NewsBot
New Member
- Messages
- 111,281
- Reaction score
- 2,947
The season opener may be more than four months away, but that isn't stopping Vegas from releasing the lines for Week 1, 2016.
The Dallas Cowboys won't kick off the 2016 NFL regular season against the Giants for another 148 days, but the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook has already released the lines for the NFL opening weekend. Following almost immediately upon the release of the schedule, Vegas has the Cowboys as 5.5-point favorites against the Giants on September 11 in Dallas.
The Cowboys have won five of their last six games against their divisions rivals from New York, and the Giants haven't won a season opener since 2010. So the favorable odds shouldn't come as much of a surprise.
In other NFC East action, the Eagles are favored by -7.5 points at home over the visiting Browns, while the Commanders are 2.5-point underdogs at home on Monday night against the Steelers.
It's important to keep in mind that the lines doesn't necessarily reflect the actual chances of either team winning the season opener. Sportsbooks usually set the line to make sure that the money being bet is spread 50/50 over both teams (the key to remaining a profitable bookmaker). So while these opening odds reflect the bookmakers' best guess as to where the action would remain even on both sides of the bet, once the action starts coming in on one particular side of the line, the bookmakers could easily adjust the line to reflect the betting public's betting pattern.
The over/under for the Cowboys home opener is set at 49.5 points, which is fairly low considering that the seven games against the Giants in Cowboys Stadium have averaged 62.3 total points scored per game.
So what do you say, will the game be another slugfest or will it be a low-scoring nailbiter?
Continue reading...