I have reviewed the file. The AMBUSH, Week 4. Twelve games. One centerpiece. Five bets, two stacks, a touchdown parlay. The contest export is in. I know what the field actually rostered.
The finding. Mr. Renner named Broncos at 49ers the game of the week and built the card through it. It finished 24-14. Thirty-eight points against a 48.5 total. He said the field would be on McCaffrey, Chase Brown, Henry and Cook, so he started with the rookie. The rookie was the field. Jeremiyah Love went out at 31.31% and returned 6.5 points. Then he faded the WR1 and the WR4.
Somewhere this morning a tout who published fifty plays is cropping a screenshot of the two that landed. Here, every call goes on the record. That is the difference. It is the only one.
CONFIRMED
KENNETH WALKER III ($8200 – KC)
22-177-2 on the ground, 33.9 DK points, the RB2 on the slate at 12.87% ownership. He wrote that the Chiefs game probably ran through the backfield. It did. The game went over, 57 points on a 47.5 total. Correct read. He then built the Chiefs stack without him. Half-credit.
C.J. STROUD ($5700 – HOU)
347 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions. 26.08 DK points, QB4, at 6.49% real ownership. He called it the Lawrence pivot. Lawrence, the most-owned quarterback at 18.28%, scored 13.08. Our model had Stroud QB2. Agreement, and it paid.
BROCK BOWERS ($6900 – LV) and GEORGE KITTLE ($5100 – SF)
Bowers: 6-86-1 on 11 targets, 20.6 points, TE2. Kittle: 4-70-1, 17.0, TE3, at 17.42%. “Kittle scores.” Kittle scored. Isaiah Likely added 13.6, TE8. The tight end room was the best room on the card.
PATRIOTS +7
New England won 29-26. Not a cover. A win. He said seven was a lot. It was. The Bureau’s Mitch Deacon had the Patriots on the moneyline as well, and it cashed.
via GIPHY
Credit where it is owed: his Bills read was right, and his fade of James Cook III was right. Cook scored 16.3 at $7400. The stated premise, 27% owned, was 7.62% in reality. The fade worked. The premise did not exist.
REJECTED
THE BRONCOS STACK (Nix, Sutton, Engram) — process
Bo Nix: 25 of 42, 214 yards, one touchdown, 13.56 points. Courtland Sutton: 1-4 on six targets, 1.4 points. Evan Engram: 1-6, 1.6 points. Three stack pieces, two of them favorite plays, 16.56 points combined. The case was a clean pocket. It did not appear in the box score. Our model had Sutton WR25 and Engram TE22. He wrote that Sutton was “due.” Due is not a projection. Due is a feeling.
JEREMIYAH LOVE ($5800 – ARI) — process, then variance
14-63, 6.5 points. Our model had him RB4, so the play was defensible. The framing was not. He set Love up as the way off the crowd, and Love was the third most-owned player on the slate at 31.31%. That is a misread of the field, not just the player.
PARKER WASHINGTON ($6500 – JAX) — variance on a chalk anchor
One catch, seven yards, 2.0 points, at 27.26%. An anchor of his builds. The game went under, as he predicted. The one Jaguar he wanted was the one who vanished.
THE FADES: CeeDee Lamb and Puka Nacua — one process, one variance
Lamb: 17-189-1 on 21 targets. 44.3 points. WR1 on the slate by 10.5. The stated reason was trust in a Houston pass defense he called not up to par in the same sentence. Our model had Lamb WR7. Process error of the week. Cowboys at Texans was the highest-scoring game on the slate, 64 points, and he went in with Stroud and David Montgomery. Montgomery scored 4.3. Javonte Williams scored 31.3, at 1.5% owned.
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Nacua: 9-125, plus a rushing touchdown, 30.7, WR4. The model agreed with him: WR21, lowest GPP rating over $7000, as he wrote. Wrong on the numbers. Variance.
The rest
Makai Lemon 5.7. Dontayvion Wicks 4.8 at 21.31%. Rashee Rice does not appear in the box score: zero. Travis Kelce 2-15, 3.5. Mack Hollins, “he scores, I’m calling it”: 3-53, 8.3, no score. Omarion Hampton found the end zone once, 13.3 points, at 0.37%. Not two, and the Chargers lost. The Chase Brown fade: 19.1 at 22.84%, RB8. Neutral. Defenses held: Cardinals at least 9.0, DST3; Vikings at least 8.0, DST4, though at $4000 the price ate the margin.
