It’s always important to lead the NFL in wins each season because that guarantees home-field advantage throughout the postseason before the neutral-site Super Bowl. From 2020 and going forward, it’s even more important because the NFL expanded the playoff field from six to seven teams in each conference. Now only the team with the best record in the AFC and NFC each get a first-round bye. No team has made the Super Bowl without a first-round bye since the Baltimore Ravens in 2012.
Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com
The Kansas City Chiefs are defending Super Bowl champions – they had a bye as the AFC’s No. 2 seed in 2019 but wouldn’t have had in the new format – and are +450 to lead the league in wins this year. The Chiefs tied for the third-most regular-season wins a year ago with 12, but consider that star quarterback Patrick Mahomes missed two games due to injury. Kansas City went 1-1 without him. All four of the Chiefs’ losses were by seven points or fewer in 2019.
With 14 victories, the Baltimore Ravens led the NFL in wins last year – a franchise record – and had home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs but were upset at home in the Divisional Round by the Tennessee Titans. Baltimore is +600 on this prop and brings everyone of note back, led by reigning NFL MVP Lamar Jackson.
The recent NFL Draft got everyone excited about American Football, with Joe Burrow’s switch to the Cincinnati Bengals and Tom Brady’s bromance rekindled with Rob Gronkowski at Tampa Bay. Recent enthusiasm has been tempered, however, by the news that the NFL won’t be coming to London this year, with plans for all four matches in the English capital scrapped.
The NFL coming to London has been a controversial subject since its first inception. The idea of travelling a domestic season abroad is one that has often been mooted for the Premier League but has never happened.
American Football in England has, to an extent, been a big hit. Recently, the Los Angeles Rams made the trip ‘across the pond’ and provided a fascinating glimpse into the logistical and physical challenges that come with crossing the Atlantic to play an NFL game.
The sports world is saying goodbye to a legend. Don Shula, the former coach of the Miami Dolphins, passed away yesterday of natural causes at the age of 90, leaving a legacy that included running a team that recorded the only perfect season in the history of the NFL. Shula had retired from football in 1995, completing a run in football that spanned four decades, both as a player and a coach. By the time he left the game, his record as a head coach was 347-173-6, making him the winningest head coach ever in the NFL.
Shula began his career as a head coach with the then-Baltimore Colts, the same team where he had starred as a player years earlier. He was 33 at the time and led the team to one Super Bowl appearance. When he was later recruited by the Dolphins, he found his permanent home, and gave the team two consecutive Super Bowl wins – in 1972 and ’73 – and a total of five Super Bowl appearances. The 1972 season will always be the most memorable, as it was this year that he took the Dolphins to an undefeated record from start to finish, a feat that has never been reproduced by any team. In the 33 years he found himself calling the shots, only two ended with losing records.
Shula received a lot of praise over the years and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997. He was recognized as the AP NFL Coach of the Year four times, and Sports Illustrated named him the Sportsman of the Year once, making him the only pro coach to ever have received the honor. Shula was also presented with the “Lombardi Award of Excellence” in 1999 and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2011.
The Dolphins issued a statement yesterday after news of his passing started to hit the press. The team said in a Twitter post, “Don Shula was the patriarch of the Miami Dolphins for 50 years. He brought the winning edge to our franchise and put the Dolphins and the city of Miami in the national sports scene. Our deepest thoughts and prayers go out to Mary Anne along with his children, Dave, Donna, Sharon, Anne and Mike.”
The NFL is expected to release its schedule for the upcoming season in the next couple of days and there will reportedly be a couple of glaring omissions on the list. The football league has made it standard to host a game in London, England every year for the past 13 seasons, with four games played there last year. For the upcoming season, the Jacksonville Jaguars had two games previously on the books to be held at Wembley Stadium, and two other games were going to be included. However, it now looks as though none of these games will take place, nor will the games typically held in Mexico City.
The other two games were to take place at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, but not anymore. While there hasn’t been an official announcement by the NFL, Tottenham is said to be preparing for losses incurred by the cancellation of the games, which will amount to around $5 million, according to The Daily Mail. This would have been just the second year that the stadium hosted NFL games as part of a ten-year contract the two sides signed ahead of the 2019 season.
