Everything that happens in sports has additional context when viewed from a sports betting perspective. From season-changing injuries to record-setting moments and so much more, the sports news cycle will constantly and significantly affect the sports betting industry.
Our NFL betting buzz file, with contributions from David Purdum, Doug Greenberg and others, aims to provide fans a look at the sports betting stories that are driving the conversation throughout each week of the season.
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Nov. 1: Cardinals lead charge for big underdogs yet again
By Doug Greenberg
It has been a banner season for big underdogs in the NFL, as underdogs of seven or more points have won at least one game outright in each of the first eight weeks -- the first time that has happened since 1971, according to ESPN Research. Underdogs of at least seven points are now 20-7-2 against the spread (ATS) with nine straight-up wins.
Of all the big underdogs, though, one has stood above the rest: the Arizona Cardinals.
With their dramatic, come-from-behind overtime win against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, the Cardinals notched their third outright victory of the season ... all of which have come when they were underdogs of seven or more points.
Arizona is the only team in the league to be 4-0 against the spread when coming in as an underdog of seven or more points and, oddly enough, their three ATS losses have come when they've been smaller underdogs (they have not been dubbed a favorite yet this season). They were responsible for the largest upset of the 2026 NFL season when they defeated the Los Angeles Rams as 13.5-point underdogs in Week 6.
In general, the big underdogs' winning and covering has been a welcome development for bookmakers: It's a well-known axiom in sports betting that the public tends to back favorites, both on the spread and as featured in moneyline parlays.
"Bettors still tend to be hesitant to trust big underdogs, which makes those occasional outright upsets especially valuable for the book," Caesars Sportsbook's head of football, Joey Feazel, told ESPN over email. "That has been a welcome change compared to 2024, when it often felt like the public's preferred teams continued to find a way home. Bettors are beginning to show more interest in taking the points with these underdogs, but we have not seen a widespread shift away from favorites on the moneyline just yet."
Feazel said that "Arizona was comfortably the most important decision in the book's favor" on Sunday, and DraftKings noted that neither team was heavily backed either way.
This most recent Cardinals win was particularly improbable. Down by 14 in the fourth quarter, Arizona was as long as 28-1 on DraftKings' live moneyline. Feazel said that some Caesars customers grabbed them in the 12-1 range, but not with significant enough money to cause too much of a problem for the sportsbook.
Seven-point underdogs trailing by 14 or more points in the fourth quarter are now 5-977 since 2000, according to ESPN Research. The Cardinals are also the first team in the Super Bowl era to have three road wins as at least seven-point underdogs in their first eight games.
Arizona began the season with the shortest odds to have the fewest regular-season wins (+250) and was tied with the Miami Dolphins with a preseason win total of 3.5, the lowest in the NFL since 2017. Less than halfway through the season, the Cardinals need just one more win to cash that futures ticket for faithful bettors.
Their first chance to do so will be in Week 9 when they go on the road to face the Seattle Seahawks ... as 11.5-point underdogs, per DraftKings lines.
Oct. 23: Sportsbooks, bettors join the National Tight Ends Day frenzy
By Doug Greenberg
In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, clearing the way for states to legalize sports betting nationwide. That same year marked the beginning of another momentous occasion that has become a stalwart of NFL betting every season.
On the fourth Sunday in October -- Oct. 25 in 2026 -- the NFL celebrates National Tight Ends Day, a tongue-in-cheek commemoration of football's most underappreciated skill position. Since San Francisco 49ers tight ends Garrett Celek and George Kittle helped bring the honorary day to life eight years ago, it has become a staple of the betting world, with bookmakers taking extra notice and bettors staking extra cash backing players of the position.
"National Tight Ends Day has become a fun day for football fans, and we've seen the excitement around it grow each year," DraftKings director of sports operation Johnny Avello told ESPN via email. "This is a prime example of a way to have fun with the content on our platform."
The sportsbook noted that it sees more engagement on tight end player props on National Tight Ends Day than in any other week of a given season. On the day last season (Oct. 28), Hard Rock Bet says it saw tight ends account for 25% of all player prop selections compared to 11% the Sunday before and 9% the Sunday after. For touchdown scorer markets, that number jumped to 42% against 16% and 10% on the surrounding Sundays.
BetMGM specifically points out that its five most-bet players for props by tickets on the day in 2025 were all tight ends: Dallas Goedert, Tyler Warren, Tucker Kraft, Travis Kelce and Kittle.
Kraft celebrated by putting up a monster stat line of seven catches for 143 yards and two touchdowns in the Green Bay Packers' Week 8 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Caesars Sportsbook head of football Joey Feazel said that "bettors certainly prospered" by backing Kraft and that the book has had to be more aware of bettor activity during this particular Sunday.
