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Today, I’ll be projecting the expected yards for Ben Roethlisberger tonight against the Baltimore Ravens. Roethlisberger is one of four quarterbacks (Joe Flacco, Patrick Mahomes, Case Keenum) in the “Awesemo.com Preswnts: $1,000,000 Perfect Line Bonus + $5,000GTD – The Rocket Launcher ($1,500 to 1st!)“.
Your PlayLine predictions are scored according to the chart below. It’s really simple. The closer your PlayLine is to the athlete’s actual performance, the more points you get. The more points you get, the better your chances of winning!
You will receive PlayLine points each time the featured athlete registers a stat that you predicted will occur. Once the athlete’s actual stat total in a particular category goes over your prediction, you will no longer receive additional per stat PlayLine points.
Ben Roethlisberger
For those of you that have checked out our previous PlayLine articles for basketball and/or baseball, you’ll know that we like to start out projections with a baseline. For the NFL, we’re only looking at one stat: passing yards. To start, I grabbed Roethlisberger’s game logs from Pro Football Reference. I used all of 2017, plus his three games from 2018, to form my base. Over 18 games, Roethlisberger had the following rates:
Average: 300 yards
Standard Deviation: 77 yards
Now, because of the small sample, I’m not really getting a ton out of these numbers. Based on our previous suggestions, I would advocate projecting Roethlisberger between 145 and 450 yards. Clearly, that’s not helpful and anyone can do that. I do think that the average is a good place to start, though. Following up on that, it looks like a relatively nice night in Pittsburgh. The current weather report shows partly cloudy skies, light wind and a 68 degree temperature. I see nothing in the weather that would lead me to think Ben couldn’t exceed his average.
What could hamper him, however, is the Baltimore Ravens defense. Through three games, the Ravens have given up just 508 passing yards, with a net yards per attempt of 4.3. I would be nervous about those numbers, but the Vegas total for this game is 51 points. That’s the third highest total of all Sunday games. With a total that high, it makes me lean towards a higher passing output for Ben.
Using this information, I want to come in above his average, but not significantly so. I’m thinking something in the 350-375 yard range fits from a statistical perspective and from a logic perspective. If you’re less of a believer in the Steelers, I’d recommend the low end. If you’re not a huge advocate of the Ravens defense, you can comfortably lean towards the higher end.
