🥇NFL Award Markets Betting Updates

I know we do it all day Sunday all year long, but I still kind of hate having the overlapped MNF games. Chime in if you’re with me (or let me know I’m just a whiner.)

PIT/CLE

Sucks to see the first TD scorer drama go right out the window on a batted ball defensive score, but once again, I managed to get a teaser leg through to the weekend (go Ravens).

I’ll have complete power rating updates tomorrow but my initial feeling is that I may need to downgrade the Steelers even after a win. The offense did next to nothing again, took ZERO snaps in the red zone, and sputtered late and on pivotal downs.

Yes, they’ve played two great defenses (Cleveland looked amazing up front for the second straight week), but you can only give them so much benefit of the doubt when the play calling looks like this.

Huge blow to Cleveland obviously with Chubb done for the year, but maybe just as concerning is Deshaun Watson not really looking much better than what we saw at the end of 2022. It’d be a shame to waste what could turn out to be an all-time defense this year.

NO/CAR

Again, a little dash of context is needed since it was a Rookie QB with a fairly poor group of players around him, but the Saints’ defense looked good again. They only surrendered 14 first downs and 239 yards, with 4 of those and 75 yards coming on the final drive where a disgusting prevent defense let the Panthers start getting some chunks.

Carr threw a TERRIBLE INT and took a couple of bad sacks, but otherwise looked like a serviceable QB on a team that can win a bad division. I advocated for the Saints NFC South price yesterday in the newsletter and took a small swing myself, so I’m tied to him whether I like it or not. It sucks that we don’t get a Saints-Falcons game until week 12.

I do want to give credit to the Panthers’ defense. They played hard all night, got pressure, were fast to the ball, and did a decent job against the run (when it wasn’t Taysom Hill). Going to need a lot more out of this offense for them to think about turning the season around though. Just 4.3 yards per play, again including an incredibly soft prevent defense on the final drive to bring that up from the 3.6 it was sitting at.

a quick aside: I know Bears fans are having a rough go of it so far this year, so a little silver lining is that you own the Panther’s first-rounder next year. Two top-ten picks isn’t a bad way to shore up a rebuild!

Now that we’re damn near in midseason form, it’s a ton of fun to monitor the openers on Sunday Night, comparing them to the look-ahead lines and making some observations on the difference, as well as where they head from there early in the cycle. With Drew on vacation, Connor Allen from 4for4 jumped on with me Sunday and we ripped through our quick thoughts on each game as well as what we made of each opening price for week 3 ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Let’s take a peek at some of the bigger moves that we’ve already seen early in the week.

LAC/MIN Total: Opened 50, Currently 54

Good QBs, good WRs, porous defenses, and the Chargers 4th quarter-game plan.

The Vikings’ defense was expected to be bad, but the Chargers have enough name-brand players that we hoped to at least see above-average play from them. Great job by some guys in the DDD Discord grabbing this very early.

LAR/CIN Spread: Opened Rams -6, Currently -1.5

Not really sure why the market even opened this up early with Joe Burrow limping around out there against Baltimore (some places did open a little later with a 4). This should keep going if he’s ruled out. There’s no good time to lose your franchise QB, but this was already slated to be a tougher test than we thought preseason, with Stafford really looking good even without Kupp.

PHI/TB Spread: Opened -6.5/7, currently -5

Tampa overperforming so far but against very suspect competition. There were tweets that went out that VERY much misquoted Donovan McNabb’s comments about Hurts not being at full strength in last year’s title game, instead implying that Hurts was 65-70% right now. (you can go look at the tweet below and see the original edit).

All that aside, the Eagles’ offense hasn’t looked as good as some expected yet at times, and Tampa’s defense is still a decent unit. With 11 days between games though, I wonder if we don’t see some buyback on the Eagles eventually here (I may be one of those people, I make this Eagles -6.5 before week 2 adjustments).

NE/NYJ Total: Opened 38, currently 36.5

Not the hugest move but man that’s dipping into “preseason game with all the starters sitting” territory. Both defenses have lived up to the expectations though, so it checks out.

The Pats’ pace has been fast, but the team has still struggled offensively at times, (scoring 20 and 17) this will be the toughest defense they’ve faced yet

MVP

I said it yesterday, Tua deserves this right now. The offense is clicking and he’s healthy so far. Not a ton of movement in the rest of the top end of the odds board. Burrow still being 12/1 despite a possible trip to the IR is something. Purdy sneaking into the top ten at FanDuel is amazing considering what I saw the one time I accidently watched an Iowa State game a couple of years ago, but so far so good in SF.

One to Watch: Going forward I’m curious to see what Dak’s number does. It’ll be another week of “beating up on a bad team”, but eventually the stats and wins have to mean something. A lot of awards sentiment is centered around who gets the credit though, and like Shanny getting credit for Purdy in San Fran, I think Dan Quinn and Mike McCarthy may get a lot of the buzz in Dallas.

ROY

Bijan is very good and if he got heavy usage this number might be much lower than it currently is. Richardson is currently the only QB to really take too seriously for this right now, but getting knocked out of both games so far stinks. Of the WR class it’s looking like there’s a clear tier 1 of Addison, Flowers and Puka effing Nacua. Wild story obviously, but the usage is just so high and the results are there. Despite what McVay has said about his role once Kupp returns, I’m not buying at what might be the peak, because coaches lie all the damn time.

One to Watch: Jahmyr Gibbs may finally see his usage go up a bit after the injury to David Montgomery. A big game in a “head-to-head” with Bijan would do wonders for his chances.

OPOY

If the Vikings’ defense sucks this badly and Justin Jefferson continues to prove to be un-coverable, why can’t he repeat? Some TDs would help his case, but if he maintains even 80% of this pace, he’ll have something very hard for voters to ignore: a 2,000-yard season. McCaffrey and Tyreek should be right there with him all year, the usage and stats should just flow in their current offenses.

One to Watch: I dunno, maybe Lamar if he continues to look better each week? Team success helps here, but he’ll need to jack up both those passing and rushing stats a bit to join the names in the top tier. This may just be a three-man race unless someone has a scorching week or two.