Despite the lack of confirmation on the part of NFL brass, the cancellation of overseas contests seems logical. There’s not much reason to put players on a plane to jump to another country, putting many of them, as well as staff, at risk. Sports Illustrated’s NFL pro Albert Breer agrees, asserting, “I tend to think that it’s unlikely we’ll be in a place in the fall where we’re sending hundreds of people on planes overseas and to Mexico, and back, without significant concern. And this is one of those situations where—given that the league might not be able to have full (or any) crowds there, and the festival the NFL puts on around these games will be difficult to pull off—risk will almost certainly outweigh reward. So I’d guess the international slate gets called off for 2020.”
The games in London and Mexico have turned out to be real crowd-pleasers, which is why the number of games held overseas has increased in recent years. The Jaguars have become regular fixtures in London, and there has even been a rumor about a possible permanent relocation by the team to England. Team owner Shad Khan has downplayed those rumors and has even invested a considerable amount of money upgrading the team’s home field, TIAA Bank stadium.
There’s no tried and true way to win a wager on the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year each season, but one smart bet of late has simply been picking an Ohio State player. Last year, former Buckeyes defensive end Nick Bosa won the award for the San Francisco 49ers as the No. 2 overall pick.
Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com
Bosa was the third Buckeye to win it in the past four seasons, joining New Orleans Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore (No. 11 overall pick in 2017) and Chargers defensive end Joey Bosa (No. 3 overall pick in 2016), Nick’s brother.
The first defensive player off the board in the 2020 NFL Draft was a player ranked higher by scouts than any of the three listed above: Buckeyes defensive end Chase Young was the No. 2 overall pick by the Washington Redskins and is the +200 DROY favorite. He was favored before the draft too.
Last week’s NFL Draft saw the predictable first round pick everyone saw coming – Joe Burrow was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals as their quarterback. How much of an effect Burrows has on the Bengals is one of the biggest questions ahead of whenever the NFL returns.
From rocketing to fame as the record-breaking winner of the Heisman Trophy, Joe Burrow has had a meteoric rise. The 23-year-old threw for a barely processable 5,671 yards which led to 60 touchdowns as he led the Tigers to an undefeated College Football Playoff National Championship title. In doing so, Burrow bagged both a National Championship and won the Heisman and #1 draft pick gongs – the first time in history one man had achieved such a feat.
Sometimes, NFL trends just can’t be explained. For example, there was a stretch where the NFC won the Super Bowl coin toss a ridiculous 14 years in a row. That ended before Super Bowl XLVI when the New England Patriots won it – although the New York Giants pulled off the upset in the game.
There’s a similarly odd winning streak ongoing when it comes to the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Award – the official OROY is given out by voters from the Associated Press. In 2006, Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young won OROY. No player has won it from an AFC team since. Last year, Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray was the 13th straight winner from the NFC.
Murray was the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 draft. LSU quarterback Joe Burrow is the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and was the No. 1 overall pick this year by the Cincinnati Bengals, and he’s the +260 favorite to end the NFC’s streak. No Bengals quarterback has won the award, with the last Cincinnati player to do so being receiver Carl Pickens in 1992. No wideout has won OROY since the New York Giants’ Odell Beckham Jr. in 2014.
The Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles both are talented enough to win the NFC this year and play in Super Bowl 55 in Tampa, Florida. The Packers and Eagles also have two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL in Aaron Rodgers and Carson Wentz, respectively. The championship window is wide open for both franchises. Yet both made very puzzling early picks in the 2020 NFL Draft this past weekend.
Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com
Green Bay is at +1000 with Philadelphia at +1100 to win the NFC title, behind the San Francisco 49ers (+400), New Orleans Saints (+500) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+500).
The Packers, who haven’t won the NFC since the 2010 season and were crushed in last year’s NFC title game by the 49ers, bafflingly selected Utah State quarterback Jordan Love with their first-round pick in the 2020 draft, trading up a few spots to get him. While Love has major upside, he’s a project and will not help the team this year.
The NFL Draft taught us many things. Chase Young and Rob Burrow are going to be bankers all season. The Green Bay Packers forgot how to draft well. Oh, and sometimes, if you are looking for a great partnership at the heart of your team’s chances, then it’s just good planning to steal one.
