Veterans report to Berea, Ohio, on Tuesday for the start of Cleveland Browns training camp. There are still a lot of unknowns, including whether the Browns roster full of young talent will translate to victories, who will start at quarterback, what is next for Dawand Jones, and who will fill out the last two starting offensive line spots.
Before we get answers to all of that, we are looking forward to training camp highlights and who the camp hero fighting for a roster spot will be for Cleveland this
year.
As of now, betting line predictions for the Browns are very low. With a new head coach, Myles Garrett out in Los Angeles (and cutting another tie to Cleveland), and another QB competition, there are a lot of reasons to be down on the Browns win total this year…
… but this low?
A little bit about DVOA, an analytical tool I use every year for national playoff prediction pieces for SB Nation:
FTN’s DVOA is a metric that breaks down the quality of play compared to the league average while adjusting for the strength of the opponents being played. DVOA is one of a couple of catch-all analytics measures that help us understand the beautiful game of football better.
In their playoff prediction data, Cleveland is ranked worse than they were at the end of last year, based on DVOA, when they were 30th in the NFL, ahead of the Las Vegas Raiders and New York Jets.
Compared to the DVOA model, FanDuel has the Browns at +700 to make the playoffs, better than three teams, including the Arizona Cardinals, who are a league-worst +2000. As seen above, the Cardinals don’t even make the list, and Cleveland’s odds are half that of any other team.
A wide gap between what the analytics data says and what a major sports betting book has the odds.
How many teams do you think the Browns should be ahead of in playoff projections? Do you think being ranked in the bottom 5 is fair before training camp starts, or should their young talent have them much higher?
Share your thoughts with us below in the comment section
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