From the moment a Super Bowl Champion is crowned right up to the first week of the new season, countless online betting wagers are usually placed by NFL betting enthusiasts on a variety of NFL future bets. The majority of these bets particularly hit the betting boards once the free agency and the draft are in the books. While it is not generally advisable to tie up much of your bankroll on offseason NFL betting, there is some value that can be found if you select your bets the right way. Below are some NFL offseason betting lines tips.
Tips for NFL Offseason Betting
Betting on Super Bowl Futures
The early future NFL odds to win a Super Bowl that come out immediately after a team claims the Lombardi Trophy in February are often heavily weighted on a team’s performance in the just-concluded season. This, essentially, is the reason Super Bowl winners and finalists are often among the favorites in the early betting lines for next season’s Super Bowl odds, with the majority of teams that reached the playoffs also receiving short odds. If you are looking to find value in offseason Super Bowl betting, the trick is to avoid the temptation of picking the team at the top of the list, instead going for the one you think is primed to make the strongest title-run in the up-coming season.
In the last three years, for example, the Super Bowl has been won by the Denver Broncos, New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, teams who weren’t the odds-on favorites in their respective championship-winning years.
Betting on Conference Futures
Like the Super Bowl, there is no exact science to NFL conference futures bet predictions. However, the conference predictions are relatively easier to make, as you can generally narrow down top competitors in the AFC and NFC to around four teams. The best time to place these bets is after the free agency and draft have been completed, as this gives you a better outlook of a team’s prospects for the upcoming season, including the players that are likely to be most impactful. Typically, the things you’d want to keep in mind here include teams with solid defenses, proven quarterbacks and great coaching philosophies, among others.
Betting on NFL Odds to Win Division
Handicapping success in NFL divisions works in more-or-less the same way as in conference futures. The challenge here, however, is that certain teams are prohibitive favorites (like the New England Patriots in the AFC East) and winning is almost guaranteed for them on a yearly basis, making it very difficult for other longshots in the division to rise up. For such cases, you are better off taking these hot favorites at their short prices or keeping away from the NFL odds altogether because you won’t find much value.
Nevertheless, teams have been known to come out of nowhere to make a run for divisional titles, capitalizing on factors such as injuries and suspensions in other teams, or the rise of certain breakout players in their own teams. You should therefore not be afraid to roll the dice on a divisional longshot if you are convinced that the upcoming season could be the year for that team to offer value in the online NFL odds to win a particular division.
Betting on NFL Regular-season Win Totals
Regular season totals projected by sportsbooks for all 32 teams receive arguably the most action in the online betting boards, largely because they are quite easy to predict. By going through a team’s schedule, you can simply figure out how many wins and losses they are likely to accumulate in the upcoming season. If the season win total is set too high, jump on the UNDER; if it is too low, pound on the OVER.
Generally, it is easier for a bad team to add a couple of wins in the upcoming season than for a good team to maintain its solid record or improve in the new season, so try not to underestimate the value of improving teams or overestimate a team’s potential simply because it was good in the previous season. Learn the art of balance and always have a wiggle room for improvements and regressions in your regular season win total picks.
Betting on NFL Props
Offseason NFL proposition bets can take on many forms, ranging from common lines such as NFL odds to win MVP and NFL Odds to win Offensive Rookie of the Year to NFL odds for a coach to be sacked in the course of the season. Usually, these props are very speculative in nature and often hard to cash in on. Not to forget, unforeseen circumstances like season-ending injuries and suspensions can easily ruin these prop bets, sometimes even before the season begins.
To avoid backing the wrong props, it is thus advisable that you wait until the training camps are completed or the NFL preseason comes to an end before placing your wagers. This will not only give you a chance to follow the offseason fitness of the players you are interested in, but it will also help you monitor their performances, making it much easier to predict how they are likely to perform when the season begins. Also, you should keep in mind that Sportsbooks usually base their odds for these offseason NFL props largely on statistical averages, so be sure to keep an eye out for such numbers and the players that are being overvalued or undervalued.
Rejoinder on NFL Offseason Betting
As is highlighted above, NFL offseason bets can be an excellent way to supplement your income, on top of helping you have fun with the sport you love during the long offseason. That said, I would not recommend allocating a huge chunk of your total bankroll on these offseason bets, unless you are willing to commit a fairly large percent of your time and resources handicapping them the right way. Otherwise, all the best in your NFL offseason wagers and don’t forget to check out our many other related NFL guides, regarding both the offseason and real action when the season begins.