When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the destination for Tom Brady after he left the Green Bay Packers following a period of unprecedented success, a few eyebrows were raised. However, the recent signing of Rob Gronkowski has made the decision to draft in Brady something of a double coup.
The Buccaneers, however, haven’t won the Super Bowl since 2002… so what has convinced some industry experts proclaiming this will be their year based on the Brady-Gronkowski partnership alone?
There has been a lot of excitement on social media around the renewal of the most powerful partnership in the NFL, not least from the guys themselves, as Tom Brady’s excited Tweet shows:
The 2020 NFL Draft is in the rearview mirror, meaning that for the most part teams now know what their rosters will look like entering training camp – if there are training camps. There could still be a few big names on the move via free agency (Cam Newton, for example) or players being released (Andy Dalton). The next major date on the offseason slate is the release of the 2020 schedule, which is likely to be sometime the week of May 4. Then it’s quiet until camps hopefully start later this summer.
Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com
Futures odds generally don’t change too much following the draft because the bad teams are likely to start plenty of rookies, while the good teams for the most part have all their key starters already in place. The Cincinnati Bengals had the first overall pick in the 2020 draft and are +5000 to win the conference this season. Burrow could be Dan Marino as a rookie, but the Bengals aren’t winning the AFC. Just too many holes.
One very interesting team is the New England Patriots at +1000 – they never had such long conference odds since Tom Brady took over as the full-time starter early in the 2001 season. Of course, Brady is now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Coach Bill Belichick might have had the worst quarterback room in the NFL entering the draft with unproven second-year Jarrett Stidham and veteran journeyman Brian Hoyer.
The NFL Draft Round One produced record-setting handle for PlaySugarHouse.com in New Jersey and a plethora of first-round surprises. Here are some highlights:
Both handle and bet counts are already triple last year’s numbers for the full draft even though we are only a day into the 3 day event.
76% of all sports betting handle yesterday at PlaySugarHouse.com in New Jersey was bet on the NFL. The overwhelming majority was wagered on the draft, although there was some betting on futures and non-draft props.
The largest bet of the day was a nearly $5000 bet on the first wide receiver being drafted to be CeeDee Lamb of Oklahoma. In fact, Lamb to be the first receiver taken was the most popular bet of the entire night. He was third behind Alabama wide receivers Henry Ruggs and Jerry Jeudy. Ruggs was taken as the 12th overall pick by the Las Vegas Raiders and was a first-round surprise. Jeudy was selected 15th, by the Denver Broncos, and Lamb was taken 17th, by the Dallas Cowboys. Ruggs had the fastest time of any player in the NFL Combine. Ruggs returned +400 as the first receiver taken and combined with Jeudy and Lamb to pay bettors +650 in a unique trifecta wager. It required the bettor to select the top three receivers taken, in exact order.
The New York Giants produced the first-and largest first-round betting surprise by taking offensive tackle Andrew Thomas of Georgia as the fourth pick. He was +1000. The Giants had been expected to take either Tristan Wirfs of Iowa or Isaiah Simmons from Clemson in that spot. Both Wirfs and Simmons had been showcased in wagers to be drafted in the Top 5 overall.
Another popular prop was Tua Tagovailoa of Alabama to be the second quarterback drafted. The majority of players won on this bet. After LSU quarterback Joe Burrow was the first player selected in the draft, Tagovailoa was taken fifth by the Miami Dolphins. This also rewarded bettors who pegged him to be taken by Miami.
Another highly-popular prop was how many wide receivers were drafted in the first round. The bet was over-under 5.5. The over won as there were 6.
One bet receiving strong play was over 0.5 running backs to be taken in the first round. This bet won on the final pick in the first round with Clyde Edwards-Helaire going to the Super Bowl champion Chiefs.
Offensive linemen were quite popular in round 1. The over/under opened at 5.5, but moved to 6.5 close to draft night, with the line closing at 6.5 over -200. There were seven linemen drafted, rewarding the over bettors.
Still open: Cole Kmet of Notre Dame to be the first tight end taken is one of the 10 most popular bets PlaySugarHouse.com received, and with no tight ends off the board in the first round, this bet is still open and available to be bet.
Xavier McKinney from Alabama was the most bet safety to be the first to come off the board. With no safeties drafted in the first round, this bet is also still open.
