Evaluating NFL Week 2 Market Moves And Week 3 Lookahead Lines

Each week during the NFL season, the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas, FanDuel, PointsBet, William Hill and other selected sportsbooks release the betting lines for the following week’s games. These lines offer a glimpse at the projected betting lines up to 10 days in advance of the games. This week we provide and evaulate the Week 3 lookahead lines.

I update these NFL Week 3 lookahead lines and current week market moves initially each week in the Recency Report at TheLines. I contribute sports betting industry updates at TheLines and chip-in information you can bet on. I’ll update a bit more here each week with links to other NFL team info and tools you can use for your own handicapping and betting.

These ‘NFL Lookahead Lines’ or advance lines can be useful in not only projecting ahead to next week’s games and lines, but also to keep you from over-reacting to one game or the upcoming games results. That includes teams that had blowout wins like the Baltimore Ravens in Week 1 or big upsets on these least bet teams of the week in Washington and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Survivor pool players that picked against those two teams also were eliminated with nearly 40% of survivor players in most pools eliminated.

WEEK 3 LOOKAHEAD LINES

Interesting slate of games in Week 3 with no division games to evaluate in the NFL Week 3 lookahead lines.

• A Week 3 game of note is Houston at Pittsburgh, as the Texans’ opening slate is very tough. Houston lost at Kansas City in Week 1 and have to tackle the Baltimore Ravens for a win as home underdog in Week 2 to avoid an 0-2 start. The Texans’ Super Bowl odds rose to +8000 at PointsBet following their Week 1 loss.
• If Green Bay and New Orleans win as favorites in Week 2, then this is the marquee Sunday match-up and one of the most bet games in Week 3 as both will be 2-0. The Saints will enter off a Monday night game in Las Vegas, and New Orleans is the early-season NFC favorite to reach the Super Bowl.
• The Arizona Cardinals pulled the opening week upset at San Francisco, and the Cardinals are favored at home in Week 3 against the Detroit Lions. In fact, the Cardinals will likely be favored on the road at Carolina in Week 4 and at the New York Jets in Week 5. Get your Super Bowl futures bets in now on the Cardinals as a potential 5-0 start would drop their Super Bowl odds significantly. Arizona is +3500 to win it all at FanDuel entering Week 2.
• The biggest early-season game of the year is on Monday night when the Baltimore Ravens host the Kansas City Chiefs. Baltimore is a projected 2.5-point favorite. The Ravens and Chiefs are the two early season favorites to win the Super Bowl and both are currently +550 at FanDuel.

Week 3 Games	FanDuel	William Hill
Miami at Jacksonville (Thurs)	MIA -1	JAX -1
LA Rams at Buffalo	BUF -3	BUF -3.5
Washington at Cleveland	N/A	CLE -4.5
Cincinnati at Philadelphia	PHI -5.5	PHI -5.5
Houston at Pittsburgh	PIT -5.5	PIT -6
San Francisco at NY Giants	SF -7	SF -6.5
Tennessee at Minnesota	MIN -1	TEN -1
Las Vegas at New England	N/A	NE -6.5
Chicago at Atlanta	ATL -3	ATL -3.5
NY Jets at Indianapolis	IND -7	IND -7
Carolina at LA Chargers	LAC -6.5	LAC -6.5
Tampa Bay at Denver	TB -3.5	TB -3.5
Detroit at Arizona	AZ -3	AZ -3.5
Dallas at Seattle	SEA -3	SEA -3.5
Green Bay at New Orleans	NO -5.5	NO -5.5
Kansas City at Baltimore (Mon)	BAL -2.5	BAL -2.5

NFL WEEK 2 ODDS

Check out the NFL Week 2 Odds and some of the selected match-ups and market moves I chip-in with at TheLines.

HOW TO USE LOOKAHEAD LINES

We’ll be updating the NFL advance lines each week to allow you a sneak peak at the projected lines for the following week’s games. This advance information from a big bookmaker provides lessons in understanding lines and projections before the current week’s games are played.

The tendencies for many bettors is to over-react to previous weeks’ scores and results. The lookahead lines provide a sense of stability from the linemaker, who is unbiased in setting the lines in advance without the information from the current week’s contests.

Bettors can also gain an edge or find value in the lines once the current week’s lines are released. They do this based on not only a potential over-reaction to the recent week’s results, but by using information they have on teams including power rankings. Making adjustments is part of the process, along with formulating an opinion on certain teams. This can be based on personnel, injuries, situations and stats that come to light as the season progresses.