The National Football League opens their first full week of preseason action tonight with a pair of games. The first contest of the evening starts at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time when the Houston Texans visit the New England Patriots. That game is followed by a 7:00 p.m. matchup from Seattle where the Seahawks host the Minnesota Vikings.
You know it is preseason when the Texans are favored in Foxboro over Bill Bilichick and his Patriots. This is a demonstration of how the coaches are approaching this game. The Patriots coach is not entering this season with the juggernaut squad he often enjoyed when Tom Brady was running his offense … even considering Brady would likely have seen little action in a preseason opener.
More than that, the Patriots are by some accounts predicted to finish at the bottom of their AFC Eastern Division Conference this season. Not only has New England dropped off in the past couple campaigns, even missed the playoffs last year, but they have a lot more questions than they have had in recent years.
On the Houston side, they are under the direction of first-year head coach DeMeco Ryans as the organization continues to hunt for a coach that can lead the Texans back to prominence.
First year head coaches in their initial preseason game have a very good record. Seems they want to get off on the right foot and put a little more emphasis on a straight-up win than a veteran sideline mentor.
For this reason, the books opened the Texans as a 1½ point favorite at New England, a point spread that has grown to 3½ points despite most of the public action backing the home team.
Why?
It can be deduced from this movement that while public money is on the home team the wise guy wagers are backing the visitors. In most cases, almost all cases, it is much better to be on the side of the wise guys than getting in the long public line.
So, take the Texans?
If you must, but you don’t have to.
I want no part of the Patriots in this spot, and am not going to lay extra points on the road with a suspect Texans team forced to give extra points on the line. When a point spread moves off an opening line it shifts the winner 7% of the time in the NFL. In other words, if the Texans were to go on and win this game, there is a 7% chance it will be by two or three points … marking them a game day loser on what would have been a winner on the opening number.
Those “wise guys” bets are not laying extra points, and we no longer have access to the better number. Which means this, game one of this week is for viewing purposes only.
In the second game of the day, the Seattle Seahawks are looking to build on their surprise success of 2022 which saw them sneak into the final National Football Conference playoff spot when the Detroit Lions upset the Green Bay Packers on the final day of last season’s regular season.
Don’t bet on it.
Seattle had a lot going for them in their first season in a decade without Russell Wilson running their offense. They pushed off that challenge with a spirited effort directed by Head Coach Pete Carroll. Now they come into action off a postseason year and are not likely to return to the playoffs this season.
Their opponent, the Minnesota Vikings, had the second best record in the NFC last season, but what has always been their franchise history, failed in the postseason.
As for tonight, we’ve got a couple games that will be the beginning building blocks to gauge the directions of these teams, but nothing that entices us to reach for our wallets.