“This was an outstanding opening night for the NFL draft,” said Mattias Stetz, C.O.O of Rush Street Interactive, which operates PlaySugarHouse.com. “We are delighted with the strong wagering action and how bettors supported many imaginative prop bets. They really prepared well for the draft and they weren’t afraid to bet heavily on some long shots.”
Surprisingly, the first-ever virtual NFL Draft has gotten off to a good start with no major technical malfunctions. Joining together hundreds of connections by tech neophytes was expected to bring a lot of glitches, but the football world was pleased (or disappointed) with the lack of mishaps. With Day 1 of the draft now in the books, football fans can start breaking down what might happen should the NFL season be able to launch this September as the league still anticipates.
With coaches and team owners hunkered down in their basement draft war rooms (most, anyway – Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was reporting in from his very own cruise ship), the picks began late last night with former LSU superstar Joe Burrow heading to the Cincinnati Bengals. The Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback led his college team to the NCAA National Championship this past season, and is ready to make a run on the Super Bowl. His selection as the first draft pick makes this the third consecutive draft that has seen a quarterback go first.
Just to clear some things up: yes.
Jerry Jones is, indeed, drafting from a cruise ship. HIS cruise ship. This is that ship. #LilYachtisWorld pic.twitter.com/MFuQPojbnK
If we are being honest, the 2020 NFL Draft truly begins with the Detroit Lions at the No. 3 overall pick. That’s because LSU quarterback Joe Burrow is a -10000 favorite to go first overall and Ohio State defensive end Chase Young -3000 to go second. Burrow is going to the Cincinnati Bengals, while the Washington Redskins pick No. 2.
While there’s all but a zero percent chance the Bengals trade the top pick, it’s possible the Redskins could trade out of their spot if some team wants to pay a big price and move up to take one of the other top quarterback prospects. Young is the huge -7500 favorite to be the first defensive player off the board, and most scouts rank him as the No. 1 overall prospect in this draft.
There’s talk the Lions would like to trade down from No. 3 to pick up more picks, but the current favorite to go third is Ohio State defensive back Jeff Okudah at even money. Keep in mind that on these draft spot props, it doesn’t matter which team takes a player just that said player goes in that slot for betting purposes.
Let’s face it: Every NFL Draft is about the quarterbacks. It’s the most important, high-profile position in all of sports. Even in the rare years where a signal-caller isn’t going to be the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, it’s still all about the quarterbacks.
Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com
Barring an absolute stunning trade offer from someone like the Miami Dolphins (think multiple first-round picks), the Cincinnati Bengals are going to take LSU quarterback Joe Burrow, the 2019 Heisman Trophy winner, at No. 1 overall on Thursday night. He will be the third LSU player to go first, following running back Billy Cannon in 1960 (to the Rams) and quarterback JaMarcus Russell in 2007 (to the Raiders). Russell was arguably the biggest bust in draft history.
Oddsmakers are so sure that Burrow will go first that he’s priced at -10000 to do so. That’s just to go first overall, not to a specific team. That’s an important designation to keep in mind on those props for a guy being selected at a certain spot. Trades are going to happen. Burrow will be the third straight Heisman Trophy-winning QB to go first, following Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield in 2018 (to the Browns) and OU’s Kyler Murray last year (to the Cardinals).
The NFL Draft is just three days away, but for anyone dreaming of being in the pre-season favourites, we featured evidence recently about how that might be a poisoned chalice. If you wanted further evidence of this, you only have to look at these five Super Bowl finals, where the favourites fell at the final hurdle.
Super Bowl III – New York Jets 16-7 Baltimore Colts
18-point underdogs New York Jets somehow got the better of the Baltimore Colts after a scoreless first three quarters and a field goal early in the final period saw The Jets surge into a 16-0 lead.
That the Colts then scored seven points was nothing but a consolation as 1969 saw over 75,000 fans inside the Miami Orange Bowl stunned by the American Football League winners triumphing against the NFL’s finest. It remains one of the biggest shocks ever seen in the sport.
With the NFL Draft days away, marking just about the only live sports-related event going on these days, all eyes will be on the virtual selections by the 32 franchises beginning Thursday night.
