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Morning Coffee: Mason, Niners spoil Rodgers’ return
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It’s called the “Superstar Theory”.
That sports betting term refers to the tendency of bettors to disproportionately regard the impact that high-profile, elite athletes will have on the outcome of their wagers.
That concept also applies to the perceived negative impact of the absence of star players.
Let’s use Monday Night Football as an example.
The San Francisco 49ers opened -6.5 for their Week 1 showdown against the New York Jets at FanDuel back in the spring.
As of early Monday evening, the 49ers were -4.5.
Then came the breaking news that star running back Christian McCaffrey was officially inactive due to injury.
Fantasy managers that spent pick 1.01 on McCaffrey panicked as they hurried to find any replacement possible on the wire for the late scratch.
Side note: I’ll take a victory lap for pointing out the risk associated with spending pick 1.01 on CMC all offseason.
Meanwhile, the TSN newsroom scrambled to react to the breaking news with Sportscentre live on the air.
How did the traders at FanDuel respond to the news?
The spread for Monday Night Football ticked down a full point from San Francisco -4.5 to -3.5 at FanDuel.
Keep in mind, it had already touched 3.5 earlier in the day, before creeping back up to 4.5 thanks to the fact that 60 per cent of the spread bets at FanDuel were on the Niners to cover.
McCaffrey is the highest paid running back in the NFL and he was the consensus 1.01 draft pick in fantasy football league drafts.
Still, his absence had a minimal impact on the closing line for Monday Night Football.
The public perception of McCaffrey’s unavailability was very different from its actual influence on the outcome.
In the end, the 49ers didn’t even miss him.
This is the Morning Coffee for Tuesday September 10th, 2024.
Mason, Niners Spoil Rodgers’ Return On Monday Night Football
None of us that bet on Monday Night Football will ever forget the Jordan Mason game.
The 49ers didn’t have their superstar running back McCaffrey available.
Their star receiver Brandon Aiyuk was held to two catches.
Ultimately, none of that even mattered.
Mason repeatedly pummeled the Jets defence for 152 total yards and a touchdown in a 32-19 win.
His 147 rushing yards were the fourth-most all-time in a season opener by an undrafted player.
It’s a good thing that Mason had plenty of notice that he wasn’t going to start, because he was certainly ready to go.
San Francisco’s offensive line was instrumental in opening holes for Mason to gash the New York defence.
94 of Mason’s 147 rushing yards came before contact.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan dialed up one run play after another.
Mason’s 28 rushing attempts were the most ever by a 49ers’ player under Shanahan.
When San Francisco didn’t run the ball, Brock Purdy picked the Jets apart while managing eight consecutive scoring drives.
That was the longest streak of consecutive scoring drives by the 49ers within a game in more than four decades.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco defence shut down the New York rushing attack.
Breece Hall averaged 2.5 yards per carry in the first half.
Fortunately for fantasy managers, he did find the end zone.
Aaron Rodgers, who went exactly 364 days between starts, went 13-of-21 for 167 yards and a touchdown.
On the four snaps when Rodgers faced pressure, he went 0-for-3 with a sack.
The good news is that he finished the game healthy and likely won’t face many more defences that as good as the 49ers.
Thanks in large part to the dominance of the Niners ground game and the strength of their run defence, the Jets only had the football for 21:20 of game time.
That’s the lowest time of possession by a Rodgers-led team in any start in his entire career.
San Francisco snapped a string of seven straight ATS losses at home with the 13-point win.
Meanwhile, New York fell to 20-32 ATS under head coach Robert Saleh – the second-worst ATS record in the NFL under that span.
Fortunately for yours truly, Tyrod Taylor found Garrett Wilson for an eight-yard completion late in the game to cash the FanDuel Best Bet that I gave out in this column on Monday morning.
While we ultimately got there, I’m still not over it all went down.
I also had the Jets +4.5 as a recommended play in this column a couple of weeks ago – perhaps falling victim to the Superstar Theory myself in more ways than one.
The absence of McCaffrey and limited contribution from Aiyuk didn’t matter at all in the outcome of this game.
The 49ers still managed to run the football at will with Mason, while their defence shut down Hall and made the Jets offence one-dimensional.
With or without Rodgers at quarterback, New York will not win many games if it can’t establish a strong ground game and at least slow down the opposing rushing attack moving forward.
New York +4.5 was a bad read and I own it.
Ultimately, I won’t be satisfied with a 4-1 run with the FanDuel Best Bets for Sunday and Monday to cap off a winning Week 1 of the NFL season.
Hopefully, we can avoid a similar mistake next week.
Beware of the Superstar Theory.
We’re on to Week 2 of the NFL season.