NFL Betting: Is It Time To Jump On The Jacksonville Bandwagon?

September 24, 2020 - by Jason Lisk

The preseason betting market had very low expectations for the Jacksonville Jaguars this year. The Jags had the lowest season win total line of any 2020 NFL team, at only 4.5 wins.

The team was busy trading or getting rid of brand name players, including a late preseason release of running back Leonard Fournette and a trade of safety Ronnie Harrison. Many NFL pundits figured that Jacksonville was in full-on tank mode.

The first two weeks of the 2020 season, though, have seen Jacksonville beat the Colts and lose narrowly to the Titans, as a 7-point underdog in both cases.

So far, QB Gardner Minshew has picked up where he left off in 2019 with some strong performances, and the Jaguars appear to be much better than most people (and the betting markets) expected.

Jaguars Betting Angles, Post-Week 2

If you’re an NFL bettor, this hot start probably has you pondering two scenarios:

1. If the preseason markets were just plain wrong on Jacksonville this year, there could be some serious value in betting the Jags now, on the assumption that it will take at least a bit more time for the forces that set and move lines to fully realize their mistake.
2. If this hot start is simply the result of randomness or factors largely outside of Jacksonville’s control (e.g. the Colts offense just needing a game to get better in sync with new QB Philip Rivers), then betting against Jacksonville right now could be a smart move, because a lot of public bettors and football pool players are suddenly drinking the Jaguars kool-aid.

So which scenario is closer to the truth?

Spoiler: There’s not going to be a definite answer. But we can look at some relevant data to see if we can dig up any clues.

The TeamRankings Preseason Outlook on Jacksonville

Our preseason NFL projections have performed well against win totals lines over the years, and this year they saw significant value on betting the over on Jacksonville’s very low win total number.

That was even after we adjusted our total wins projection for Jacksonville downward and closer to the market, because our initial numbers were so much higher on the Jags that we suspected we were overlooking some relevant negative factor.

(Producing our preseason projections is mostly science but part art too, so these types of manual “fudges” are not completely uncommon. If you’re curious, here’s an explanation of our NFL preseason ratings process.)

Still, the Jaguars were tied for our lowest team power rating entering the season, at -6.9 points compared to an average 2020 NFL team. We certainly did not expect them to be good, or even above average.

Now, after two straight games in which they covered the spread as a touchdown underdog, Jacksonville has climbed to No. 28 in our rankings, and their predictive rating is over two points better than their preseason rating.

However, our preseason rating (known as a “prior” in stat geek circles) for Jacksonville still figures strongly into their current rating. A rating system that only relies on the results of the two games played so far would almost certainly rank Jacksonville way better than 28th.

Perhaps the more relevant question is, how have teams like Jacksonville — that is, teams that exceeded very low expectations in the first two weeks — typically performed from Week 3 onward?

Teams Like Jacksonville with Low Expected Win Totals, Good Starts

For our research, we examined all teams:

• With a preseason win total line of 6.0 wins or lower
• That got off to a 2-0 start against the spread (ATS)
• While being an underdog in both games

As it turns out, going back to 1990, there are only 18 other teams that meet all of those criteria.