Through Geoff Schwartz
FOX Sports NFL Analyst
I’m over the moon to write this sentence: The NFL is back, the preseason begins Thursday with the Hall of Fame game!
The Jacksonville Jaguars and Las Vegas Raiders face off in Canton, Ohio from the 2022 season. And when a game is played, money should be made, even if it’s the preseason.
Let’s talk about a few ways to bet on the Hall of Fame game and preseason in general.
Historically, there have been two ways to make money in the NFL preseason: betting on coaches or betting on unders.
The first is super easy. There are several coaches with outstanding records covering the preseason spread. John Harbaugh covered 71.5% of the time, followed by Frank Reich (70%), Sean McDermott (66.6%) and Pete Carroll (64.2%). What do three of these four coaches have in common? They are not offensive coaches.
Offense coaches have a plan of attack for the game and don’t care about winning. They’re doing what’s best to get the offense ready for the season. On the other hand, defensive coaches are set to play the entire 60 minutes of defense. They try to choke the opponent from the start and their teams play these games more intensely. The ravens are a combination of both. They play excellent defense but also have a difficult offense to prepare for, so they just run over everyone. But overall I like auto betting these above coaches in preseason.
If we look at this Thursday matchup, we have two coaches with boring preseason cover records. Jaguars coach Doug Pederson has 8-8 ATS preseason, while Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels is 3-5 in his eight preseason games as Broncos coach.
The second way to make money before the season starts is on the bottom. With each team’s big players unlikely to see more than a few snaps, the Under have scored in seven of their last nine Hall of Famer games.
Unsurprisingly, the Jaguars have already announced that their top two quarterbacks will not play. I expect the Raiders to do the same. Scoring becomes difficult when both the quarterbacks and backups aren’t playing. How many third-string QBs move the ball at will in a preseason game? none.
So my best bet for Thursday night, especially with Trevor Lawrence out, is the under.
SELECT: Less than 30.5 points scored by both teams combined at FOX Bet (bet $10 to win $19.09 total)
Geoff Schwartz played eight seasons in the NFL for five different teams. He started at right tackle for the University of Oregon for three seasons and was a second-team All-Pac-12 selection his senior year. He is an NFL analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @GeoffSchwartz.
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