BetMaryland.com sports betting analyst Bill Ordine chatted with PressBox about how to go about assessing possible midseason NFL futures bets, his favorite midseason futures and more.
This has been edited for content and clarity.
PressBox: What are your favorite types of midseason futures bets?
Bill Ordine: Make the playoffs. I think that that’s a very predictable bet. The odds are not going to be good, necessarily, on just taking a team to make the playoffs, but the odds aren’t great because I think it’s very predictable. The other bet that I really like is to win the conference because you’re going to get really good odds on some teams. I point to last year when Cincinnati won the conference. They just had to get on a roll at the right time and get a couple of breaks at the end, which they did. That can be a big payday, to win the conference. A couple of years ago, I had Buffalo to win the conference when they ran into Kansas City in the championship. They did not beat Kansas City, but I think I had Buffalo at 20-1 or 25-1. It was a nice ticket to be holding on to when that game kicked off.
PB: What midseason futures bet has become more popular in recent years?
BO: Player bets certainly have — all kinds of player bets have become en vogue. Whatever is available out there in terms of rushing yardage, passing yardage, receptions, those bets have really become popular. The fans are really warming up to player props. … What have become hugely popular are player props within games, both pregame and mid-game — pregame as people divine how a team has game-planned that specific game, and then mid-game after watching how a game has played out, with what the likely game script will be for the second half of any given game.
PB: When’s the right time to change your expectations about teams as it relates to futures bets?
BO: [After Week 4] is a reasonable time to consider that. The funny thing about futures odds that I’ve noticed is that they don’t really seem to change that much as you get closer to the playoffs themselves. [Let’s say] a team that began the season at 25-1 makes the playoffs. Other than a team that was a real powerhouse at the beginning of the year, some team that just kind of looked good is going to probably be 20-1, 25-1 to win the Super Bowl. As you get closer to the playoffs, even teams like that who do make the tournament, it’s surprising how many of those teams are still 20-1 even though they’re in the tournament field. Sometimes you don’t get a really big break on a team that you think should be longer odds as you get closer to the tournament and they’ve got a winning record.
I think at this point where a bettor can strike is a team that really looked terrible at the beginning of the year and now after four games, they’re not 0-4. They’ve got a couple of wins. A team that sort of jumps out at me at this point — and it’s a team that I really had very little hope for at the beginning of the year — is the New York Jets, surprisingly. We’ve got a very small sample size of them, and that’s one of the problems that I think you generally have at this time of the year. You’re going to have a small sample size. But the Jets began the year with Joe Flacco at quarterback, and he won a game for them. … You can get a really big number on the Jets to win their division. I don’t think anybody’s going to be able to get over the Bills, but if I were going up to buy a lottery ticket, right now it would be the Jets to make the playoffs. The division that they’re in is not overwhelmingly difficult.
PB: What are your other favorite futures bets in the AFC?
BO: As I look at midseason props, we know that the conference championship game is likely to be the Bills and the Chiefs. … The Ravens are always in play as long as their quarterback does not get hurt. The Tennessee Titans have arguably still one of the top three, four or five players in the conference in their running back, [Derrick Henry]. Those would be the teams that I would be taking lottery tickets on. I don’t think you’ll get very good odds on the Chargers because everyone loved the Chargers at the beginning of the year. Everyone loved Justin Herbert as potential league MVP, so I don’t think you’re going to get very good odds on the Chargers.
PB: What are your favorite futures bets in the NFC?
BO: As I look at the NFC, if I am picking a long shot in that conference, depending on what Minnesota’s odds are, Minnesota might be the long shot to get to the Super Bowl. Kirk Cousins gets an awful lot of criticism. I think that the negative views of Kirk Cousins might actually work to a Minnesota bettor’s favor because he’s just been written off as a guy who’s not going to get you to the big game. He’s been written off as a 9-8 quarterback. This might be the year where having a Kirk Cousins as your quarterback — if he plays all 17 games — might be good enough to get you into the conference championship game. They don’t have to get past a powerhouse Green Bay team any longer because the Packers are not a powerhouse team. The Buccaneers are vulnerable because they don’t have a lot of personnel. A team like Minnesota — if it gets on a roll, if it gets a little bit lucky — can make its way into the conference championship game.
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