Three Look-Ahead Lines & Best Bets Ahead of the 2020 NFL Schedule Release

Article Image

The 2020 NFL schedule is set to be announced Thursday night, with the league and Roger Goodell carrying on amid the current sports hiatus. And as it turns out, you won’t have to wait on Tiger and Phil to place some bets on major sports.

While we don’t yet know this year’s NFL schedule, we do know each team’s opponents. US sportsbooks have jumped ahead, opening lines for select games and allowing sports bettors to get in early on the NFL betting action. Here are three picks I like ahead of Thursday’s 2020 NFL Schedule release.

Read More

Kansas City Chiefs at Tampa Bay Buccaneers +2.5

Back in March, when the Patriots were -250 favorites to keep Brady, I bet that Brady would leave New England for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

As I alluded to at the time, part of the reason I thought Brady was leaving was to avoid Patrick Mahomes in his quest for another Super Bowl appearance. Brady did just that, and while he won’t have to face Mahomes to get to the Super Bowl if the Buccaneers make the playoffs, he won’t avoid the reigning Super Bowl MVP in 2020-21 entirely.

On top of a schedule that includes two games against Drew Brees and a game against Aaron Rodgers, Brady will also face off with the Kansas City Chiefs and Mahomes.

According to PointsBet’s Look-Ahead Lines, the defending Super Bowl Champions are merely 2.5-point favorites in their road trip to Tampa Bay.

We don’t know yet the date of the game, but we will know later Thursday night when the NFL releases the full 2020 NFL schedule.

Regardless, Chiefs -2.5 jumps out as a bit low — especially so if you think this matchup could be an early NFL prime-time game.

Both the Buccaneers and Chiefs are poised to be prime-time darlings. On top of acquiring the most accomplished quarterback of of all time, the Buccaneers were able to talk one of his favorite receiving targets, tight end Rob Gronkowski, into coming out of retirement to join Brady in Florida. The latter are Super Bowl Champions and currently have the most prolific quarterback in the league.

In addition to returning most of the key pieces from one of the best offenses in history, the Chiefs also have an early Rookie of the Year favorite in former LSU running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire.

In light of the current uncertainty surrounding sports and the football season, there is speculation that the NFL might frontload the schedule with interconference games as a type of cancellation insurance.

I don’t think the NFL wants to jeopardize this match in particular, but if it does fall early in the schedule, the Buccaneers might be at even more of a disadvantage. After all, NFL teams are holding remote OTAs, and with so much unknown, training camp and preseason could be complicated/shortened. This training camp and preseason are especially crucial for teams like the Buccaneers who have made changes at the most important position in the sport. They’ll be equally important for teams that have made coaching changes, such as the Dallas Cowboys.

If this is a later game, I still like locking in the Chiefs -2.5 right now. The Buccaneers are currently favored in 14 of their 16 games at FanDuel Sportsbook as online sports betting sites prepare for a flood of public bets on the new-look Buccaneers who are now led by #12 instead of Jameis Winston.

It’s easy to understand the hype. The Buccaneers finished 7-9 in 2019 with Winston throwing 30 interceptions, while Brady hasn’t thrown 30 interceptions in his last four seasons combined.

However, I’m not convinced that Brady provides as big of a boost as NFL bettors assume. It’s at least safe to say the Buccaneers are overvalued in the NFL betting market, and the Chiefs opening as 2.5-points favorites is a perfect example.

NFL Pick: Chiefs -2.5

[Sign up at PointsBet to get these odds!]

Read More

More 2020 NFL Season Lines & Best Bets

Philadelphia Eagles at Green Bay Packers -2.5

The Packers finished the 2019 season with a 13-3 record and one game away from the Super Bowl, but were they as good as their record suggests? Not even close.

The Packers’ point-differential, historically speaking, was much closer to that of an 8-8 team than a 13-3 squad. Green Bay overperformed by winning a handful close games, including a 31-24 win at Arrowhead against Matt Moore instead of Patrick Mahomes.

Other close Packers wins to note from 2019:

Using their first two draft picks for Jordan Love and a running back, the Packers front office accomplished nothing that will help them in the short term. They also remained idle in free agency.

