NFL 2022 betting tips: Season outright preview with best bets
Ross Williams picks out four best bets for the 2022 NFL season, looking at everything from Super Bowl winners to bottom of the standings.
NFL betting tips: 2022 season
5pts Buffalo Bills to win the AFC East & Los Angeles Rams to make the Playoffs at 10/11 (Sky Bet)
2.5pts Dallas Cowboys to not make the Playoffs at 2/1 (Sky Bet)
1.5pts Regular Season Wins: Atlanta Falcons & Chicago Bears Both Under 5 at 16/1 (Sky Bet)
1pt e.w. Los Angeles Chargers to win Super Bowl LVII at 14/1 (General 1,2 1/2)
Sporting Life RequestABet
- Buffalo Bills to Win AFC East
- Dallas Cowboys to Miss the Playoffs
- Chicago Bears Under 5.5 Regular Season Wins
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September has arrived, the leaves are falling from the trees and televisions across the nation have Sunday evening reservations for the foreseeable future.
The NFL is back this week, promising one of the most competitive seasons ever, along with storylines aplenty. And yes, Tom Brady is still playing. At this point, we may have to come to terms with the fact that he might just never stop.
Before we dive back into our weekly best bets for another season, we’re kicking things off with a wider view of the league and the value we can glean from it in 2022.
For those willing to play the long-game, here are my best bets for this year’s NFL campaign, along with an early Super Bowl LVII pick.
Who will win Super Bowl LVII?
When it comes to picking out the winner of the big one, it’s not difficult to make cases for the teams at the top of the market.
Tampa Bay will be short-priced for as long as Tom Brady can strap on a set of shoulder pads, and Buffalo can justify their favouritism based on previous outings and just how close Josh Allen and co. have come to disposing of Kansas City and climbing the summit themselves.
The defending champions, armed once again with Matt Stafford, Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald, are also undoubtedly in the mix, but going back-to-back in the NFL is a phenomenally tough task.
It has happened on seven occasions during the Super Bowl era, but the feat the Rams are striving for has only been achieved once since the turn of the century, and I don’t love the pricing.
I do think there is championship value in LOS ANGELES, however.
Pound-for-pound, there’s a real case that the Rams’ nearest and dearest possess the most talented roster in the NFL.
Across the board, there’s no question that the CHARGERS are stacked to the brim with talent, and look primed to win. With that in mind, a healthy price of 14/1 to be Super Bowl LVII victors looks mighty tempting.
The defence catches the eye first, not least due to a highly-productive offseason where the Chargers well and truly loosened the purse-strings.
Thanks to the likes of Derwin James and four-time Pro Bowler Joey Bosa, LA weren’t light on defensive talent before the spring, but the additions of ball-hawking cornerback J.C. Jackson and Khalil Mack put the whole league on notice.
The unit isn’t perfect, and improvement has to be seen in the run-defence department, where they massively struggled last term, but they clearly have extra bite this season.
They’ve added superstar names with legitimate big-play potential and the importance of head coach Brandon Staley cannot be overlooked.
The architect of the Rams’ defence - which eventually won the Super Bowl - was always going to need time to get his ideas across to a new team, and reports from training camp suggest significant work has been done to fix the problems that ended the Chargers’ 2021 season prematurely.
Staley is a year older and no longer a rookie head coach, and that’s important.
On the offensive side of the ball, there’s also plenty to love. Austin Ekeler is one of the most efficient running backs in the league, and the experienced outside threats of Keenan Allen and Mike Williams are incredibly potent, if a little familiar.
Allen, in particular, was one of only ten receivers in the NFL to catch over 100 passes in 2021 and at 30 years of age, he still has plenty to give for the Bolts.
Ultimately, the man tasked with delivering the ball to Allen is the key to the Chargers’ success, and the franchise could hardly ask for a better candidate.
Justin Herbert has been a revelation since joining the league as the sixth-overall draft pick in 2020. He claimed Rookie of the Year honours after a fantastic first season, and he backed that up with a Pro Bowl nod in his sophomore year.
