Dress rehearsals in the NFL preseason may be a thing of the past. Many coaches decided against exposing their most important weapons to serious injury last week.
Sports bettors, particularly those who like to bet Over/Unders, need to be aware that may foreshadow regular-season strategies that reduce scoring.
Look at what happened to scoreboard totals in the first three exhibition weeks:
Preseason average scoring sums
- Week 1: 41.88
- Week 2: 41.31
- Week 3: 35.81
There was a big drop as soon as the stakes were raised in terms of injury potential. Safety first! That was the theme across the league, as well as a belief that it was better to settle for field goals than try to force riskier forays to the end zone. You know the Giants scored 22 points without any offensive touchdowns in their win over the Jets in last week’s “Snoopy Bowl,” amassing five field goals and a punt-return touchdown.
The scoring drop was more gradual than the chart above suggests. Week 2 saw a wild 51-34 Packers-Steelers game that warped the average. But let’s count up the number of games that saw 44 or more combined points on the board:
Preseason games with 44+ points
- Week 1: 8
- Week 2: 6
- Week 3: 3
That’s right, only three poorly named “dress rehearsals” even reached 44 combined points last week, out of 16 matchups. Half the slate got there in the first full week when many backups were allowed to sling the ball all over the field against defenses which were worrying about getting “illegal hit” penalties. Put bluntly, higher-scoring games occurred with “expendable” backup quarterbacks who are easily replaced, but much-lower-scoring games were the rule with valuable starting quarterbacks who must be kept healthy.
We’ve mentioned a few times this summer that pro football is evolving before our eyes. Let’s see how coaches handle this week’s exhibition finales.
Successful betting once the regular season begins likely will hinge on your ability to read and react. Can you decipher which teams will thrive straight up and against the spread in a “safety first” era? On the other end of the spectrum, can you recognize which offenses have little chance to accumulate meaningful points because they’re too cautious?