"This week certainly will increase the amount of action on tight ends in all facets of the games, which in turn has the ability to shorten touchdown prices when the amount of action is significantly increased," Feazel said via email. "But at the end of the day it will simply be the implied probability of each TE to score a touchdown."
Even with all the hype surrounding tight ends for the day, there are only four players with anytime touchdown odds shorter than +200, according to DraftKings odds as of Thursday evening: Brock Bowers (+110), Trey McBride (+130), Sam LaPorta (+170) and Kraft (+175). Those could -- and probably will -- change closer to kickoff as bettors pile on their favorite TEs and take advantage of the many promotions sportsbooks will be running for the occasion.
Sportsbooks, like Caesars, also plan to offer special markets, such as most tight end receiving yards, tight end touchdown combos and other milestone props. Last year, Hard Rock offered leaguewide touchdown ladders and a tight end to score in every Sunday 1 p.m. ET game (+1750), among other specialties.
You can find our bets for National Tight Ends Day here.
Oct. 18: Cardinals pulls biggest upset of season, add to Rams' struggles
By David Purdum
The Los Angeles Rams won over the betting public in the offseason and kicked off the regular season as the clear-cut Super Bowl favorites. They haven't lived up to that billing so far, suffering a new low Sunday.
The Rams lost to the Arizona Cardinals as 13.5-point home favorites in the biggest upset of the season based on point spread. They are only the second double-digit favorite to lose outright in the past two seasons, joining the Green Bay Packers, who lost to the Carolina Panthers in Week 9 last November as 13.5-point favorites.
Arizona's upset shredded survivor pool entries around the nation.
The Rams were picked by the most contestants in ESPN Survivor contests and in the high-stakes contests Circa Survivor and Circa Grandissimo in Las Vegas. Throw in the Indianapolis Colts' loss to the underdog and previously winless Tennessee Titans, and the Circa contests lost greater than 50% of the remaining entries.
The loss drops the Rams to 2-4 on the season, the same record as the Cardinals. The Rams are the second preseason Super Bowl favorite in the past 20 years to lose four of their first six games, per SportsOddsHistory.com. (The 2015 Seattle Seahawks started 2-4 and went on to lose in the divisional round of the playoffs.)
Los Angeles was favored to win the Super Bowl at 5-1 ahead of Week 1. No other team had Super Bowl odds shorter than 10-1. The Rams were +950 to win the Super Bowl on Sunday night at DraftKings, behind four teams.
More bets were placed and more money was wagered on the Rams to win the Super Bowl than any other team in the offseason at most sportsbooks.
Oct. 11: Who wants to win the NFC East?
By Doug Greenberg
Week 5 was one to forget for the NFC East, to say the least.
It started Thursday night when the Dallas Cowboys lost outright to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after closing as 8.5-point favorites, tied with four other games as the biggest upset of the season, according to DraftKings odds.
Not only were the Cowboys heavily backed on the spread and in moneyline parlays at multiple sportsbooks, they were also the most popular pick in both ESPN Survivor (40% of the remaining field) and the $1,000-per-entry Circa Survivor (2,554 entries, 42.8% of the remaining field). It's the third time in the season's first five weeks that ESPN Survivor's most popular pick lost.
But the misery didn't end there for the division. The Philadelphia Eagles led off the day in London by seemingly notching a winning field goal with eight seconds left against the Jacksonville Jaguars, giving them a 99.5% chance to win the game, per ESPN Analytics.
Jacksonville returned the ensuing kickoff to the Philadelphia 35-yard line with one second left, allowing the Jags to kick a winning field goal as time expired. It was the first game in the Super Bowl era that featured two go-ahead field goals in the final 10 seconds of the fourth quarter, according to ESPN Research.
Then, there was the most bizarre result of the week, possibly the season. The New York Giants and Washington Commanders played a mistake-ridden game into an overtime where neither team scored, including in the matchup's final moments when the Commanders somehow ran out the clock while in field goal range.
"In the closing minutes and overtime, the live moneyline market was in complete chaos," Joey Feazel, Caesars Sportsbook head of football, told ESPN via email. "Every big play looked like it might decide the game and the book's fate, only for the final whistle to leave everyone staring at the screen wondering what had just happened. It was 90-plus minutes of drama, countless swings in perceived win probability, and in the end, nobody got the outcome they were expecting."
That's right: None of the NFC East teams recorded a win in Week 5 ... despite two of the teams playing each other.
Going into "Thursday Night Football," the Cowboys had been the +105 favorites to win the division and immediately dropped to +164 following their upset loss, tying them with the Eagles. After Week 5, Philadelphia is now the slight favorite for the division at +170 -- the longest odds for any division favorite in the league. Next comes Dallas at +180, followed by current division leader New York at +320 and Washington at +750. All of the teams in the NFC East show underdog plus-odds to make the playoffs ... even though one of them has to.
