With three weeks left in the NFL Regular Season, only three teams have guaranteed their ticket to the postseason, and only one team has guaranteed themselves a first-round bye. But with all the uncertainly surrounding the NFL Playoffs, the pay per head have pegged two teams as overwhelming favorites to win their respective conferences.
The New England Patriots regained command of the AFC with a big win in Houston last weekend, and coupled with outright losses by both Denver and Cincinnati, the Patriots are now a commanding +110 favorite to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. The two closest teams to the Patriots in terms of AFC Future Odds are Denver and Pittsburgh, who are each returning a 4:1 payout.
Denver is closed to wrapping up the AFC West Division, holding a two-game lead over the Kansas City Chiefs. Pittsburgh is the popular choice for a dark horse candidate, as they aren’t even currently slated for a playoff spot (although they own identical records with Kansas City and the New York Jets for the two Wild Card spots). The Steelers and Broncos square off this weekend in a very important matchup in Pittsburgh, with the online sportsbooks listing the hometown Steelers as a big 6.5-point home favorite.
For the second week in a row, the NFL weekend kicks off with a dud as the 1-3 Houston Texans host the 2-2 Indianapolis Colts. The sportsbook reviews have not release an opening line as Colts QB playing status remains in doubt. Houston was blown out last Sunday in Atlanta, and while Brian Hoyer came in after the Texans fell behind 42-0 to lead his team into the end zone three times, Houston will start Ryan Mallet at quarterback again this week. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Hoyer come in if Mallet struggles again.
Speaking of duds, Jacksonville takes on Tampa Bay this week in a “someone has to win” matchup between two 1-3 clubs. The online sportsbooks list the Buccaneers as a 2.5-point favorite, almost entirely because of home field advantage. The Jags have “looked” better than Tampa Bay this year, and played well enough to beat the Colts last week if not for shaky field goal kicking under pressure.
The best matchup of the day has 2-2 Seattle visiting unbeaten Cincinnati. The Bengals are off to a fast start not only with their 4-0 record, but also going a perfect 4-0 at the betting window. Cincinnati is a three-point home favorite, looking to build on their two-game lead in the AFC North. It’s worth mentioning that Seattle will be playing this game on short rest, after getting the benefit of a bad no-call on Monday night in a three-point win vs. Detroit.
While having NFL teams remain undefeated after five weeks of the season isn’t uncommon, the amount of undefeated teams we have this year (6) is a bit higher than usual. This is the time of the season where these undefeated teams start to become heavily bet by the general betting public, and therefore these teams become overvalued.
As teams get further into the season without losing, casual NFL bettors tend to put a heavier emphasis on outright victories and pay far less attention to ATS records.This leads to the online sportsbooks gradually raising the lines on these undefeated teams, and even if they start to lose ATS but win outright, these lines will continue to go up.
Atlanta started the year with three consecutive victories in the role of the underdog. They have since been favored in their two most recent games, covering the spread in a blowout win against Houston and then suffering their first ATS loss of the year in a six-point overtime win vs. Washington as a 7-point home favorite.
Week 1 of the NFL Preseason kicks off Thursday night, headlined by Buffalo visiting Cleveland on ESPN. Both teams suffered close defeats in their preseason openers, with Buffalo losing by a single point against Carolina, and the Browns falling by a field goal against Washington. Browns fourth-string quarterback Connor Shaw injured his thumb and will be out several weeks, but he wasn’t expected to see much action anyway. The first-string offense marched down the field and scored a touchdown, and the second-string offense looked pretty good with Johnny Manziel. The running game was awful, though, and will likely be the focal point on this matchup.
Seattle at Kansas City is the featured contest of two Friday night games, being carried on the NFL Network. Seattle had been a great team to back in the preseason the last few years, but they lost outright against Denver in their opener while KC had little issue getting past Arizona. The online sportsbooks opened the Seahawks as a small one-point road favorite due to their recent preseason success.
Saturday sees the most action with eight games scheduled. Two teams we are focusing on are Minnesota and Philadelphia. The Vikings are already off to a 2-0 start and are a perfect 6-0 straight up under head coach Mike Zimmer in preseason play. Philly led the NFL in preseason points scored last year, and they put up 36 points in their preseason opener last week vs. Indy. Both of those teams are favored to win again.
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