BetIQ Daily: Quarterbacks and Season Win Totals in 2021 and a Super Bowl Player Prop

Friday's BetIQ takes a look at how teams with different starting quarterbacks turned out in 2021, and dishes out an early Super Bowl prop.

Joe Burrow and the Bengals are one of the biggest surprises of the year (Photo by Ian Johnson/Icon Sportswire)

BetIQ is getting ready for the Super Bowl today by looking back at some win total performances and how the QB factors turned out. We also look at some Super Bowl props, highlight our projections, and give out an early prop we like.

Quarterbacks and Over/Under Win Totals in 2021

Back in May, we did a lot of NFL win total research, and we wrote this article on the projected starting QB status and win total results. The TL;DR version is that the following teams tended to go over based on projected QB status:

  • Not primary starter the previous year, but was on roster.
  • Primary starter the previous year, but missed at least five starts.
  • Rookie QB.

And the following teams tended to go under based on projected QB status:

  • QB acquired via free-agent signing or trade.
  • Primary starter the previous year, started at least 12 games.

That was written before this season, so here’s an update on the results from 2021:

  • Teams with a new veteran QB went 1-4-2 against the over/under, with only Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams being an over.
  • Teams with a returning QB who played in at least 12 games the year before went 6-9 against the over/under.
  • As a result, playing the under on the two categories that historically have under leans would have gone 13-7-2 in 2021.
  • Rookies were the one underperforming category among the over leans, going 1-3 against the win total, with only New England going over.
  • Teams with a QB returning in 2021 who missed a lot of starts the year before produced two of the biggest values: the Dallas Cowboys with Dak Prescott and Cincinnati Bengals with Joe Burrow.
  • Overall, if you had played the leans based only on QB status, you would have gone 17-11-4 against the Vegas preseason win total.

Keep this in mind as we head toward an offseason where there could be plenty of QB movement and where some potential returning starting QBs missed a bunch of games in 2021.

Caesars Releases “Full-Length” Super Bowl Props

Caesars has released its Super Bowl props, which you can access here. Just make sure you have plenty of time available, because there are 16 pages (!) worth of props there.

We haven’t even gotten all the way through it, but we will be looking through those and more as we prepare our favorite prop bets for the Super Bowl.

Super Bowl Player Stat Projections

Speaking of props, we released our passing stat projections and rushing/receiving stat projections for skill-position players for the Bengals and Rams.

You can see all of our Super Bowl content on our Super Bowl page.

Super Bowl Prop: Joe Mixon to Score a TD

We’ll have a full breakdown of Super Bowl props early next week, but we’ll throw out an early one today based on our player projections: Joe Mixon (+102) to score a TD.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the rationale why:

  • We project Mixon to have a 68 percent chance of scoring a TD;
  • Mixon is the Bengals’ feature back and has accounted for 14 of 17 Cincinnati rushing touchdowns;
  • He has scored in 12 of 19 games this year.
  • In the past 12 Super Bowls, nine of the 13 backs who had more than 200 regular-season rushing attempts scored a TD.
  • The Rams have allowed more rushing touchdowns (21) than receiving touchdowns (20) this year.
  • Mixon is also a versatile back who has some value and potential to score in the red zone as a receiver.

Top Pick Performance Trends

Our algorithmic models use over a decade of data to predict every game across five sports.

As of post time, here are some highlights of prediction performance from our primary Ensemble Forecast model this season for playable-rated picks (52.5% confidence or better) against game-day betting lines:

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