The Buffalo Bills became the consensus Super Bowl favorites at sportsbooks just last week.
The Bills promptly went out and lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday as a 15-point favorite. It’s the largest upset of the season, but also something that’s become more common in recent years.
From 1996 through 2017, NFL underdogs of 15 points or more didn’t pull a single outright upset, going 0-72 during that 22-season stretch, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. However, we’ve had one such upset in each of the past four seasons.
“There are way more opportunities for a bad team to pull off the big upset,” Chuck Esposito, a longtime Las Vegas bookmaker now with Station Casinos, said. “We’re seeing more and more teams that are huge underdogs, like the Jags and Texans, this season and on a weekly basis than we ever have before, increasing the probability of this happening.”
During the previous 22-season stretch, there was an average of 3.89 games with spreads of 15 points or higher. Over the past four years, there’s been an average of 5.75 such spreads, and we’re only halfway through this season.
John Murray, executive director the SuperBook in Las Vegas, pointed to higher over/under totals leading to larger point spreads. Jay Croucher, head of trading for sportsbook PointsBet, echoed Murray’s sentiments and hypothesized that the league becoming more pass-heavy could be leading to more frequent big upsets.
“More explosive passing offenses are leading to more of these large lines as well,” Croucher said. “Underdogs in the past couple of years have covered due to deplorable quarterback performances from big favorites: Jared Goff last year against the Jets, and Josh Allen today.”
Multiple veteran bookmakers were more surprised by the 22-year drought of upsets involving underdogs of more than two touchdowns than they were the recent uptick of big upsets.
“You’d think out of 72 games, you’d have at least one winner,” Jeff Stoneback, director of race and sports for BetMGM in Nevada, said, referring to the lack of big upsets from 1996 to 2017.Johnny Avello, a longtime Las Vegas bookmaker now with DraftKings, said he has seen so […]
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