Best NFL Futures To Bet Before Week 1 (2022)
The 2022 NFL season is nearly here, so it’s time to fire off some last-minute futures bets! When betting futures, pricing is significant. If you have multiple sportsbook accounts, make sure you are odds shopping.
Many websites, including Betting Pros, have odds screens that will do the work for you and ensure you’re betting at the best price available. I wrote about what odds shopping is and why it’s important in this article, so refer to that if you have any questions.
(Odds are courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)
Check out our NFL Futures Betting Guide >>
Philadelphia Eagles to win NFC East (+150)
Fly, Eagles, Fly! I can’t remember being higher on a team entering the season than this year’s Eagles. I’ve been loading up futures on them since April, including over 8.5 wins (-115), to win the division (+165), to win the NFC (+1400) and to win the Super Bowl (+3300). Most of those numbers are long gone, but a bet on the Eagles to win the East is still in play.
Philadelphia’s roster has returned to the form that won it a Super Bowl in 2018. Howie Roseman has done some incredible work retooling his team. The defensive line looks poised to be elite again as the Eagles get Brandon Graham back from injury and add a grizzly bear up the middle in Jordan Davis. It’s a unit with good football players in Fletcher Cox, Graham, Javon Hargrave, Hasson Reddick and Josh Sweat, but also great depth with Derrick Barnett and Milton Williams. The secondary has recently held the Eagles’ defense back but now looks like one of the better groups in the league. Two good corners in Darius Slay and James Bradbury, backed up by a solid safety unit that just added C.J. Gardner Johnson for a few late-round draft picks. Throw in a solid linebacker unit that added NFL draft steal Nakobe Dean to it, and you’ve got one of the better defenses in the league.
As for the offense, the Eagles have always dominated the trenches and project to do so again with one of the best offensive lines in the league. PFF projects them to be the best in the NFL. Philadelphia’s draft day trade for A.J. Brown solidified one of the best groups of playmakers in the league as well. Former Heisman winner DeVonta Smith enters year No. 2 with high expectations. Dallas Goedert has developed into one of the best and most underrated tight ends in the NFL, and they’ve got a trio of playmaking running backs.
The weight of Philly’s season falls on one man’s shoulders, Jalen Hurts. He is the X-Factor for this team and can take this team from the fringe of the playoffs to a Super Bowl contender. A bet on the Eagles is a bet on Hurts, and I’m very willing to put my money on him.
There is no doubt about how good Hurts is on the ground, and that will be an incredible threat behind the Eagles’ offensive line. The doubt is through the air. Last season, Hurts ranked 15th in PFF passing grade, 14th in yards per attempt and 24th in passer rating. With this roster, I think that’s going to be good enough.
And the thing I love about Jalen Hurts is he has never stopped improving. We are always talking about development and expect players to improve linearly as we watch their Madden ratings go up a few points every year, but this is not the case for 95% of football players. It has been for Hurts, though. Since his 2016 season at Alabama, Hurts has improved his PFF grade, yards per attempt and passer rating in every single season. It is absurd to look at his year-over-year statistics and see just how steadily Hurts has climbed.
With an elite group of playmakers, a dominant offensive line, and a great defense to back him up, the Eagles don’t need Hurts to be that good. His division consists of Carson Wentz, Daniel Jones and a Cowboys team led by a below-average coach that lost Amari Cooper and Tyron Smith. They are due for major defensive regression and appear set on riding Ezekiel Elliott to wins this year.
The Eagles have one of the best rosters in the league, a capable quarterback with upside, a weak division and one of the easiest schedules in the league. They should be favored to win this division, and I think they do so easily.
Kansas City Chiefs to be the highest scoring team (+1000)
Patrick Mahomes is the Chiefs’ starting quarterback, so you should make this bet. Sound good?
OK, so the Chiefs are listed with the third-highest odds to be the NFL’s highest scoring team behind the Bills and Buccaneers. I think they are a little bit undervalued in this market. Yes, they lost Tyreek Hill, and Travis Kelce may be aging, but this is still Andy Reid and Mahomes we are talking about here. With that pairing, the Chiefs have finished first, second, sixth, and fourth in scoring. They are the only team that’s had such a consistently elite offense.
2022 will have to look different for Kansas City. They lost one of the most unique players in the league in Tyreek Hill, who was behind a lot of their success. But last season can teach us a lesson about this Chiefs offense. Throughout parts of last season, they looked lost and there were legitimate concerns that Mahomes and the Chiefs had been solved. Teams were just sitting back and playing two high safeties against the Chiefs and asking them to run the football, dink, and dunk their way down the field. Defenses were able to suppress the talents of Mahomes and Hill as much as they could. We saw a chink in the Chiefs’ armor for the first time in years.
So they pivoted. They saved money, amassed draft capital by trading Hill and created a new group of playmakers that won’t replace the void Hill left, but change it entirely. Three years ago, JuJu Smith-Schuster was a budding 22-year-old superstar. Injuries and Ben Roethlisberger have made us forget that, but Smith-Schuster is still just 25 and has the talent he displayed so young. The Chiefs will also still have the “take-the-top-of-the-defense speed†in Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Mecole Hardman. They added Skyy Moore in the draft to add depth to that group and let’s not forget about how good Kelce is. Yes, he’s 32 now, but how Kelce plays the game will age gracefully. The way Kelce can attack zones and the mind meld he and Mahomes share is tough to defend.
Despite the Orlando Brown drama this offseason, he’s back, and the Chiefs will have one of the best offensive lines in the league again. Clyde Edwards-Helaire is fully healthy for the first time since his rookie season, and the Chiefs have exciting playmakers in Jerick McKinnon, Isiah Pacheco and Ronald Jones to add depth to the backfield. Throw all of these playmakers with that offensive line in a pot, and it may not be the best stew, but we’ve got to remember that Reid and Mahomes are the chefs. Both are elite, if not the best, at what they do, and I’m going to bet on them to continue to do so, even if it isn’t in the same Mahomes-to-Hill deep bomb fashion that we’ve become so used to seeing.
Another reason I like this bet is the Chiefs’ schedule. We all know the AFC West is an absolute gauntlet full of great offenses. Take a look at the other side of the ball for Kansas City, and it’s not hard to realize that the Chiefs will have to rack up points and win shootouts against these teams.
Heading into the season, the Chiefs are my highest-graded offensive unit, and with Reid and Mahomes, I don’t think this team skips a beat. When you’re watching a late November Chiefs vs. Chargers game this season, and Mahomes hits Kelce to take a 38-35 lead, you’ll be glad you made this bet.
Matthew Freedman’s Best Bets After the 2022 NFL Draft >>
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