that this is a truly dominant offense. While they might not be able to sustain this exact level of dominance, there is little reason to doubt that it is directionally correct and this team has the ceiling of the best offense in the NFL– the tail outcomes we are hunting for in alternate spread bets.

So let’s touch a bit on this matchup having established the case for the Washington offense. Let’s look to the Washington pass offense against the Browns coverage unit.

Browns Defense Negative Regression

“Perfect Coverage” refers to plays in which no coverage player makes a mistake. Cleveland is not looking good.

Washington so far this season, like most offensive metrics we’ve seen, has done a tremendous job forcing coverage mistakes, doing so at the third highest rate of any team in the NFL. And this is the precise spot where Cleveland has been vulnerable with the secod-worst perfect coverage rate in the NFL. 

Considering the low rate of perfect coverage, it follows that the Browns have been one of the worst teams at causing disruption, which means there should be a very large sample of non-disturbed dropbacks for Washingnton where they have averaged close to 0.5 EPA per play.

Deshaun Watson & Browns Offensive Line Failing

On the flipside, we can see that Browns have faced the most disruption of any team in the NFL by a wide margin.

Watson invites disruption pressure at the fifth-highest rate in NFL. His offensive line allows the second-highest rate of quick pressure. Kevin Stefanski’s offense barely forces coverage mistakes.

The Browns are not the type of offense who can take advantage of weakness in the Washington defense. No offense can be successful playing more than half the snaps under disruption and for the Browns it appears more a function of their own doing than extremely difficult matchups. 

Alternate Spreads To Consider For Browns Vs. Commanders Bets

I’ll be eyeing -5.5 as well as the -9.5 and -13.5 here for Commanders bets.