Sept. 24: Colts flying up odds boards, garnering awards attention amid hot start
Sept. 23: Mendoza the new Heisman favorite after Mateer injury
Sept. 22: Penn State, Georgia favored in marquee matchups
Sept. 21: Browns, Panthers end big underdog losing streak
Sept. 15: Bengals’ odds plummet after Burrow injury
Everything that happens in sports has additional context when viewed from a betting perspective. From season-changing injuries to record-setting moments and so much more, the news cycle will constantly and significantly affect the sports betting industry.
Our betting buzz file, with contributions from David Purdum, Doug Greenberg and others, aims to provide fans a look at the sports betting stories that are driving the conversation.
Doug Greenberg: The first three weeks of any NFL season always deliver a surprise or two, and this year’s biggest has to be the early domination of the Indianapolis Colts.
The expectations for Indy were low entering the season, as ESPN BET listed them with +200 odds to make the playoffs, +400 to win the AFC South (behind the Houston Texans at -110 and Jacksonville Jaguars at +300) and 100-1 to win the Super Bowl. Fast forward three weeks and the Colts are now -280 for the postseason, -140 favorites in the division and 35-1 to win the Super Bowl.
If sportsbooks didn’t see this coming, bettors certainly didn’t either, and they haven’t bought into Indianapolis following the major price adjustments. At BetMGM, the Colts are still only the 23rd most-bet team by ticket share (0.9%) and the 27th most-bet team by handle share (0.4%) to win the Super Bowl. The BetMGM’s senior trading manager Christian Cipollini said that Indy or several other under-bet undefeated teams winning the Super Bowl “would be a good outcome for the sportsbook.”
The Colts’ surprisingly hot start has tracked with some surprisingly excellent performances from their players and coaching staff, who have seen their odds for major awards boom as a result.
After rushing for a league-high 338 yards through three weeks, running back Jonathan Taylor is the current favorite for Offensive Player of the Year, showing +500 odds at ESPN BET; he shortened from +3500 before the season. Head coach Shane Steichen is now the favorite for Coach of the Year at +360 after opening the season at +2000.
Tight end Tyler Warren has flown up the Offensive Rookie of the Year odds board, sitting at +500, behind only Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Emeka Egbuka (+350). That Warren is even in consideration for the award is significant given the extreme rarity of tight ends winning it.
The Colts will face their first big test on Sunday when they head to Los Angeles to face the Rams as 3.5-point underdogs. As of Tuesday, the Rams had attracted 45.7% of the spread wagers but a notable 74.4% of the spread handle at ESPN BET.
On Tuesday afternoon, Oklahoma coach Brent Venables announced that quarterback John Mateer would undergo surgery on his right hand and “will miss some game action,” per a news release. The release also noted that “the expectation is that Mateer will return to action sometime this season.”
In the meantime, though, Mateer lost his status as the Heisman favorite at +750 at ESPN BET as of Tuesday morning. Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza subsequently grabbed the top spot on the sportsbook’s board, showing +650 odds, with Miami QB Carson Beck (+1000) and Oregon QB Dante Moore (+1100) rounding out the top three. Mateer had not returned to the odds board as of publication time.
Mateer and Beck were the favorites across the sportsbook marketplace before the former took control of the race by throwing for 271 yards and a touchdown and adding a rushing TD during the Sooners’ 24-17 conference win over Auburn in Week 4. Mendoza, meanwhile, threw for five touchdowns in Indiana’s 63-10 blowout of Illinois.
Mendoza’s new odds are still the longest for any favorite at this point in the season since at least 2012, according to data from SportsOddsHistory.com.
The Nittany Lions opened as 3.5-point favorites over the visiting Oregon Ducks, while Georgia was installed as a 3-point favorite over the Alabama Crimson Tide at sportsbooks.
The sixth-ranked Ducks are underdogs for only the second time during the regular season since joining the Big Ten in 2024. Penn State is 4-20 against top-10 teams under coach James Franklin, including 1-17 in Big Ten play.
“They’ve been big favorites and put up a lot of points over the last two weeks, so there hasn’t been much to learn,” Adrian Horton, senior director of trading for ESPN BET, said of Alabama. “The last two weeks they’ve looked like a good team taking care of business, but we’ll learn more over the next few weeks as they enter SEC play.”
The opening line on the Alabama-Georgia game varied at sportsbooks before settling at Bulldogs -3 on Monday.
“Our power ratings initially projected Alabama as slight underdogs, just under a field goal, against Georgia this weekend,” Joey Feazel, head football oddsmaker for Caesars Sports, told ESPN. “We opened at Georgia -2.5, though some operators went live with Georgia -3.5. As is typical with Sunday college football openers, the lines were volatile early on, and we’ve since settled at Georgia -3.”
