Ready or not, here it comes.
The NFL regular season kicks off Thursday night with the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs hosting the Houston Texans. The Chiefs are currently a 9-point favorite at PointsBet Sportsbook with a total of 54.
Bookmakers have certainly had their work cut out for them this year with no preseason games to monitor. That means no way to watch certain guys take reps, no idea how players have adjusted to new teams and no notion about how new offenses and defenses look schematically.
Week 1 of the NFL is essentially the bookmakers’ preseason in 2020.[[ad:athena]]
“When you look at a preseason, there’s certain things you can definitely overreact to but there are other things you need to see,” South Point sportsbook director Chris Andrews told NBC Sports. “Like how’s Ben Roethlisberger? He hasn’t played a real game in a year and he’s 38 years old. With a team like the Bears, you’ve got Trubisky and Foles at quarterback. Who fits the system better? We have no answer to these questions until Week 1. We certainly have to react, but we have to be careful not to overreact.”
These unknowns haven’t stopped bettors from scratching their betting itch this week.
“We hardly did any business at all when we first put these games up in late May,” Andrews recalled. “We had some stragglers come in, a couple dimes here and there, but nothing major. It really started to pick up this Monday. We started seeing some real action. A couple games we’ve moved significantly. We opened Raiders [PK], we’re up to Raiders -3. We opened the Steelers -3.5, we’re all the way to -6. We opened the Broncos -2.5, and we’ve flipped to Titans -2. These are all with good money.”
So... will sportsbooks need the Texans to cover on Thursday night?
“We really don’t,” Andrews assured. “I opened it lower on purpose. I thought Kansas City -10 was ridiculous. I don’t see how you can make a team a 10-point favorite opening week. There’s also very little home field advantage with limited fans. Now, the Chiefs might win by a million, but I thought -10 was too high. So we’re at -9 and I’ve got pretty even action both ways.”