The Eagles might have shocked fans by using their second-round pick on quarterback Jalen Hurts, but they also used the draft to tackle roster needs, specifically at wide receiver, head-on.

Before drafting Hurts, Philadelphia drafted TCU receiver Jalen Reagor, but they weren’t finished adding receiving weapons. They also drafted Boise State’s John Hightower, Southern Miss’s Quez Watkins, and then agreed on a trade with the 49ers to acquire Marquise Goodwin. As ESPN put it, the Eagles front office assembled a ‘track team’ receiver corps for quarterback Carson Wentz.

Remember, injuries plagued the Eagles’ depth at receiver in 2019.

Tight ends Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert led the team in receiving followed by rookie running back Miles Sanders. Eventually injuries to Alshon Jeffery and DeSean Jackson combined with poor performances from Nelson Agholor forced Philadelphia to turn Greg Ward into their primary wideout.

To put things in perspective, Ward played quarterback in college before joining the short-lived AAF, where he was fourth on his team in receiving yards before the league went defunct.

Still, the Eagles somehow managed to win the NFC East. Needless to say, their offense should be much better even if you can’t count on their veteran receivers to remain healthy.

It’s also worth noting that drafting Hurts is more defensible than many realize. Hurts is a reliable back-up for Wentz, who carries injury concerns of his own. Additionally, Doug Pederson has proven to be one of the more forward-thinking coaches in the NFL, and it appears he’s taking notes from the Saints as the Eagles look to use Hurts similarly to the way Sean Payton uses Taysom Hill. Expect Hurts to convert some important fourth-down and two-point conversions this season.

All of that to say, we should be bullish on the Eagles and quite bearish when it comes to the Packers ahead of the 2020 NFL season.

The Packers weren’t able to beat the Eagles at home last year. I don’t see anything changing this time around.

NFL Pick: Eagles +2.5

[Sign up at FanDuel Sportsbook to get these odds!]

Read More

Cleveland Browns at New York Giants +1.5

This time last year the Cleveland Browns were receiving all of the preseason hype.

After the Browns traded for wide receiver “(player-popup #odell-beckham)Odell Beckham Jr, bettors flocked towards the Dawg Pound, betting Browns futures at as low as 14-1 to win the title. Just like that, only two years removed from an 0-16 season, the Browns became the most bet-on team to win the 2019 Super Bowl at US sportbooks.

We quickly found out these bettors were wrong. The Browns would win only six games, struggling under head coach Freddie Kitchens, while Baker Mayfield had nothing short of a sophomore slump.

The Browns parted ways with Kitchens, whose abysmal coaching decisions became a weekly routine. They have also added much-need help on the offensive line selecting OT Jedrick Wills Jr. with the no. 10 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.

The New York Giants added an offensive lineman as well their no. 4 overall pick, passing on the likes of highly-touted defenders such as Derrick Brown and Isaiah Simmons. Giants GM David Gettleman surprised people by selecting Andrew Thomas, who was 12-1 to be the first offensive lineman drafted. This will help protect quarterback Daniel Jones, but I’m still expecting the Giants to be one of the worst teams in the league.

The Browns on the other hand have a real chance to exceed expectations. With talks that the Browns are interested in acquiring Jadeveon Clowney, Cleveland could play much closer to what bettors expected last year than the sub-500 team they turned out to be.

NFL Pick: Browns -1.5

[Sign up at DraftKings Sportsbook to get these odds!]

Image Credit: USA Today Sports Images

About the Author

schmitto
Matt Schmitto (schmitto)

Matt Schmitto is an Organic Strategy Lead for Better Collective. He was introduced to daily fantasy sports in 2012 and soon became a member at RotoGrinders. Seven years later, Schmitto joined RotoGrinders Network full time as a staff writer shortly after the Supreme Court overturned PASPA. He has since covered important stories in the sports betting and fantasy sports industries for sites like SportsHandle and USBets and has had roles as a sports betting editor and commercial content manager. He continues to play DFS and loves placing Futures bets at sportsbooks. His favorite DFS sites are DraftKings, Underdog Fantasy, and PrizePicks. Follow Schmitto on Twitter – @Matt_Schmitto