The Eagles had actually been a top-six favorite for the Super Bowl at 17-1 going into the season, but that number has lengthened to 40-1. The Cowboys are now the Super Bowl favorite among NFC East teams at 30-1 after coming into the season at 25-1.
The whole situation is made all the more disorienting by the fact that bettors had much higher expectations for this division going into the season. At BetMGM, Dallas is the biggest liability for the NFC championship, having attracted a $10,000 wager at 16-1 odds to win $160,000.
The Giants provoked a $5,000 wager to win the Super Bowl at 66-1 odds, creating a potential payout of $330,000. New York is also the largest liability to win the NFC East at both BetMGM and DraftKings, with both books also reporting some action for the division on Dallas.
"The Eagles/Commanders right now are the best-case scenario for the book with the Giants/Cowboys being the best-case scenario for the bettors," Feazel said, "but based on today's events we are not sure that any of these teams would like to win the division."
Sept. 28: Betting buzz: 8.5 the magic number for underdogs
By Doug Greenberg and David Purdum
Big underdogs are having a historic start to the 2026 NFL season, and it's all revolving around one number.
On Sunday, the Washington Commanders upset the reigning Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks after coming into the matchup as 8.5-point underdogs. In Week 2, the New Orleans Saints defeated the Baltimore Ravens outright as 8.5-point underdogs and the Cleveland Browns beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as underdogs by the same number. And in Week 1, the Arizona Cardinals pulled off the first big upset of the season when they defeated the Los Angeles Chargers ... again, as 8.5-point underdogs.
The four straight-up wins by underdogs of eight points or greater is the most through three weeks of a season since 1978 when five teams accomplished the feat, according to ESPN Research.
Only one 8.5-point favorite has survived so far: the Jacksonville Jaguars, who won and covered against the Browns in Week 1. Additionally, the only two favorites of greater than 8.5 -- the San Francisco 49ers (-12.5) in Week 2 and the Kansas City Chiefs (-10) in Week 3 -- also won and covered, both against the Miami Dolphins.
Because public bettors generally like to back big favorites -- via straight spread wagers, teasers or money-line parlays -- the underdog wins have been a boon to sportsbooks. At DraftKings, Washington's outright win against Seattle during Week 3 was "a good outcome for the book" after the Seahawks became the sportsbook's fourth-most-backed team of the day, pushing the line up from 6.5 earlier in the week, according to a sportsbook representative.
"The Commanders' win was the most impactful result for the book," Caesars Sportsbook head of football Joey Feazel told ESPN over email. "The news throughout the week created a perfect storm for bettors to focus on Seattle. With Sam Darnold returning and Marcus Mariota starting for Washington, the Seahawks became the perceived 'free square' in parlays."
Through "Sunday Night Football," underdogs are 7-8 outright in Week 3. If the Chicago Bears win Monday night, it will be the first time that underdogs have gone .500 or better in a week since Week 5 of 2025, according to ESPN Research based on DraftKings odds.
For the third time in as many weeks this NFL season, the big underdog win also meant carnage for survivor pools: Seattle was the third-most selected team in ESPN Survivor with 11% of the picks, and the second-most selected in Circa Survivor at 12.9%.
Lawrence's costly kneel
With nearly nine minutes remaining in the Jacksonville Jaguars' blowout win over the New England Patriots, quarterback Trevor Lawrence pulled a bizarre move when he took a knee at the 1-yard line, allowing running back Bhayshul Tuten to score on the next play. Lawrence's kneel cost his fantasy owners and benefited Tuten's, but some bettors in Florida really paid the price.
At Hard Rock Sportsbook, Lawrence's odds to score a touchdown settled at +275 before the game and several bettors included him in long-shot parlays. One such parlay saw the first seven legs hit, and missed out on Lawrence getting in the endzone as the eighth and final leg. The $10 ticket would have paid out $11,323.72.
Another saw a $2,000 five-leg parlay hit on only four of its legs, including Lawrence over 16.5 rushing yards, but missed on Lawrence anytime touchdown, denying a $33,339.20 payday. Ouch.
Chi-Town quarterback shuffle
Six points -- that's how much the betting market believes the difference between Chicago Bears QB Caleb Williams and third-string QB Case Keenum, who is expected to start when the Philadelphia Eagles visit Soldier Field on Monday.
The Bears were 1.5-point favorites over the Eagles in the early lines posted last week, before Williams went down with a leg injury in Week 2's game against the Minnesota Vikings.
The line reopened at Eagles -4.5 on Monday, dropped to -3 during the week as hopes of Williams being able to return surfaced. But Williams was ruled out Sunday and Keenum was named the expected starter. The line settled back at -4.5 on Sunday.
Sportsbooks reported around 75% of the bets and money wagered on the Monday night game had been on the favored Eagles.