BetMGM is making it a little more interesting, launching the free-to-play $2,000 Pro Football Draft Contest, a series of 20 questions predicting certain outcomes of the draft, and the player who guesses the most questions correctly will win a grand prize of $2,000 cash. In the event of a tie, the prize earnings will be split evenly.
Questions include:
· Which team will draft the first QB? · How many teams will trade down (trade back) in the first round of the draft? · Will the New England Patriots draft a quarterback in the first two rounds? · Which running back will be drafted first? · Which conference will Jake Fromm (UGA) get drafted to? · How many players from the University of Alabama will get drafted? · What position will Mr. Irrelevant be? (Last player to be drafted in the 2020 Draft)
The NFL Draft, usually a spectacle of the offseason, is marching ahead in the only way things can right now: with an online draft. As the league’s General Managers figure out the same technology that fantasy sports fans have used for decades, and sports bettors speculate on which talented youngsters will go highest in the draft, Bodog’s sports book is asking the most pertinent questions, and we have their odds.
First up, with the first ever attempt to draft future NFL stars entirely online, Bodog is asking how many times they will screw up.
How Many Times Will The Broadcast Experience Technical Difficulties?
With just a week to go until the NFL Draft, we’ve already looked at five banker bets that are highly likely to be printing money, while we’ve also tipped ten points of value across five bets that could make you a profit at odds-against.
Odds courtesy of Oddschecker.com
Now it’s time to look at each of the eight divisions in both the American Football Conference and National Football Conference. Over the years, the AFC has produced 20 SuperBowl winners to the NFC’s 24 winners since 1970 and the formation of the National Football League (NFL). But who will put themselves into the postseason by winning their divisions in 2020? Let’s take a look and find some value.
The coronavirus body slammed the sports world in a way that would make most professional wrestlers cringe. Fortunately, though, athletes are resilient, and this is nothing more than a hurdle to be jumped. With virtually all sports action having come to a grinding halt for the time-being, sports gambling fans haven’t had many options for release, but the upcoming NFL Draft is providing the perfect solution. With just a week to go before the big event, some sportsbooks are witnessing greater amounts of action than ever before.
The exact figures aren’t in, and draft wagers will continue to be placed until the event draws to a close. However, Jared Smith, a sports investment analyst with Sportsgrid, said during an episode of CBS’s After Hours with Amy Lawrence, “What we’re seeing is a major uptick in NFL Draft betting. This is only the second year that it’s been legal here on the East Coast in the New Jersey books, but I’ve seen a massive uptick in the amount of bets in terms of the amount of prop bets that are offered and also just the movement in the NFL Draft marketplace. It’s been very volatile. To me, that means there’s a lot of action being thrown around and I think people are very excited for next week’s NFL Draft. I think it’s probably going to be not only the most watched sporting event of this year so far, but probably also the most bet on.”
The draft is going to be held April 23-25, and is going to be the first draft in NFL history to be managed almost entirely through remote connections – no large gatherings of players and teams, no massive celebrations and no fanfare. COVID-19 has forced the league to take measures to keep everyone healthy and the three-day event, which should have been held in Las Vegas, will find coaches, team representatives, players and more connecting from their respective homes through videoconferencing equipment to discuss their picks.
It’s going to be the largest conference call the NFL has ever seen, and the league is still trying to work out the kinks. Some of those kinks include personnel – individuals who have shied away from technology over the years and who aren’t familiar with terms like bandwidth, pixels and even digital imaging. That should make for an interesting experience during the draft.
Picking an NFL MVP or Offensive Rookie of the Year annually for Associated Press voters is rather easy as they can simply look at a player’s statistics. However, it’s a rather gray area for voters when they decide on the NFL Comeback Player of the Year.
By definition, the award is supposed to go to someone who “shows perseverance in overcoming adversity, in the form of not being in the NFL the previous year, overcoming a severe injury or simply a poor performance.” That’s not quite exact science is it?
Sometimes it’s an easy choice. Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck was the 2018 winner after missing the entire 2017 campaign due to injury/surgery. Last year, Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill was the choice. He wasn’t so much returning from injury but from being lousy with the Miami Dolphins the year before. Tannehill didn’t even take over as the Titans’ starting QB until around midseason.
