We love football. We love betting on football. We’ve had a good run recently with our MLB First 5 Innings wagers here in the Tuley’s Takes home office, but there’s something about football that really gets our blood pumping.
I know it was just the Hall of Fame Game — the most meaningless of the exhibition season — last Thursday, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching the whole game between the Raiders and Jaguars, and it wasn’t just because I was sweating my bets on the Over 32.5 (opening line) and Over 30.5 (closing line at the majority of books).
Of course, it felt even better as the Raiders won 27-11 to go Over the total, but there’s just a certain rhythm of a football game that makes it enjoyable to watch and follow your wagers (or try to jump in on in-game wagers). And now we get a full slate of bettable exhibitions with NFL Preseason Week 1 this Thursday through Sunday.
A lot of people scoff at wagering on games where coaches are usually more interested in evaluating the talent on their rosters than in actually winning (and, full disclosure, there’s been years when I’ve lost my early preseason plays and stopped to instead focus on the regular season), but I still maintain that the NFL preseason is beatable because there are definitely coaches that take the preseason seriously and try to win (Baltimore’s John Harbaugh being No. 1). Plus, this is the only time when coaches will tell us their game plans and how long they intend to play their starters.