NFL Betting Guide: Preseason Week 3 (Thursday)
Betting on preseason games requires a bit more nuance than regular season NFL matchups. Historical preseason betting trends can help get our bearing, but from there, we'll need to track news about playing time.
What do the trends and news point to? Where is there value on the NFL betting lines at FanDuel Sportsbook?
Packers at Chiefs
Under 37.5 (-110)
The Green Bay Packers will not play veteran starters tonight. We have seen a lot of Jordan Love under center this preseason for Green Bay. Via NextGenStats, he has averaged 6.0 yards per attempt but has suffered eight dropped passes so far on 48 attempts. Yikes.
The Kansas City Chiefs also won't be featuring their star passer -- or a few other key receivers.
This total has been dropping since it opened, and we're looking at below-average-for-the-preseason quarterback play combined in this game.
Green Bay's quarterbacks have combined for -11.6 EPA (25th in the NFL), and Kansas City's guys sans Patrick Mahomes are at a -20.1 (29th).
49ers at Texans
49ers -3.0 (-110)
49ers Moneyline (-160)
The San Francisco 49ers' starters are expected to "log limited reps" -- but that could mean as much as the full first half -- in this matchup against the Houston Texans, and Houston's starters are slated to play "extensively."
There has been an offensive gap between these two sides in the preseason with the 49ers ranking 8th in Passing EPA (5.32) and the Texans 23rd (-10.1), and while we won't see more than a half from their starters, that's still kind of a lot of football potentially.
Also, the 3.0-point spread is interesting in the preseason. Since 2019, road teams favored by 2.5 to 3.5 in the preseason are 24-9 outright with an 18-14 record against the spread (56.3%).
