One of my favorite weeks to bet football over the last decade is the second week of every NFL season. The overreactions and overadjustments are so massive because everybody watches one week of football and thinks they know everything.
Bookmakers are more than aware that bettors love to bet on what they’ve last seen. Perception is baked into their betting lines, which were already going to be overadjusted anyways because of the lack of a preseason.
“We certainly didn’t have the opportunity to warm up for opening week,” PointsBet Sportsbook senior sports analyst Andrew Mannino told NBC Sports. “We were pretty much rocking right off the bat on Thursday and it was real hectic all week long. The adjustments tend to be fast and furious after week one.”
These spreads get even bigger when a great team faces an awful team. The trading room at PointsBet is already seeing lopsided action on two of the best teams in the league.[[ad:athena]]
“Kansas City (-8.5) and Baltimore (-7) are certainly attracting lopsided action,” Mannino said while scrolling down his risk screen. “It’s a pretty classic case of Week 1 overreaction, but it’s also two talented teams that took care of business against bad opponents all last season.”
That’s very true. Just because bettors have to pay a tax on the Chiefs and Ravens, it doesn’t mean for one second that the inflated underdogs are going to cover. Even if the spreads get to KC -10 and BAL -7.5, both teams could win by two touchdowns and I wouldn’t be surprised.
A matchup that I’m keying in this weekend is Buffalo-Miami. The Bills were a very overvalued team heading into the season because they made the playoffs last year and Tom Brady parted ways with the Patriots. So Buffalo was already popular out of the gate.
Then the Bills jumped all over the Jets 27-17, so Buffalo has moved up from -3 to -5.5 at Miami this Sunday. That line will likely get higher as we get closer to kickoff. I will definitely be on Dolphins +6 or +6.5 if it gets there.
One NFL team will be very tough to truly assess this season because of the inconsistency at quarterback: the Chicago Bears with Mitchell Trubisky. He was awful for three quarters, but played like Joe Montana in the fourth quarter as the Bears rallied back to beat the Lions.
It’s almost impossible to know who the real Trubisky is.
“It puts you in a tricky spot because he certainly has the talent to get it done like he showed in the fourth quarter,” Mannino explained. “It’s just hard to put a lot of faith in him or really rely on him when he’s capable of those uneven performances.”
Mannino and company will be writing tickets all day leading up to Thursday Night Football in Cleveland between the Bengals and Browns.
“We’re pretty split on the bets right now, but we’ll be rooting for the Browns and the Over. I don’t think the bettors have too much faith in the Bengals and Browns to score a lot of points.”
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