NFL Futures Worth A (Long) Shot

For a season-long sweat, there’s nothing more fun than pursuing a big payoff on a sleeper pick
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Eric is a veteran writer, editor, and podcaster in the sports and gaming industries. He was the editor-in-chief of the poker magazine All In for nearly a decade, is the author of the book The Moneymaker Effect, and has contributed to such outlets as ESPN.com, Grantland.com, and Playboy. Contact Eric at [email protected].

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The days before the opening kickoff of an NFL season represent a time when anything is possible.

OK, maybe not anything. The Houston Texans will not be winning the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs will not be finishing with the worst record in the league, and Tony Fauci will not be getting an invite to Cole Beasley’s Christmas party.

But for the most part, this is a time to dream, a time to believe … a time to bet on season-long futures that might look absolutely ridiculous a month from now.

In this article, we’re going to focus on longshot futures, wagers that won’t cost bettors much if they lose but can bring in beaucoup bucks if they win. The unofficial rule here is that nothing shorter than 10/1 is considered a longshot — and for the most part, we’re striving to find gambles at 20/1 or higher that appear to have value.

One thing to remember before placing any of these wagers — as you can do legally in 22 states plus Washington, D.C., as of the start of Thursday’s season-opening Tampa Bay-Dallas game — is that expectations must be kept in check. These are boom-or-bust picks, like taking a low-owned wide receiver for your DFS tournament lineup who has a ceiling that can rocket you up the leaderboard but also possesses a floor of zero points.

The longshot bet is more likely than not to fail, with a high probability that it fails spectacularly. But at these prices, that’s OK.

Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and if you’re looking to hedge. There’s no difference between your longshot Super Bowl pick going 5-12 and someone’s safer bet going 12-5 before losing in the conference semifinals. You’re not looking for chunk plays here. That’s what the week-by-week betting grind is for. You’re looking to convert a Hail Mary — albeit one for which you’ve put your best unit on the field and placed yourself in a position to complete the pass.

OK, enough strained analogies. Let’s get to the longshot plays.

Super Bowl champ 

Is L.A. Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert poised for the sophomore slump or for the leap that Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson made in their respective second years in the league? Even if you happen to think the 2020 Offensive Rookie of the Year is only 50-50 to take that step forward, that’s good enough to make his team awfully intriguing at +4000 to win it all at Betfred Sportsbook.

Priced at +3000 or +3300 to win the Super Bowl everywhere else, the Chargers have more than enough upside to justify taking a shot at 40/1. At most books, they’re priced longer than Seattle, Tennessee, Dallas, New Orleans, and New England, though a case could be made they’ll be better than any of those squads. New coach Brandon Staley is a huge X factor, but he can’t do worse than Anthony Lynn did in guiding the Chargers to 12 wins total over the past two seasons.

L.A. won its final four games en route to going 7-9 in 2020. The team also hung tough in early-season losses to the Chiefs, Bucs, and Saints. Seven of the Chargers’ nine defeats were one-score games. There’s every reason to believe the less popular of Los Angeles’ two unpopular local teams will do better than last year — and the sportsbooks acknowledge as much, with a win total over/under of 9.5 (the same as the aforementioned Pats, Cowboys, and Titans, and higher than that of the Saints).

If you believe in the Chargers and want to play it safe, you can bet them at +130 at BetRivers and other Kambi-sourced books just to make the playoffs. But if you want to go big on the chance the Chargers won’t be going home, +4000 is a heck of a price for a Cinderella Super Bowl champ.

NFC title 

The Washington Football Team might not have a nickname, but it does have an elite defense, a proven coach, young skill-position players trending upward, and an upgraded quarterback situation over last year. (For what it’s worth, the Team also can be wagered on legally in Washington, D.C., Virginia, and, sometime in the coming months, Maryland.)

Last week on the Gamble On podcast, former NFL quarterback and veteran football analyst Ron Jaworski pegged Washington as the best bet to win the NFC East, and once you get into the playoffs, is any team longer than about 15/1 to reach the Super Bowl? Washington is priced between +1800 and +2500 at most sportsbooks, but FOX Bet has the Football Team an extra-juicy +2800 to win the conference. Do you believe in (Fitz)magic? If so, that’s a heck of a number in an NFC that becomes absolutely wide open if Tom Brady finally loses a step.

(And all you really need is Washington to get to the conference finals before you can lock in a handsome profit with a hedge if you feel they’ve gone as far as they can.)

AFC title 

We could simply back the Chargers here again, at +2000 at Betfred, but that would be a lazy choice — and maybe not the best longshot value play when the Indianapolis Colts, priced between 12/1 and 18/1 at most books, are sitting at +2200 at FOX Bet.

Look, the Colts could easily be this year’s Murphy’s Law team. Everything could go wrong and there would be nothing shocking about it. The injury bug has been biting them throughout the preseason. Carson Wentz, for all the promise he showed early in his career, was an absolute bust in 2020 and might just be damaged goods at age 28. He’s also a COVID vaccine holdout, which puts him at greater risk of missing games than vaccinated QBs. A 6-11 or 5-12 season is very much within the range of possibilities for this Indy team.