Doug Greenberg and David Purdum: Through two weeks of the 2025 NFL season, underdogs of four points or greater were 0-12 straight-up, the first time no underdog that large had won a game outright through Week 2 of any season in the Super Bowl era (since 1966), according to ESPN Research.
That streak ended emphatically on Sunday. First, the Carolina Panthers (+4.5) easily took down the Atlanta Falcons with a final score of 30-0. Then, a short time later, the Cleveland Browns (+7.5) stunned the Green Bay Packers with a 13-10 comeback win, capped off by a game-winning field goal as time expired. Cleveland was as long as +3000 on the live moneyline during the contest, according to ESPN BET odds.
Through Sunday afternoon’s games, underdogs of four or more points are now 2-16 straight-up, but are interestingly a perfectly balanced 9-9 against the spread.
As a result of their large favorite status, the Packers were a popular pick for survivor pools in Week 3. In ESPN’s Eliminator Challenge, 15.65% of players (third-most) picked Green Bay, while 1,817 players — accounting for 10.7% of the remaining player population (fourth-most) — picked the Pack in the $1,000-entry Circa Survivor contest.
Big favorites tend to be popular plays with the betting public every week, especially in moneyline parlays. The Packers very much lived up to that reputation in Week 3, being the most-bet spread side by tickets on Sunday at BetMGM and Hard Rock Bet. Green Bay was also Hard Rock Bet’s most popular moneyline play by bets and handle, as well as the most lopsided moneyline and spread play, attracting 95.44% of combined handle in those markets.
ESPN BET had 87.8% of its spread handle backing the Pack, the most of any team on Sunday, and they joined the Falcons as popular moneyline single and parlay bets.
“The Browns comeback will be a tough one for many bettors, as Green Bay-Cleveland ended up as our most bet game of the early slate by total handle, and the Packers were the most popular moneyline selection of the day,” ESPN BET senior director Adrian Horton said over email. “The Falcons were the fifth-most popular moneyline pick, and both teams were easily among our most bet parlay legs.”
The two outright underdog wins must be a relief for sportsbooks, who had suffered through favorite wins for the NFL season’s first two weeks. According to analysis from financial services group Macquarie, NFL hold — or the percentage of money sportsbooks make off of all their bets — was at 8% through Week 2, down from the baseline average of 9.5%. Specifically, moneyline hold was calculated at -3% due to the amount of favorites coming through.
“What drew the biggest shock after years of being their biggest fans each week, we fully expected the Browns to miss the game-winning field goal,” Caesars Sportsbook head of football Joey Feazel said over email. “Instead, there were cheers on the trading floor, as we were stunned that this was not the Browns we were used to cheering for over the years.”
Sportsbooks will have two more chances to recoup early-season losses via big underdogs in Week 3: The New York Giants are 5.5-point underdogs against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night, while the Detroit Lions are 4.5-point underdogs for Monday night’s showdown with the Baltimore Ravens.
Doug Greenberg: Just like his team as a whole, Indianapolis Colts TE Tyler Warren has gotten off to an excellent start this season, racking up 11 catches and 155 yards across his first two NFL games. That production, along with meager starts for several of the preseason favorites, has propelled Warren to the top of the Offensive Rookie of the Year odds board.
Warren is tied with Tampa Bay Buccaneers WR Emeka Egbuka for the best odds to win the award at +425, per ESPN BET. Preseason favorites, Las Vegas Raiders RB Ashton Jeanty and Tennessee Titans QB Cam Ward, have fallen to a tie right behind them at +500.
By contrast, a tight end winning Offensive Rookie of the Year is exceedingly rare: It has only happened once in NFL history and that was by Hall of Famer Mike Ditka back in 1961, before the Super Bowl era.
New York Giants LB Abdul Carter (+200) is still the favorite for Defensive Rookie of the Year after entering the season with the best odds. If both Penn State alumni were to win, it would be just the fourth time in NFL history that one school produced both Rookies of the Year in the same season, and the first time since 1997. Leaning into the storyline, ESPN BET posted a special market for Warren and Carter to both win the awards at +1500.
Joe Burrow’s injured toe transformed the Cincinnati Bengals into Super Bowl long shots and underdogs to even make the playoffs.
Burrow, the Bengals’ star quarterback, will undergo surgery and miss a minimum of three months, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Monday Following the injury, the Bengals’ Super Bowl odds moved from 20-1 to 75-1 at ESPN BET. Cincinnati went from -155 favorites to make the playoffs on Sunday to +210 underdogs to reach the postseason at the sportsbook.