Some of the trickiest, foolhardiest, most insanely difficult NFL proposition bets offered at sportsbook websites are also the most deceptive. After all, everybody with a blog or a drinking buddy makes preseason predictions for the final standings, right? So … betting over/unders should be easy, right?
Well, let NFLbets tell you about the 2017 Baltimore Ravens. We caught those purple-and-black chumps in Las Vegas at 8½ in the “Over/Under Wins” prop and reckoned this was easy money.
Yet these guys, 27th in overall yardage and 29th in passing yardage, somehow got to 9-and-freaking-7 SU thanks to two games against the hapless Cleveland Browns, an eked-out win over the DeShaun Watson-less Houston Texans and a gift from the already 3-11 Indianapolis Colts in week f*#*&#ing 16 – Lemme tell ya, you remember every single bad loss (or win, in this case) when you cover a team like the g&@^@^#mn Ravens in this prop.
The only upside – if one can call anything about losing a proposition bet an upside – to the “Over/Under Wins” bet is that the outcome is often obvious pretty early on, so that the NFL bettor may hedge. As heshe will inevitably do.
Nevertheless, NFLbets just can’t stay away. Look, as long as you’re sane about this thing, you won’t lose *too* much money, right?
The following is the NFL standings for 2018 (final), as projected by the “Over/Under Wins” prop for the upcoming season. Ties indicate those ½-point addenda that make this sort of proposition bet even more impossible fun! Since official statisticians somehow figure a tie as a half-win, as though any such concept is sensical, NFLbets does so here to project the winning percentage of the given team you’ll be betting to top or drop.
*An asterisk indicates a playoff bid with the bookmakers’ projected win/loss total.
| NFC East | proj record | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia Eagles* | 10-5-1 | ||
| Dallas Cowboys | 8-7-1 | ||
| New York Giants | 7-9-0 | ||
| Washington football team | 7-9-0 | ||
| NFC North | proj record | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Green Bay Packers* | 10-6-0 | ||
| Minnesota Vikings* | 10-6-0 | ||
| Detroit Lions | 7-8-1 | ||
| Chicago Bears | 6-9-1 | ||
| NFC South | proj record | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| New Orleans Saints* | 9-6-1 | ||
| Atlanta Falcons* | 9-7-0 | ||
| Carolina Panthers | 8-7-1 | ||
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 6-9-1 | ||
| NFC West | proj record | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Rams* | 10-6-0 | ||
| San Francisco 49ers | 8-7-1 | ||
| Seattle Seahawks | 8-8-0 | ||
| Washington | 5-10-1 | ||
| AFC East | proj record | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| New England Patriots* | 11=5=0 | ||
| Buffalo Bills | 6-9-1 | ||
| Miami Dolphins | 6-9-1 | ||
| New York Jets | 6-10-0 | ||
| AFC North | proj record | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pittsburgh Steelers* | 10-5-1 | ||
| Baltimore Ravens | 8-8-0 | ||
| Cincinnati Bengals | 6-9-1 | ||
| Cleveland Browns | 5-10-1 | ||
| AFC South | proj record | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Jacksonville Jaguars* | 9-7-0 | ||
| Houston Texans* | 8-7-1 | ||
| Tennessee Titans | 8-8-0 | ||
| Indianpolis Colts | 6-9-1 | ||
| AFC West | proj record | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Chargers* | 9-6-1 | ||
| Kansas City Chiefs* | 8-7-1 | ||
| Oakland Raiders | 8-8-0 | ||
| Danver Broncos | 7-9-1 | ||
Now, these standings are the result of a bet of Schrodinger’s Odd Table: Though the win/loss totals are team-by-team are accurate enough renderings of expectation, the standings board itself is wildly bizarre. In the end, mathematics breaks down due to attractiveness: As with all standardized bets and lines, a given team may be over- or undervalued so as to induce more NFL bettors to take chances.
The total records for NFLbets’ projected final standings for 2018 add up to 249-244-19, thereby giving out five more wins than was necessary; this would imply good money may be won betting on unders – and hoo boy, could NFLbets cherry-pick about four or five right now. An odd number of total ties is of course impossible unless teams are going back to scheduling non-league games.
Other kneejerk reactions lead NFLbets to believe that the bookmakers are dead wrong on much of the AFC South. Easy money might also be had in the in AFC South, AFC East and possibly the NFC West and AFC West.
Also, probably everybody’s going to be wrong about the NFC South.
During the preseason, we’ll be breaking down over/under win totals for each division in the NFL, expanding on some of the above-listed teasers. And we’ll probably dither on that Oakland Raiders at 8 until, likesay, week 1 Monday Night Football kickoff in L.A. (But we’ll be taking the Rams minus the points for sure.)
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