It’s been three months since the Super Bowl, and with the NFL Draft freshly in the rearview mirror, it’s time to dust off our DeLorean and start to formulate some hypotheses for the upcoming NFL season. The Eagles made the biggest splash during last Thursday’s first round, sending the 18th-overall pick to Tennessee in exchange for Pro Bowl WR A.J. Brown. One bettor responded with a limit wager on Philly to win the NFC East at Wynn, forcing an odds shift.
“We went to low market on the Eagles in the division and the Super Bowl,” said WynnBet Trader John Manica. At the time of publication, Wynn is sitting at Eagles +225 to win the NFC East, well below the rest of the market in New Jersey, illustrated below:
Eagles odds to win NFC East
FanDuel +240
DraftKings +275
Caesars +250
PointsBet +250
Westgate +275
The other big news that broke right after the draft was the 6-game suspension to Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. However, both Wynn and BetMGM reported no movement with Arizona’s futures odds in the wake of the suspension. Wynn is offering the Cardinals at +2500 to win the Super Bowl and +325 to win the NFC West.
“With us being in Arizona, we saw no need to move and are still one of the lowest on the Cardinals,” added Manica. “We will certainly not be short of futures liability on them.” Before the draft, Wynn also took heavy action on the Bucs to win the Super Bowl, which is currently their biggest liability.
“It’s by far and away our worst outcome,” Manica said. “The NFC does not have the quarterback talent that the AFC now possesses, so Tampa Bay can easily be a force. Likewise, we lose to Green Bay as well with Rodgers staying put. I like the AFC’s chances against any NFC team, so we don’t feel uncomfortable with the liability on those two teams if in fact they do get to the Super Bowl. It’s early, and the two quarterbacks are aged.”
I’m passing on the Bucs, Eagles and Cardinals this preseason, but all three will definitely be on my radar come September.
It’s okay to be conservative with offseason NFL futures
In 2021, the only futures bet I made before August was Cardinals +4400 to win the Super Bowl and +700 to win the NFC West, both on March 1. At the time of drafting this column, I have zero open positions in the NFL for this upcoming season, but perhaps that will change by the time I finish writing.
Last year’s Cardinals position was based largely on my third-year quarterback theory, which was looking great for the first three months as Arizona’s odds peaked at +750 in Week 14 before collapsing down the stretch. This theory also gave me a live runner in 2020 with the Bills advancing all the way to the AFC Title game, after Josh Allen took a massive leap in his 3rd season.
Which third-year quarterback should you be targeting in 2022?
Justin Herbert is the first that comes to mind. Herbert gained some valuable experience down the stretch in 2021 when he narrowly missed the playoffs, and I believe their ceiling is high again in 2022.
The biggest issue here is the Chargers are currently the sixth favorite to win the Super Bowl at +1600 on FanDuel, which doesn’t leave us much room for upside. A conservative option is to bet them to win the AFC West at +240, or an even more conservative approach is to just bet their win total over 10. Officially no action for me right now, but put the Chargers on the preseason radar.
Tua Tagovailoa and Joe Burrow are the other third-year quarterbacks to consider for this strategy. However, it’s hard to justify any preseason action on the Bengals after their improbable run to the Super Bowl, and I’m not fully sold on Tua, so I’m passing on both Miami and Cincinnati until the season begins.
Best offseason strategies for betting regular-season win totals
It’s hard to have a strong opinion on these before schedules are released, but a sound approach right now is to target teams getting good publicity for how they handled the draft. For example, in New York both the Jets and Giants are receiving praise for their selections, especially in the first round.
“We took several Super Bowl futures bets on the Jets at 200-1 and a few significant wagers to win the division at 25-1,” Manica added. “We adjusted to 125-1 on the Super Bowl, 75-1 on the AFC and 18-1 to win the division. The Jets have some believers.”
That buzz is enough for me to make an early buy on the Jets over 5.5 wins at -125 on FanDuel for 2 units. I’m expecting the number to keep going up throughout the summer, which will give us an opportunity to revisit this position in our column before Week 1 and re-evaluate accordingly. This strategy is called scalping, a common practice among professional bettors with big bankrolls taking advantage of line movement.
This Week’s Portfolio
Jets o5.5 Wins -125 (2u at Fanduel)
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