NFL Win Totals for Upcoming 17-game season and Best Bets

Kansas City Chiefs, not Tampa Bay Bucs, have highest win total at BetMGM

Vikas Chokshi - Apr 19, 2021, 10:57am EDT

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The NFL Draft is coming up at the end of this month, which means we are inching closer and closer to the upcoming NFL season. The sportsbooks dropped their NFL win totals for every team last week, so it's time to take an early look at the odds. One nugget to remember before we jump in is that this upcoming year will feature a 17-game season.

Let's start at the top. Much to the chagrin of Tampa Bay fans, the team with the highest win total on the board is Kansas City, who comes in at 12. The Buccaneers' win total is 11.5. TB's gripe is justified as not only did they take down the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, but the team's championship core is also staying intact.

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Other notable Super Bowl contenders rounding out the top are the Green Bay Packers and Baltimore Ravens, with their win totals set to 11, and the the Buffalo Bills at 10.5. The Cleveland Browns, Los Angeles Rams, and San Francisco 49ers all come in at 10.

The bottom feeders also come as no surprise. The lowest win total on the board goes to the dysfunctional Houston Texans at 4.5. The rebuilding Detroit Lions come in with the second lowest number at 5.5, followed by the New York Jets at 6.

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As for betting tips, here are a couple of wagers our team has already made:

Lucy Burdge: Tampa Bay Bucs OVER 11 wins

I’m all in on the Bucs O 11.5. I think Edelman will come out of retirement, his knee will be in good enough shape to play. He’ll join the team with Brady and Gronk and they’ll be unstoppable.

Reed Wallach: Pittsburgh Steelers UNDER 8.5 wins

After starting 11-0 last season, the Steelers stumbled into the postseason at 12-4. After that, an embarrassing loss to division rival Cleveland sent Pittsburgh home early.
Another year will pass for the aging Ben Roethlisberger as the AFC North continues to get stronger. The Ravens and Browns seem poised to be playoff threats for the foreseeable future while the Bengals should be better with another year of No. 1 pick Joe Burrow and necessary upgrades in free agency.
The Steelers pass happy approach became predictable as the season wore on and ‘Big Ben’ is going to struggle even more after losing two mainstays on the offensive line in Maurkice Pouncey and Matt Feiler. The Steelers were second in the NFL in pass rate at 64.2%.
New offensive coordinator Matt Canada is going to try and work with similar weapons that were there last season as the team didn’t add any significant contributors at the skill positions. With stale skill players and an over the hill QB, expect this offense to struggle mightily.
The writing was on the wall for the last quarter of the season for Pittsburgh, and this is where the bottom may fall out. The Steelers also have the most difficult schedule according to last season’s winning percentage.

Vikas Chokshi: Detroit Lions UNDER 5.5 wins

Detroit is going into full rebuild mode, so it's going to take them some time to get back to being respectable. The NFC North is always a battle and replacing Matthew Stafford with Jared Goff is a huge downgrade at the QB position.

The Lions also traded away or let go of a lot of their skill position players to start over, so replacing production from guys like Marvin Jones and Kenny Golladay in Year 1 of a rebuild will be close to impossible.

Detroit's defense also has a long way to go and they have a new head coach in Dan Campbell who wants to start fresh and work on the team's culture. Unless they hit home run after home run in the upcoming draft, this is going to be a really bad Lions team, so I'll ride the under here.

Here's the full list of opening win totals for all 32 NFL teams in alphabetical order:

Arizona Cardinals: 8

Atlanta Falcons: 7.5

Baltimore Ravens: 11 (-120 over)

Buffalo Bills: 10.5 (-115 over)

Carolina Panthers: 7.5

Chicago Bears: 7

Cincinnati Bengals: 6.5

Cleveland Browns: 10 (-115 over)

Dallas Cowboys: 9 (-140 over)

Denver Broncos: 7.5 (-125 under)

Detroit Lions: 5.5