But so is a season where coach Frank Reich and Wentz rediscover their 2017 Philly magic, where the core of last year’s outstanding 11-5 team is intact, and where four free wins against Houston and Jacksonville help propel Indy to a high seed. Under that scenario, FOX Bet will be begging you to cash out for double your investment when the playoffs begin.

Divisional title

It’s hard to find anyone but the absolute garbage teams (Bengals, Jets, Texans, Lions, etc.) at 10/1 or higher to win their division, with one exception: The Atlanta Falcons, between +700 and +900 to win the NFC South at most mobile books, are +1200 at Betfred.

The 2020 Falcons were the league’s premier “find a way to lose” team. They went 4-12 but had a Pythagorean expectation of 7.6 wins and 8.4 losses. Coach Dan Quinn, who led them to an 0-5 start before being fired, had a little something to do with that differential. It’s hard to know how new head coach Arthur Smith will fare, but on paper, this Falcons team ought to be about league average. It’s easy to see a path to them winning 10 of 17 games.

The trickier part of a Falcons division title bet is the part that requires the defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers to have their own season from hell. It’s unlikely. But it’s not impossible. You rarely see the Super Bowl hangover coming — but year after year, it strikes one or both teams that reached the big game. And Brady is forty-friggin-four. The bottom has to drop out someday. If that day comes this fall, the Falcons will be there to swoop in.

MVP

Let’s get the non-longshot obvious option out of the way first: At a price as high as +600 at BetMGM, Patrick Mahomes is worth a play here. After two straight years of not quite winning the MVP award despite being the league’s actual best player, he’ll get the votes if it’s a close call. It’s sort of a reverse 2021 Giannis situation.

But if you want a longshot — and no, we’re not counting Josh Allen, who can be found at double-digit odds but is third-favorite on the board behind Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers — we have three QBs for you, depending on how long you want to go.

Baker Mayfield is priced at +3500 at BetMGM, FOX Bet, and DraftKings. The jury is still out on whether the former No. 1 overall pick is actually, ya know, good. But he’s surrounded by a ton of talent in Cleveland, and if the Browns finish with 12 or more wins, the quarterback is going to get a lot of the credit.

We’ve seen those second-year MVP leaps from mobile quarterbacks, and both Mahomes and Jackson were perceived as laughable longshots before they pulled it off. This season’s version of that is Tua Tagovailoa in Miami, with a +7000 payout at Caesars Sportsbook. (Fellow sophomore Justin Herbert is intriguing as well, but he’s only +2200, and we already made the Chargers our Super Bowl longshot pick and it’s better not to be all-in on one team.)

And if you really want to get crazy, do you remember that guy Jimmy Garropolo, who played in the Super Bowl with the 49ers some 19 months ago? Well, he’s between 65/1 and 95/1 for MVP at most sportsbooks, but an insane +20000 — that’s 200/1 — at BetMGM. Most experts have already handed the reins to rookie Trey Lance in their minds, but what if the Niners start hot and stay hot and win the tough NFC West without Jimmy G giving anyone an excuse to bench him? If you think there’s better than a half-percent chance of that happening, you’re getting a good price.

League leader player prop

The first temptation for a bet of this kind was Jameis Winston at +1700 at FOX Bet to lead the NFL in interceptions. When a guy who threw a league-high 30 picks in his last full season is priced 12th from the top, you have to take a shot, right? Wrong. If Winston turns the ball over with regularity as the Saints’ starter, he’s going to lose the job to Taysom Hill, and it’s hard to lead the league in anything sitting on the bench.

So instead, our bet of choice is Kyler Murray for most passing yards at +4100 at FanDuel.

The Arizona Cardinals QB didn’t come close to winning this last year, finishing 13th with 3,971 passing yards. But the arrow is pointing upward for his third NFL season.

In terms of his wide receivers, A.J. Green should be a slight upgrade over what was left of Larry Fitzgerald in 2020, plus rookie Rondale Moore joins a corps that includes DeAndre Hopkins and Christian Kirk.

Competing in a ridiculously stacked division — probably the toughest in all of football — the Cards will often be playing from behind, which means Murray should have to air it out in the second half more often than, say, Mahomes or Rodgers or Allen.

And look at Murray’s game-by-game rushing stats in 2020. Through the first nine games, he averaged 9.7 attempts and 67.1 yards per game on the ground. In the final seven contests, he averaged 6.6 rushes for 30.7 yards. Health was a factor. But so was gaining experience and maturity and the understanding that the more you run, the more you risk injury.

We’ve seen this happen with countless young QBs — they come into the league with a run-first mentality and it takes a couple of years for them to start using their legs more sparingly. All signs point to Murray running less and passing more in 2021, and that should put the passing yardage title in his sights.

Photo: Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports

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