ANOMALY
He called Chiefs at Raiders the chalk game. It was not: Mahomes 4.53%, Kelce 8.59%, Rice 7.12%. It delivered 57 points, to Walker, to Tyquan Thornton, a receiver our model did not rate at all, 5-111-2 at $3400 for 31.1 at 0.65% owned, and to Kirk Cousins, 365 yards and 26.6 points, rated QB22. Mr. Renner wrote that Cousins had thrown three touchdowns in every game. Cousins outscored every quarterback on the card, Stroud included. He saw it. He wrote the sentence. He did not play it.
SYSTEM FAILURE
The field failed first, and it failed together. The eight most-owned players on the slate averaged 12.9 DK points. The eight best scores averaged 7.1% ownership. McCaffrey at 32.5% scored 16.0. Aaron Jones at 31.62% scored 16.8. Love, 6.5. Jordan Addison at 27.71%, 9.1. Washington, 2.0. Ja’Marr Chase at 21.62%, 5.7. The chalk was a collective error.
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The chart is the whole story: where the money sat, and where the points went. He played McCaffrey, Love and Washington from the busted chalk. He faded Lamb and Nacua from the winners. He was wrong with the field, and then he was wrong alone. That is two separate entries in the file.
The one chalk piece that paid, Hockenson at 24.54% for 13-119 and 27.9 points, the TE1 on the slate at $3300, he listed under ALSO LIKE and wrote that he was not sure he trusted it. Our model’s TE1. Noted.
THE MODEL
Spearman rho, rating vs actual: QB 0.395 (GPP rating 0.154), RB 0.781, WR 0.634, TE 0.597. Running backs sorted cleanly. The quarterback GPP rating was close to noise.
Top-rated busts: Trevor Lawrence QB1, 13.08. Aaron Jones RB1, 16.8. D’Andre Swift RB2, 8.4. Love RB4, 6.5. Washington WR2, 2.0. George Pickens WR3, 9.5. Chase WR5, 5.7. Garrett Wilson WR6, 5.7. Top-rated hits: Stroud QB2, 26.08. Burrow QB3, 28.72. Kyren Williams RB6, 36.7, the RB1 on the slate. Zay Flowers WR1, 28.8. Hockenson TE1, 27.9.
Missed scorers: Thornton unrated, 31.1. Keon Coleman WR65, 26.6. Nico Collins WR30, 33.8. Kyle Monangai RB22, 31.0. Ollie Gordon II RB41, 21.0. Cousins QB22, 26.6. Michael Mayer TE25, 16.2.
Where Mr. Renner left the model: Lamb fade (model WR7), loss. Sutton (WR25) and Engram (TE22), loss. Hampton (RB27), 13.3, neutral. Bowers (TE7) over Hockenson (TE1): good, but worse at twice the price. Stayed with it: Stroud, Walker, Kittle, Michael Wilson (WR4, 16.5). Where they disagreed, the model was right more often. It also had Love, Washington and Lawrence near the top, the same busts the field ate.
Ownership projection: mean absolute error 1.9 points, bias -0.16. The misses were at the top. We projected Love at 13.5% (real 31.31%), Jones 15.9% (31.62%), Addison 13.07% (27.71%), Wicks 7.69% (21.31%), Hockenson 11.15% (24.54%). We had Cook at 20.93% (7.62%), Henry 23.92% (12.69%), Nacua 24.11% (13.46%). We undercounted the chalk that busted. Our error, not Mr. Renner’s.
THE BETS
- Chargers ML: lost, 23-30.
- Patriots +7: won. Patriots won outright, 29-26.
- Broncos / 49ers OVER 48.5: lost. 38 total.
- Rams / Eagles OVER 43.5: won. 44 total, by half a point. The Bureau’s Bud Hapworth had the same number and the same result.
- Colts / Commanders OVER 47.5: lost, per the Bureau’s grade on the identical bet.
2-3. The anytime touchdown parlay: Hampton, McCaffrey and Kittle scored; Hollins and Sutton did not. Three of five is zero of one. The over in his own game of the week missed by the widest margin.
The Bureau: Bud Hapworth went 5-4 on totals, including both sides of Falcons at Saints, under 47.5 and over 48.5, a hedge, not a read. A team that once led a Super Bowl 28-3 does invite hedging. Mitch Deacon went 2-6 on moneyline dogs, hitting Dallas and New England. Paulie Hornsby went 9-9 on unders.
THE VERDICT
Grade: D
The top game went under by ten and a half. Four of five favorite plays scored 13.56 or less. Both receiver fades finished top four at the position. The tight ends, Stroud, Walker and the Patriots are why this is not an F.
Carry forward: when you call a player the escape from the chalk, check the real ownership. Do not fade a model top-ten receiver on trust in a defense you have already called soft. And when you write the Cousins sentence, play the Cousins sentence.
I had McCaffrey too, Mr. Renner. Thirty-two percent of us did. The slate resolved the way it was always going to. The file is closed until Sunday.