Bets We Love Too Much Too Early: Earliest lines for week 1

30 May 2024

What a better NFL preseason ritual than the official schedule release? The almost immediate follow-up of the first – and way too early – point spreads and lines for week 1 games. As every NFL season seemingly becomes more greatly anticipated than the last, let’s forestall that anticipation no further. According to MyBookie and Xbet sportsbooks, for week 1, it’s…

• Baltimore Ravens +2½ at Kansas City Chiefs
• Green Bay Packers +1½ at Philadelphia Eagles
• Jacksonville Jaguars +3½ at Miami Dolphins
• Pittsburgh Steelers +2½ at Atlanta Falcons
• Minnesota Vikings +1 at New York Giants
• Carolina Panthers +4½ at New Orleans Saints
• New England Patriots +9½ at Cincinnati Bengals
• Tennessee Titans +4½ at Chicago Bears
• Arizona Cardinals +7 at Buffalo Bills
• Hoston Texans -1½ at Indianapolis Colts
• Las Vegas Raiders +3½ at Los Angeles Chargers
• Denver Broncos +4½ at Seattle Seahawks
• Washington Commanders +4 at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• Dallas Cowboys -1½ at Cleveland Browns
• Los Angeles Rams +3½ at Detroit Lions
• New York Jets +6 at San Francisco 49ers

First obvious impression that comes to mind: 14 of the 16 home teams are favored; the sole homers getting points are Indianapolis (versus the vogue AFC champion pick Texans) and Cleveland (against the again certain-to-be oversold and over-bet Cowboys); the search for favorable bets begins here.

Consider first that all home teams went 151-121 SU and 129-135-8 ATS. And as favorites, the home side was quite a fair 116-52 SU (or a .690 winning percentage) drops to 83-88-6 ATS. These numbers are fairly typical of recent trends; in fact, the 2023 season marks something of a snapback from an anomalous ’22, during which home teams actually won against the spread (albeit not enough to turn the NFL bettor a profit). Running the numbers for the past three non-pandemic seasons, we find the following.

• Home teams in 2022: 151-118-2 SU / 132-131-7 ATS
• Home teams as favorites in 2022: 115-56 SU / 79-88-4 ATS
• Home teams in 2021: 140-131-1 SU / 152-118-2 ATS
• Home teams as favorites in 2021: 101-61-1 SU / 76-88 ATS
• Home teams in 2019: 132-122-1 SU / 96-149-10 ATS
• Home teams as favorites in 2019: 98-57 SU / 60-87-8 ATS

In any given 16-game slate, then, we should expect visitors to cover between seven and nine games, and there is little evidence to suggest that week 1 differs statistically than any other in this regard.

This far out from kickoff, NFLbets immediately likes…

• Minnesota Vikings +1 at New York Giants. Not that we’re particularly enamored with what appears to be the NFC North bottom-dweller or the dice-roll on J.J. McCarthy, but NFLbets is seriously considering taking the Giants in the “Worst Regular Season Record” prop even despite the Carolina Panthers’ ever-mediocre presence. With the Minnesota over/under win total at 6½, this feels like one of the easier picks for a Vikings W this season. The money line will be worth playing here as well.
• Green Bay Packers +1½ at Philadelphia Eagles. Sure, NFLbets’ll be on the Green Bay bandwagon in week 1; why not? The Eagles enter ’24 with Vic Fangio replacing the Sean Desai/Matt Patricia debacle at defensive coordinator and Kellen Moore at OC. We’ll take the team that ended last year on an upswing rather than the deck-shuffling Eagles in an opening-week game. (Geeubs, was this team really in the Super Bowl a couple years ago…?)
• Los Angeles Chargers -3½ vs Las Vegas Raiders. Yes, NFLbets just spent the top half of this column advising wariness on betting home favorites. And true enough, Antonio Pierce led this team to a fairly impressive 5-4 SU record and a shockingly awesome 7-1-1 ATS mark including that sick 63-21 blowout of the Chargers in week 15. But we’re thinking that Jim Harbaugh’s going to pull out all the stops in this opening-day home game and the truth is that L.A.’s got far more talent on paper than Vegas…

Of course, we’ll probably change our minds about these three picks a thousand times before that first Thursday Night Football whistle but right now, we’re digging the chance to play some ’spreads. How many weeks until kickoff…?

– written by Os Davis