Another 5,000-yard season from Herbert would go a long way to securing a comfortable play-off berth and a run at the Lombardi Trophy, not to mention his handy additions outside of the pocket.
Although his preference is to use his natural ability as a gunslinger, Herbert already has over 500 yards and eight touchdowns on the ground. An effective plan B in a league filled with dangerous pass-rushing threats.
In years gone by, age would be a concern and many would have turned their noses up at the prospect of a third-year quarterback leading his team to the big dance.
But thanks to the recent efforts of Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow, age is no longer a real consideration. And make no mistake, Justin Herbert is a player with the talent to enter the conversations those two quarterbacks have found themselves in.
Any concern around the Chargers would mainly revolve around the strength of their schedule. Based on 2021 win records, LA have one of the ten most-difficult fixture lists in the NFL this year, but I don’t consider this an issue large enough to scratch the Chargers from Super Bowl consideration.
The teams around them in a tough AFC conference are in a similar or identical boat (their division rivals, the Kansas City Chiefs, have the hardest schedule in the league on paper) and early estimates suggest the Chargers would today start as betting favourites in around twelve of their 17 match-ups.
A twelve-win regular season, taking into account the strength of the AFC West division and the likelihood of those teams trading victories, would almost certainly secure a spot in the post-season.
From there, their fate would be in the hands of the football gods, but I have every faith that the talent of the Chargers’ roster would see them mount a serious challenge.
A tough year in Texas?
If this team didn’t play with a star on their helmet, in one of the world’s most iconic stadiums and for one of the globe’s most valuable sports franchises, this price simply would not exist.
I’m confident that it wouldn’t even be close.
We’re told that the Dallas Cowboys are an American institution; a team with winning in their DNA, that regards anything less than victory a failure.
Except, only one third of that statement is true.
Fans don’t like to hear it - and the owner of the Dallas franchise, Jerry Jones, even less so - but the fact remains that the Cowboys are no longer a successful NFL team.
Their last visit to the Super Bowl was in 1996 and – as if you needed the context – that pre-dates the birth of yours truly. Since then, Dallas have made it to the playoffs eleven times, at a success rate of 42.3%.
This team arrives at each new season with an in-built expectancy of playing into mid-January and beyond, but this year in particular, the belief is built on fallacy and misplaced optimism.
At 2/1, there is huge appeal in backing the COWBOYS NOT TO MAKE THE PLAYOFFS.
The offensive line of the Cowboys – a shining light a year ago – has lost two huge components in La’el Collins and the injured Tyron Smith, without significant replacements.
Amari Cooper now resides in Cleveland, leaving little beyond Ceedee Lamb and Michael Gallup (who may not make the start of the season) to catch balls from Dak Prescott this season.
Then there’s Ezekiel Elliott. The $80m man that never, truly returned to the heights of his rookie season in 2016, despite gobbling up more than his fair share of the salary cap. Elliott retains the starting role, but few have complete faith he’s even the best running back on the roster nowadays.
Offensively, they clearly start the 2022 season in a weaker position, and the Dallas defence throws up more questions than certainties.
Micah Parsons is a fantastic player who richly deserved his Defensive Rookie of the Year nod a season ago, but the talent beyond the star line-backer is sparing.
PFF ranked Dallas 30th in the NFL against the run last season and little has been done to address that particular issue. Plus, there’s no getting away from the fact that Trevon Diggs – the Cowboys’ #1 cornerback – concedes more passing yards than any other secondary player in the league.
To his credit, he does also create interceptions, but over the course of a long season, your first-choice corner shipping over 1,000 yards to receivers is unforgivable.
Philadelphia, on the other hand, have had a fantastic offseason.
Headlined by the arrival of star wide-out A.J. Brown, the Eagles appear to have turned the ship and the odds have justifiably begun to shift towards the NFC East title returning to the City of Brotherly Love this season.
