When you look at each of the four major professional sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) in the United States, parity is the most existent in the National Football League. It’s due to many reasons — the salary cap, injuries and so on — but a team can be great one year, and then really bad the next, as well as vice versa.
With not just parity, but unpredictability, in the NFL being sky-high, you better believe that I have another prop bet for you. This go around, we’re going to go over the odds for another two-category prop: Which teams will land the best and worst records.
According to the top football betting sites, the New England Patriots are currently the favorites to grab the best regular season record in 2019 at +500 odds, with the Kansas City Chiefs in second-place at +700. Following the Chiefs in third comes a tie between the New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Rams with a +900 figure, and then the Philadelphia Eagles round out the top five for us at +1000 odds.
On the other end of the spectrum for who will grab the worst record, the Miami Dolphins are the lucky favorite for that with +300 odds, with the Cincinnati Bengals following in second at +500. In the No. 3 spot, the Arizona Cardinals fill that with their +900 odds, and then the New York Giants tally fourth at +950. In fifth-place, the Washington Redskins round us out at +1000 odds.
Last season, we would see both the Saints and Rams in a tie for the best record at 13-3, and there were also three other teams that were on their tail at 12-4: Kansas City Chiefs, Chicago Bears, and Los Angeles Chargers. As far as the worst record, that would belong solely to the Arizona Cardinals at 3-13, which explains why they have Kyler Murray now. The horrendous season would lead to Steve Wilks being fired as head coach after just one season, ultimately being replaced by Kliff Kingsbury.
Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and the New England Patriots have been dominating the National Football League for nearly 20 years now, so it’s really no shocker to see them as the favorite to land the most wins in 2019. Some pundits are concerned about their passing attack after the retirement of superstar tight end Rob Gronkowski and the on-going circus with Antonio Brown, but I personally wouldn’t worry. As long as Brady is at the helm at the quarterback position, the Patriots will be fine.
Speaking of the Antonio Brown situation, we still need to wait for all of the facts to come out, but from everything I’ve seen, it’s looking like Brown is a victim of being framed. I’ve seen the alleged text messages from Brown towards his accuser, but it doesn’t prove anything of what she’s accusing in regards to rape and sexual assault. Like I said, we still need to wait for all of the details to come out, but from what I’m seeing right now, it’s hard for me to see Brown receiving any kind of punishment — and that’s from both the police and NFL.
I’m expecting Antonio Brown to play this season, and when you mix him and Tom Brady together, you can expect the 2019 edition of the New England Patriots to be more dominant than usual — these are two elite superstars that we’re talking about in a combo, two of the greatest to ever play the game at their position. And that’s absolutely terrifying for opposition and fans who hate this franchise. Me personally, I can’t get enough of it, and I hope to see Brady and Brown light it up this season. Expect another massive year out of the New England Patriots that will most likely result in yet another Super Bowl championship.
Another franchise to consider in the ‘best record’ category are the Kansas City Chiefs. Last season, their MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes was absolutely superb, and now with a full season on his resume, Mahomes is poised for an even more productive season. In other words, expect an even more potent Chiefs offense in 2019. As far as their defense is concerned, they would have some struggles last year, but would undergo a pretty tremendous rebuild in the offseason. With a more potent offense and an upgraded defense, Kansas City should be a better team than last season, and that’s absolutely terrifying — as it should be, they’ll be extraordinarily lethal this year. Remember that upset in Jacksonville that was supposed to happen? Yeah, they smoked them.
By now, you already know the debacle that is the Miami Dolphins, and we’ve already went over them in a recent piece of mine, so let’s go over another trash-can team in the league: Cincinnati Bengals, who by the way are in second-place at +500 odds to have the worst record this season. The Bengals haven’t accomplished a postseason appearance since the 2015 campaign, and they’re so far away from being a playoff team at the moment that it’s not even funny. I understand they have a new head coach in Zac Taylor and he comes from Sean McVay’s system, but just be prepared for a potential long year in Cincinnati.
Their defense was absolutely laughable last season, and you can expect quite similar results this time around as well. The offense isn’t bad with a lot of good names on the roster, but here’s the issue: A.J. Green is out right now due to his ankle injury. As we all know by now, Green is a massively effective playmaker for the Bengals, and his absence will cause Cincinnati’s offense to lose a chunk of potency. The longer he’s out, the more likely the Bengals are to lose. As far as their rushing attack is concerned, Joe Mixon does his thing at the running back position, but with Green out, the defenses will be coming at him full force to put his productivity at a minimum. And this is especially true considering you can’t trust Andy Dalton without Green.
