Determined using odds movement
The 2023 NFL schedule was released on May 10, and even though we know which teams are playing which before hand, the order and location each are played has an impact on a teams expectations. This can be reflected in the futures market for win totals, and of course odds to win the Super Bowl, Conference or Division. Similar to the article I wrote on the 2023 NFL Draft Winners and Losers, I’ll use the market movement to determine which teams were impacted by the schedule the most and determine overall winners and losers.
I pulled the odds from DraftKings on May 16 and compared those numbers to the odds from May 2nd. To help with the review, I created a dashboard on my tableau public page that you can use. Please note that I’ve had to be signed into Tableau in order for the dashboard to work, else I received an error message.
Regular Season Wins
Similar to the draft article, not much movement in the season win totals, with only 4 teams seeing a change in the results. Of the 4 with changes only 1 team saw win total go higher, while the other 3 lost an expected win.
The winner would be Philadelphia, although I’m not sure why. I haven’t ran the schedules through my regular process of comparing rest days and expected “bonding trips”, but they were fortunate to draw Buffalo and SF at home.
The losers would be Jacksonville, LA Rams and San Francisco. I’m not surprised by the Jacksonville move, they feel like a public team to me. I know they have a Super Bowl winning head coach, and a top-10 QB, but it’s hard to win with expectations and at 10.5 wins the expectations were a bit too high for the Jaguars. The movement by LA Rams and SF is a bit more curious, especially since both are in the same division. Did Seattle and Arizona get that much better draws? Or is it a final realization that they have to play the AFC North and NFC East divisions in entirety? Something for me to keep in mind while I prepare the preseason magazine.
Super Bowl
Twelve teams saw their Super Bowl price change after the schedule release. Similar to after the draft, most of these changes were losers as 8 of the 12 were losers and only 4 were winners.
The winners were Baltimore, LA Chargers, Minnesota and Philadelphia. Looks like people were taking shots on Philly in multiple markets as this is 2nd price move so far on them.
There were 8 losers in total, far less than the 13 we saw after the draft, but still twice as many as winners. The 8 losers are:
- San Francisco
- Cincinnati
- NY Jets
- Detroit
- Miami
- Cleveland
- NY Giants
- New England
San Francisco makes a 2nd appearance so far on this list, and takes the early lead for biggest loser, but this could be a continuation from the draft as they were moving down quickly after the draft finished. The NY Giants took the biggest hit to Super Bowl odds, moving from +5,000 to +6,500. Both Cleveland and New England saw 500 point moves, and they were the next biggest change.
Conference Championship
Lots of movement in conference championship market prices. There were 11 teams whose price stayed the same, but only 7 teams were schedule winners in this category. That leaves 14 losers, once again twice as many as the winners.
Stop me if you heard this before, but Philadelphia is a winner and has the shortest odds on the board to win their conference championship. Given how hard it is for teams that lose the Super Bowl to make it back the next year, I’m surprised by this market exuberance. The other winners are Baltimore, Indianapolis (really why?), Miami, Minnesota, New Orleans and Seattle.
Here are the 14 losers:
- Cincinnati
- Cleveland
- Las Vegas
- New England
- NY Jets
- Pittsburgh
- Carolina
- Chicago
- Detroit
- LA Rams
- NY Giants
- San Francisco
- Tampa Bay
- Washington
Uh-oh, that’s 3 in a row on the wrong side for San Francisco. The LA Rams and Carolina Panthers took the biggest losses, moving down 1,000 points. That was followed by 500 point moves on Las Vegas, Chicago, NY Giants, Tampa Bay and Washington.
Division Winner
Just like the conference odds, the division winners saw 11 teams price stay the same. The most interesting among those 11 were the 2 divisions that didn’t see any price changes, making up 8 of the 11 teams. Both the AFC South and West had market prices stay intact.
Also like the conference odds we have 7 winners and 14 losers. That’s 3 times in a row there have been twice as many losers as winners. Also, losers sweep the board in all 4 categories as win total was 3-1 losers.
I thought nearly every team would see some kind of movement, simply because of how small the market is for each division. With a 25% chance to win, a price move on 1 team, should impact the value of each other team. This is clearly reflected in the movement between 3/14 and 4/21, with only New England remaining constant.
Winners
- Buffalo
- Miami
- Baltimore
- Philadelphia
- Minnesota
- Tampa Bay
- Seattle
Losers
- New England
- NY Jets
- Cincinnati
- Cleveland
- Pittsburgh
- Dallas
- NY Giants
- Washington
- Chicago
- Detroit
- Atlanta
- Carolina
- New Orleans
- LA Rams
The biggest winner was Tampa Bay with a 200 point move. Not a surprise given the state of that division. Next up was Minnesota and then Baltimore, both with moves less than 100 points. The biggest loser was the NY Giants, moving 300 points from 500 to 800. Washington was right behind with a 200 point move of their own. Seems like Philadelphia has pretty much won the NFC East based on this movement.
Overall Winners
The Philadelphia Eagles are the biggest schedule winners based on market movement. The market really pounced on this team, and this gives me pause on any invest on them this year. After Philly comes Baltimore and Minnesota, both of which saw winning market movement in 3 of the 4 markets discussed. The current division and conference prices on both Baltimore and Minnesota make them very appealing at this stage. They could be one of the teams that emerges, but we’ll continue to monitor the market to be sure.
Overall Losers
Lots of options here, but San Francisco jumps out to me as the biggest loser with the LA Rams a close 2nd. Both were hit in the all important win total market and the conference market. But the 3rd market loss was split between division and Super Bowl. Since Super Bowl is more important, I went with SF as the biggest loser. The NY Giants deserve an honorable mention here, as they also saw movement in 3 markets, but I place higher value on win total movement. Something drastic has to happen for a win total to change a full number.