Analyst Next Door - NFL

Data&Analytics Lead by day, NFL nerd by night.
Simple charts, weird stats, bad jokes, honest, model-backed picks.
Public track record.
Mondays: how wrong was I?

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

Hi, I’m the Analyst Next Door 👋

I work with data for a living, NFL is my hobby, and this account is where the two meet.

I built the model for fun. Then it got a little out of hand. 😂

The charts are simple.
The model behind them definitely isn’t.

Most predictions come from a 700+ variable model with dynamic feature selection, built to dig through way more information than I could ever reasonably put on a chart.

What to expect:

📊 Big Analysis — games, players & teams, broken down with real play-by-play data.

🎰 Lottery — bold player claims backed by the model, with the receipts to follow.

🏈 Fantasy Takes — waiver targets, trade ideas and players I’m keeping an eye on.

🧠 Model Insights & Weird Stats — the stuff that makes me go “wait, really?”

Big analysis every Saturday.

🐈 And every Monday, the cat checks how wrong I was.

No jargon walls. No hot takes without numbers.

The analysis is complicated. I’ll try to make it simple.

Welcome to the neighborhood. 🫡

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

Might be a hot take, but the best team in football loses on Sunday.

And the funny part is that my own numbers can't agree on it. My EPA power rankings have SF #1 by a mile. Their offense is at +0.29 EPA per play, nearly a full 0.10 clear of #2 Jacksonville. Seattle's offense sits 14th.

But my game model still makes Seattle a 4-point favorite. 62% to win, 25.8 to 21.8. The market has SEA -3, so we're not even far apart.

So why does the model fade the 4-0 team?

Home field, for one. Then the injuries: Nick Bosa is out, and so are Juszczyk, Sigle and James Thompson Jr. Seattle's list is a lot shorter. And Purdy is running hot. He's at 8.3 TDs on volume that says 4.6. That's great until it stops.

I ran 100,000 sims off the model's projection and its actual error size. Seattle wins 63 of them. Almost half of them end as one-score games, so nobody should feel safe here.

My 4 claims:

1. Seattle wins: 62%
Home team, healthier roster, and SF's 4-0 has a bit of TD luck baked in.

2. JSN 6+ catches: 70%
He saw 42 targets in 4 games. His 6 TDs vs 2.1 expected is the lucky part, so I'm betting the volume, not the TDs. The model has him at 7.0 catches.

3. McCaffrey 5+ catches: 77%
Seattle gives up the 2nd-fewest fantasy points to WRs in the league. When the outside throws get harder, the ball goes to CMC. Model: 6.4 catches.

4. Bold one: SF held under 20 points: 46%
They're averaging 30.5 a game. The model projects 21.8. Betting against the #1 offense is a terrible idea most weeks. This is the week I'm doing it anyway.

Couple of honest notes. The model is a GBM, and on 121 out-of-sample games it was only slightly better than my simple baseline (13.2 vs 13.5 points of error).

Could Purdy just throw for 300 and make me look stupid? Absolutely. SF hasn't allowed a single sack all season.

But I'm taking Seattle. The cat already backtested it and went back to sleep, which I'm choosing to read as confidence. 🐱

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

How wrong was I on TNF? Pretty wrong 😅

I said Dallas wins and Dak stays under 289.5. Tampa won 24-16 and Dak threw for 316. Two calls, both on the wrong side.

The spread: base model Dallas -4.6, with the full QB adjustment -7.8, market -8 to -8.5. Everyone agreed. Tampa won by 8. When the model and the market miss together by 16 points, there was no hidden edge to find. Still a miss.

Dak went 24/42 for 316 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT. My under logic was "comfortable Dallas win, nobody needs 300." Instead Dallas trailed 24-10 in the 4th and Dak threw 42 times. The script flipped and volume beat everything. The model's 10-90% range was 153 to 446, so 316 sat comfortably inside it. My lean was just the wrong side of a coin flip.

I also wrote "welcome to the NFL, kid" about Jalon Daniels. He went 19/25 for 189 yards and a TD and got his first win. The kid welcomed himself 🫡

The real miss was the other side of the ball. My whole post was Dallas offense vs Tampa defense. Meanwhile Tampa ran for 241 yards, and Bucky Irving had 165 on 21 carries with 2 TDs. I never looked at the Dallas run defense. Lesson logged.

Then the stuff no model sees: Lamb left early with a quad injury (2 catches, 9 yards, one week after catching 17), and Dallas turned it over 3 times.

The one number that aged OK: the model had the total at 47.1, a hair under the market's 47.5. The game finished at 40. I didn't even post it, so it doesn't count 😂

Wrong side, wrong script, and I only analyzed half the matchup. The cat took the under too, so at least we lost together 🐱

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@DrJesseMorse so I start DJ Moore to exit after -0.1 points. AGAIN

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@PFF the same old cowboys again, offense can put up 50 points and still losing

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@PFF_Fantasy sell high on the guy with 80 carries, 28 targets and 7 TDs in 4 games? 😂

yes, 4.4 yards per carry is boring. but Detroit also gave him every single carry inside the 10 this year. I'll keep my boring RB1, thanks.

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@TalkinGiants @JordanRaanan Skattebo trying to cheer him up:

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@PlayBracco the Texans is not good, but defo not 0-4 bad

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@PolymarketBlitz Wicks is my available player

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@NFL I had a question last week about whether this offense can be worse. Well...

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@SleeperNFL Sutton won’t get hurt at least

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@NFL_DovKleiman I’m not a professional, but it’s might be AI

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@NFL my fantasy team:

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

🤯 One stat that looks fake but isn't:

The 49ers have played four games and Brock Purdy has been sacked zero times.

Not "barely any". Zero. 0.0 sacks allowed in Weeks 1-4.

The last team to open a season with four straight sack-free games was the 2005 Colts. That's 21 years ago.

And game 4 wasn't against some sleepy pass rush. It was Denver, the team that has led the NFL in sacks since the start of 2024. Niners won 24-14, Purdy went 19/30 for 218 yards and 2 TDs, and his jersey stayed clean.

My cat backtested this and asked me to rerun the query. I did. Still zero. 😂

Now the honest part. Four games is a tiny sample, and sacks are noisy. A quick passing game can hide a lot, and one ugly Sunday ends the streak. Next up is Seattle on the road.

I don't think this lasts all season. But four clean games, including Denver, isn't luck.

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@JackPlusEV @NFLonCBS you give me the same vibe as a stay at home MLM mom promising financial freedom if you just buy into her system😂
get a job, kid

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@GoatedLee @SleeperHQ feel you

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@JackPlusEV @NFLonCBS calling machine learning “not math,” but the paid betting scheme is math, lol. 😂 have fun mr knowitall

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@nflrums Cowboys defense

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@jasrifootball Jerry Jones next week:

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@barstoolsports replacing injured players in my 8 leauges is a full time job now

[Analyst Next Door - NFL @HobbyAnalystNFL]

@SleeperNFL just Lamb