First Friday Football best bets

Will the Packers or Eagles be peacocking after a win in Brazil?

Your non-football fan significant other cannot believe this. 

A game on Friday… in Brazil?!

The NFL keeps trying to keep divorce attorneys in business (as if they need any help). 

We’ll keep looking the other way as long as the league provides a spicy matchup like this one, as the Packers - back in everyone’s good graces after a few down years that followed repeated playoff disappointment -take on the Eagles - one of the most intriguing contenders for the coming season. 

The point spread opened months ago with the Eagles as 1.5-point favorites. It gradually got larger, touching ever-so-briefly on Packers +3, only to see that trigger an understandable buy-point of Green Bay. 

As the game nears, bettors who are hung up on the end of last year want to buy the Packers after they smoked the Cowboys and nearly knocked off the 49ers in the playoffs, while also remembering that the Eagles couldn’t have finished the season with a sadder whimper. 

Packers vs. Eagles (-2, 49)

Admittedly, this isn’t the ideal circumstance to back a side, since:

1. It’s being played in Brazil, which throws added complexity into the handicap, since we’ve learned from years of games overseas that frequently one team handles the trip better than the other.

2. It’s between two teams we’re high on going into the season, relative to market expectations. 

Here are the season-win total markets that have been massaged for the last four months:

Courtesy Bet365:

• Eagles: 10.5 (-150 to the over)

• Packers: 9.5 (-150 to the over)

Using these, we can estimate the Eagles’ market rating as 62/100 and the Packers’ 57/100, which amounts to just over a point’s difference in a point spread on a neutral field.

These teams finished last year with the same separation. However, the Eagles were at the bottom of their recent range (60-75), while the Packers - a team with a recent range of 40-55 - were at their highest rating point in years. 

It’s not that Green Bay can’t win, of course, but for the Packers to be a valuable bet, they have to outplay a level that this current iteration of Green Bay hasn’t been rated at in the post-Aaron Rodgers era. Either that, or the Eagles have to be as bad as they were to close last season. Both are possible, but not probable.

We’ve discussed, at length in early columns, the thinking that the Eagles are going to revert closer to the top-end version of themselves - where they were before things fell apart late last year. 

It would be more than a little weird if we didn’t think they’d win the first game of the year, but the Eagles are worth a bet to take the fresh start to the season and win a game they need more than the Packers. 

Pick: Eagles (-2, -110 at Pinnacle)

A.J. Brown: Over 70.5 receiving yards (-110 at Pinnacle)

This is a prime example of taking the work done this summer, and applying it to a Week 1 bet. A.J. Brown is a candidate to lead the NFL in receiving yards, and we’re hoping he starts the season the same way he did last year, and there’s no one in the Packers’ secondary that’s going to lock him down. Brown should see his yardage lined closer to 80 soon enough (as it was through much of last year), so we’ll take the opportunity to bet on the over before oddsmakers adjust. 

Josh Jacobs: Under 63.5 rushing yards (-110 at Bet365)

Josh Jacobs won’t be getting the volume of carries that he got in Las Vegas, but he’ll be an upgrade in pass-protection and provide an outlet for Jordan Love in the passing game. With the Packers looking to feed all the mouths they have in the passing game, and the Eagles’ 3-4 defensive line tipping the scales at a total of 900+ lbs, Jacobs is more likely to stay under this total. 

Saquon Barkley: Anytime touchdown (+110 at Pinnacle)

In 2021, the Eagles had 25 rushing touchdowns, and in 2022 they had 32. It’s an offense that, at its best, likes to run the ball in the red zone.

Last year, that number dipped to 22, and that player caller has been replaced by Kellen Moore, who in his last season in Dallas provided Ezekiel Elliott 10 touchdowns before the longtime Cowboy was deemed expendable. 

Saquon Barkley is in Philly to take some of the heat off of Jalen Hurts in the red zone, particularly early in the season. You can find him at better than 50/50 odds to score in the opener - a price worth taking. 

Tucker Kraft: Anytime touchdown (+600 at Bet365)

Between the Green Bay rookie tight ends, second-rounder Luke Musgrave was getting more of the snaps during the first half of 2023. Then he got hurt, missed a handful of games, and third-rounder Tucker Kraft had to take a bigger role, taking 80-100% of the snaps, depending on the game. When Musgrave came back in time for the playoffs, Kraft was still on the field two-to-three times as much as his higher-drafted teammate. 

He’s questionable with a sore back, so there’s a possibility he doesn’t play and this bet gets voided. If he plays, he shouldn’t have odds this long to score, so it’s worth a half-unit play on a long shot touchdown. 

Jordan Love: Anytime touchdown (+618 at Pinnacle)

The other half-unit can go towards Love scoring. He scored four times in 17 games last year, or once in just over every four games. Using that number as a parameter, he should be lined closer to +300 - like he is at DraftKings. However, there are numerous sportsbooks with him lined at +600 or longer. In late December, Love scored in back-to-back games, cashing tickets as high as +750 and +1000. Maybe he starts this season getting loose for a score with a decent payout attached.