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The NFL regular season is still a few months away, but oddsmakers have already started posting opening spreads for the full 2022 schedule. The SuperBook at Westgate, for example, published the point spreads for every game on the schedule, giving us a glimpse of how a well-respected book rated each team at this point in the off-season.
These lines are an important clue as we can recreate them to find out exactly how many points each team is worth in the spread according to the SuperBook. We can also find out how much home field advantage is estimated, another look at the offseason analysis of one of the sharpest books out there.
(I won’t bore you with the spreadsheets required to convert point distributions to performance metrics, but it involves using a solver tool to go through each game and find the error between the known point distribution for each game and what we might estimate , to minimize it must be based on the teams involved.)
Once we’re done, we get a list of the teams and their default point spread value, as well as the aforementioned look at home advantage, which is estimated to be 1.8 points this season based on early spreads.
The top team in the NFL, according to this analysis, is the Buffalo Bills, who are expected to outperform an average team by 5.9 points per game. Next are the Kansas City Chiefs (5.0), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4.8), Los Angeles Rams (4.2), and Green Bay Packers (4.0). While all five of those teams made the playoffs last season, three of the five were eliminated in the divisional round.
At the bottom, according to SuperBook, are the Atlanta Falcons (-5.6), Houston Texans (-5.1) and Detroit Lions (-4.5). Judging teams on this metric isn’t perfect, but the results certainly stand the sniff test and provide a benchmark for the upcoming season.
Using the ratings to calculate weekly point spreads is then just a simple addition and subtraction. Subtract the away team’s rating from the home team’s rating, then add the home field advantage and you have your estimated point distribution. For example, the Baltimore Ravens (2.4) will travel to New Jersey to face the Jets (-3.8) in Week 1. We would estimate the scoring for this game to favor the Ravens at 4.4 points. (2.4 plus 3.8 minus 1.8 as the game is on the way for Baltimore). FanDuel offers Ravens -5½ and DraftKings offers Ravens -4½.
The power ratings are particularly useful for week 2 bettors. Many people will overreact to the results of the opening week of games, but barring major injuries, a sample from a game shouldn’t affect the overall rankings much. In fact, analytical researcher Mike Beuoy found that if two teams repeated a matchup the following week, one would only account for 15 percent of the actual outcome for a revised distribution.
For now, these ratings may prove useful to anyone browsing the NFL futures markets. Since 2002, an NFL team that averaged a -1 point margin — a slight favorite — has won 9½ games, while a team that was favored by an average of four points has won 11½ games. This helps us evaluate the regular season total win bets available during the offseason.
The Washington Commanders, for example, are expected to be underdogs at nearly two points per game this season, forecasting a 7-10 season, according to SuperGate. Win total offered by DraftKings is under 8 wins at odds of -110 (bet $110 to win $100). This makes the under an intriguing bet.
When we look at these estimated win totals by division, some additional interesting possibilities emerge. The Bills, for example, are expected to win 12 or 13 games, three or four more than the New England Patriots or the Miami Dolphins. Still, FanDuel only offers the Bills odds of -180 to win the AFC East Division. The Indianapolis Colts and Tennessee Titans are expected to win nine or ten games each, but FanDuel is offering the Colts -105 odds to win the AFC South, while DraftKings is offering the Titans +175 odds to win the division to win.
Here are all divisions with teams listed in order of most expected wins. As always, it pays to shop around and get the best price on any futures bet.
You can also use the expected overall wins to figure out which teams should make the playoffs or which teams should at least have similar odds. It’s estimated that the Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals will win nine games in 2022 based on these point spreads, but the price for the Vikings to reach the playoffs (+100 at DraftKings) is less than the Cardinals’ ( +125). There are divisional elements to the game – the NFC West is more competitive than the NFC North – but it’s another example of how you can try to value the market during the off-season with these implied ratings.
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