Week 2, Settled

The week the quarterbacks went down

Before the numbers, the week. Caleb Williams was carted off in the fourth quarter in Chicago. Jayden Daniels dislocated his elbow in the second quarter in Dallas. Jaxson Dart’s knee gave out in the first quarter on Monday night and his season is over. Cooper Rush, already starting for Michael Penix, left Atlanta’s game in the third. Kyler Murray and Sam Darnold never started at all, so Carson Wentz and Drew Lock did. Five of the sixteen games changed quarterback during the week or during the game, and 32 of our 79 plays sat in those games.

Every prop in those offenses was priced against a lineup that did not finish the game, and the market had no more warning than we did. That is the backdrop for everything below, and it is why we would read this week as one data point rather than a verdict.

Worth noting: the disrupted games were the steadier half of our week. The model re‑prices an offense around whoever is under center and did not overreact when the change came, and two of the five — Atlanta and Dallas — finished ahead. The larger part of the week’s total came from the calmer games, and from one market in particular, which is where the rest of this page goes.

Where the week actually went

Five markets became published plays. Two of them kept paying: passing touchdowns went 3–1 and rush attempts 2–0, which puts passing touchdowns at 7–2 across the season so far. Receptions, the market that carried Week 1, went 23–38–1 and accounts for most of the week’s total.

Inside receptions the split is the story. Unders went 17–27 for −5.62u; overs went 6–11–1 for −7.61u, mostly plus‑money overs on secondary receivers (the one void is DJ Moore, who left Thursday’s game in the first quarter). Looking across those picks after the fact, a striking number of them carried the same probability — the model was, in effect, making one call and printing it many times, and the ranking between them was being decided by the price rather than by anything it knew about the player. We found that, and it is the first thing that changed for Week 3.

Anytime touchdown, sized the way we said

Week 1’s review promised the anytime‑touchdown allocation would shrink to half a unit with a full unit reserved for the rare standout. It did. The seven anytime‑touchdown plays this week went 0–7, and cost 3.50u — a poor run, at a stake that made it survivable. Under Week 1’s sizing the same seven picks would have cost more than twice that. This is what a rule is for.

Tiers and days

Neither tier cleared its own break‑even this week, and unlike Week 1 the higher tier did not separate from the lower one. Thursday had one loss and one void, Sunday carried the volume, and Monday’s late card went 2–6 in a game the Giants played almost entirely with their backup after Jaxson Dart left in the first quarter.

What is different in Week 3

Two weeks is a short record, so the changes below are the ones the record already supports, not a rebuild.

Every play, all 79

Every play, ordered by game day, at the stake printed on the card at the time — 0.5 to 2.5 units, set by the tier as it stood in Week 2. Nothing here is selected after the fact: this is the same list that was live before kickoff. A void is a play that never truly settled — the player left injured before the game was decided — and it returns the stake.

Swipe the table sideways for price, result and units.