Let’s go over a few of the favorites in both of the categories of ‘Best Record’ and ‘Worst Record’, the entire slate of odds in this two-category prop bet, and afterwards, I’ll be giving you my prediction for each — as well as a long shot pick attached to them.
The New England Patriots would get off to their usual start in Week 1, but it would seem a bit more dominating than usual when they would thrash the Pittsburgh Steelers, 33-3. And now they want to throw Antonio Brown into the mix. I understand his latest issues dealing with rape accusations, and we’ve already went over that, but I think Brown will eventually be cleared to play. When that happens, expect this combination of Brown and Tom Brady to become toxic towards opposition. With that potency alone, how on earth do you bet against New England?
In what was expected to be an upset from the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 1 turned out to be a smacking from the Kansas City Chiefs, with the Chiefs taking out the Jaguars, 40-26. Yes, they put up 40 on that Jacksonville defense. Their quarterback Patrick Mahomes would win the MVP last season, and it appears that he could have an even better campaign in 2019. (That’s scary.) Not just that, but like I’ve previously mentioned, their defense is much more beefed up this year. I fully expect New England and Kansas City to be competing for the best record.
Based off of their performance last season and the talent on their roster, you have to put the Los Angeles Rams up there in this bet with the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs. (For now) The reason why I say for now is because, even though they were playing Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers on the road, their defense would allow too any points for my liking in a 30-27 victory. Don’t get me wrong, the Rams are going to be a great team this year, but for my money’s sake, I can’t help but to have trust issues to pick them to win this prop.
The New Orleans Saints would have to fight and claw their way to a win on Monday night against the Houston Texans, but a win is a win, right? With that being said, the Texans aren’t exactly a bad football team either, so give the Saints some credit here. Moving forward, I feel like New Orleans would be a great bet to roll with as far as the best record is concerned. Not only are they loaded with talent led by quarterback Drew Brees, but the chip on their shoulder after last season’s playoff loss is going to have them rolling with minimal losses this season.
I get the whole argument that we hear every season of: “It’s only one game.” But with the Miami Dolphins, we have to make an exception, and this is coming from a Dolphins fan. That Week 1 contest against the Baltimore Ravens was absolutely horrendous. I don’t care what the circumstances are, allowing nearly 60 points on you is inexcusable and all it means is that you’re a really bad football team. With that being said, I wouldn’t be shocked to see the Miami Dolphins land an 0-16 mark when the smoke clears. South Florida is burning right now, folks.
We’ve already went over the Cincinnati Bengals a little bit, but there’s two more factors I want to bring up for them: 1. They were actually quite impressive against the Seattle Seahawks in the first game, only losing by a 21-20 score on the road. My question, can they keep this up as the season goes along? And 2. If they can’t keep that momentum going, how possibly bad can this team get without their star wide receiver A.J. Green? Regardless of their Week 1 showing, they still start 0-1, so they certainly have the potential to be as bad as the Dolphins without Green.
To begin the game in their Week 1 contest against the Detroit Lions, they would start out with struggles being down by a score as much as 24-6. However, Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals would charge an aggressive comeback, and end up settling for a 27-27 draw in overtime. Here’s the thing: You can expect these early struggles to come from the Cardinals with Murray being a rookie quarterback, but I do feel like he’ll get it together as the season progresses. As a result, Arizona should produce a hand full of wins, so pass on this bet.
Overall, the New York Giants are a bad football team, but they’re not terrible, and they still have a good amount of talent on the team. Well, at least with the power of Saquon Barkley. In Week 1, the Giants would get hammered by a 35-17 score to the Dallas Cowboys, and it was so bad, that we ended up seeing rookie quarterback Daniel Jones already. (It was only four snaps, but still.) Despite all of this though, I don’t think New York is so bad of a team where they can seriously be considered in this bet. They’ll grab some wins, but it’ll be a losing season, for sure.
The San Diego Padres visit Chase Field as they open an NL West set against…
The Atlanta Hawks try again at the TD Garden on Tuesday night. The Hawks lost…
The Brooklyn Nets try again on Monday night. The Nets were outgunned 121-102 by the…
The Pittsburgh Pirates visit the St. Louis Cardinals for a four-game set beginning Thursday. The…
The Washington Nationals play the Los Angeles Angels in Game 2 of their three-game set…
The Los Angeles Dodgers will attempt to bounce back from a poor performance against Arizona…