This leaves Dallas in the precarious situation of having to be the best of the rest.
With three teams very likely to be in the hunt for the always-competitive NFC West, the Vikings and Packers battling it out in the North and a myriad of unpredictability in the South (including Brady’s Bucs and a resurgent-looking Saints roster) the numbers start to get really tight for a Cowboys team on the downturn, and I’m not convinced they have what it takes.
Value on offer in the double
One of those doubles that seems too good to be true. However, in this instance, I’m struggling to find the caveat.
The Buffalo Bills go into the season as the darlings of the outright betting market, and they’re a rock-solid 4/9 favourite for a third-successive AFC East title. This level of expectation is rare in western New York, but the Bills won’t be fazed.
Over the last couple of years, Buffalo have grown used to winning, and it’s why another division title should be firmly in their grasp by the end of December. The Bills have gone 11-1 within the division since Tom Brady left New England, and even the game they lost took place in dreadful conditions.
For all Mac Jones showed us in his rookie season, the Patriots are not the same franchise post-Brady and Bill Belichick’s rebuilding job will take some time yet.
As for the other two contenders in the East, the New York Jets are 20/1 to claim the division title, which perfectly encapsulates the scale of the journey they’re on.
And then there’s the Miami Dolphins, who will expect improvement after the offseason signing of Tyreek Hill and the implementation of a fresh set of coaching ideas, but quarterbacks go a long way to winning trophies, and Tua Tagovailoa is not in the same league as his counterpart in Buffalo.
Meanwhile, the Rams have made the playoffs in four of the last five seasons and they march into 2022 with the confidence of reigning champions.
Had Aaron Donald hung up his cleats after February’s Super Bowl win, the narrative may have shifted slightly, but the fact that the game’s most-dominant defender has decided to go round again should tell you all that you need to know.
The Rams are gearing up for another championship tilt, and the mere thought of LA failing to make the playoffs feels disrespectful before a ball has been kicked or thrown in earnest.
Two bad teams...
To put it plainly, both of these teams look horrible.
ATLANTA are in full rebuild mode after Matt Ryan left the building, and it’s not going to be a quick fix.
Marcus Mariota will take starting reps at quarterback in the early stages of the season, with rookie Desmond Ridder in reserve, and it remains to be seen whether second-year head coach Arthur Smith will be able to magic up any sustainable Atlanta offence, outside of throwing the ball in the general area of Kyle Pitts.
There’s been no significant investment on either side of the ball, despite the Falcons having the fourth-most porous defence in the league in 2021, and the franchise is lumbered with the largest dead money salary cap hit in NFL history, following the departure of their long-time quarterback to the Colts.
Nobody likes to be negative before a down has even been played, but if Atlanta are smart, they should already have at least one eye on the 2023 season, which should start with a valuable top-five draft pick.
The BEARS are a little further along in the process, with a first-round quarterback already on the roster, but to say Justin Fields looks isolated on that Chicago offence would be the understatement of the decade.
He has Darnell Mooney – who ranked 19th for receiving yardage last season, scoring four touchdowns – but that’s where the well dries up in terms of proven NFL talent.
Outside of Mooney, no receiver on the roster has more than 80 career receptions, and the Bears will be going with a seventh-round rookie in their starting three in week one.
That is no situation for a second-year quarterback to find themselves in, and it doesn’t bode well for Chicago’s ability to put up points.
On top of the offensive issues, a change at head coach brings a complete shift in defensive structure, as Matt Eberflus will look to implement the 4-3 defence that brought him success in Indianapolis.
A major change like this requires time, and depth of talent. Unfortunately for the Bears, on the eve of the new season, they simply have neither.
Five teams failed to secure more than four wins last season, and six the season before, so there’s plenty of precedent for the win totals in question. If five teams again fail to hit that mark in 2022, I’d be willing to wager that the FALCONS and BEARS are well in amongst them.
Odds correct at 1510 BST (05/09/22)
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