NFL fandom isn't always rational. You spend all week convincing yourself this time will be different, put your faith in the same team that ruined your Sunday seven days ago, and somehow find yourself doing it all over again.
But what if that loyalty came with a $100 price tag?
We analyzed 10 seasons of NFL betting data to find out what would have happened if you risked $100 on your favorite team to win every game from 2016 through 2025, including the playoffs. Each game was treated as a fresh $100 wager, with no winnings rolled into the next bet. We call it The Covers Cost of Loyalty.
For some fanbases, blind loyalty actually paid. For most, it added financial pain to the emotional damage. Only 10 of 32 teams produced a profit over the full decade, and some of the teams near the top aren't the ones you'd expect.
Here's what a decade of betting with your heart would have done to your wallet.
🔑Key takeaways
Pittsburgh was the NFL's most profitable team to bet: A $100 moneyline bet on the Steelers in every game from 2016 through 2025 produced a $2,262.85 profit and a 13.0% ROI. - 💸 Most fanbases would have lost money: Only 10 of 32 NFL teams finished the 10-year study with a positive moneyline return.
Miami made money despite losing more games than it won: The Dolphins went just 82-86 but still produced a $1,719.82 profit, the third-best return in the NFL. - 📊 Winning more didn't necessarily mean making more: Seattle and Baltimore both won 60.9% of their games, but their moneyline returns finished $1,960.34 apart.
Cleveland was the NFL's biggest money burner: Blindly backing the Browns resulted in a $4,392.40 loss, creating a $6,655.25 gap between Pittsburgh and Cleveland.
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Most profitable NFL teams to bet from 2016-2025
The Pittsburgh Steelers sit atop our 10-year NFL moneyline rankings, while the Cleveland Browns finished at the bottom.
The full Covers Cost of Loyalty rankings show what would have happened if you risked $100 on your favorite team to win every game from 2016 through 2025.
Chiefs
Bills
Seahawks
Vikings
Titans
Eagles
Cowboys
Packers
Patriots
Saints
Rams
Buccaneers
Ravens
Commanders
Lions
Texans
Colts
Raiders
Broncos
Falcons
Panthers
Bengals
49ers
Giants
Cardinals
Chargers
Jaguars
Bears
JetsThe Steelers produced a $2,262.85 profit, narrowly edging the Kansas City Chiefs at +$2,117.75, while the Miami Dolphins were a surprising third at +$1,719.82 despite going just 82-86 during the study.
The reason is simple: everyone knew Kansas City was great, and the odds reflected it. The Chiefs were favored in 85% of their games, while Pittsburgh was favored just 56% of the time. Steelers bettors had more opportunities to cash bigger payouts when Pittsburgh won.
The overall picture wasn't nearly as friendly. Just 10 teams finished in positive territory, with Green Bay narrowly claiming the final profitable spot at +$263.63. At the other end, the Jets lost $3,673.70 before Cleveland finished dead last at -$4,392.40.
Steelers fans were rewarded for their loyalty
Pittsburgh didn't top our rankings because the Steelers spent a decade steamrolling the AFC. Weirdly enough, the money really started piling up when watching their offense became considerably less enjoyable.
The Ben Roethlisberger-led Steelers went 11-5 in 2016 and 13-3 in 2017, but produced only about $326 in moneyline profit across the first three seasons of our study. From 2021 through 2025, Pittsburgh never won more than 10 regular-season games in a season — and somehow generated roughly $1,765 of its $2,262.85 decade-long profit.
One number helps explain why: Pittsburgh was a moneyline underdog 76 times during the study and produced roughly $2,397 in profit in those games, good for a 31.5% ROI. Much of the value came when the market expected the Steelers to lose.
THE COVERS COST OF LOYALTY 10-YEAR BETTING RECEIPT | TEAM | Pittsburgh Steelers |
| WAGER | $100 moneyline |
| SEASONS | 2016-2025 |
| UNDERDOG BETS | 76 |
| UNDERDOG ROI | +31.5% |
If you watched those teams, you know how absurd that sounds.
Roethlisberger's final season gave way to Kenny Pickett, Mitch Trubisky, Mason Rudolph, Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, and Aaron Rodgers. There were ugly offensive performances, one-score rock fights, and plenty of Sundays where Mike Tomlin appeared determined to discover the absolute minimum number of points required to win an NFL game.
And they just kept winning enough of them.
The 2022 Steelers might be the perfect example. They went 9-8 with the NFL's 26th-ranked scoring offense, yet a $100 moneyline bettor walked away $459.05 richer with a 27.0% ROI.
This wasn't one lucky season carrying the experiment, either. Pittsburgh produced a profit in nine of 10 seasons, with its best year accounting for only 21.8% of the total.
The Steelers didn't always make football look easy. They just made betting on them surprisingly profitable.
Winning games didn't always mean winning money
Winning is usually the point of football. Unfortunately for bettors, the sportsbook insists on attaching a price to it.
The Baltimore Ravens won 60.9% of their games during our study, finishing 106-68. Blindly backing them anyway would have left you $882.28 poorer. The Seattle Seahawks posted the exact same 60.9% win rate and made bettors $1,078.06.
That's a $1,960.34 difference between two teams that won at virtually the exact same clip.
Then there's Miami. The Dolphins couldn't even manage a winning record, going 82-86, yet somehow produced the third-highest moneyline profit in the NFL at +$1,719.82. Tennessee went 81-91 and still returned +$923.35. Meanwhile, the Chargers went exactly 85-85 and torched $2,311.06.
That's the lesson buried underneath this entire experiment: picking good teams isn't the same thing as finding good bets. The Chiefs won 71.8% of their games and rewarded their backers handsomely. Miami won 48.8% and somehow did, too.
It's not just how often your team wins. It's what you were being paid when it finally did.
Dolphins fans somehow got paid for the chaos
Being a Dolphins fan over the last decade required a certain tolerance for false dawns. Miami cycled through coaches, quarterbacks, rebuilds and enough "maybe this is finally the year" optimism to qualify as an annual tradition.
And yet, if you blindly bet them every game, it kind of was your year.
Miami went just 82-86 during our study, but a $100 moneyline bettor still finished $1,719.82 ahead with a 10.2% ROI, trailing only Pittsburgh and Kansas City. Even better, the Dolphins produced a profit in seven of the 10 seasons studied.
THE COVERS COST OF LOYALTY 10-YEAR BETTING RECEIPT | TEAM | Miami Dolphins |
| WAGER | $100 moneyline |
| SEASONS | 2016-2025 |
| 10-YEAR RECORD | 82-86 |
| ROI | +10.2% |
The real absurdity happened at home. Across 81 home bets, Miami generated $2,555.22 in profit with a 31.6% ROI. That's nearly $836 more than its overall decade-long profit, meaning the road Dolphins spent years handing back some of what the home Dolphins had earned.
Miami is the team that breaks the brain in this study. The Dolphins lost more games than they won and still would've been one of the best teams in football for your wallet.
Mediocrity, apparently, pays pretty well when the price is right.
Betting the spread told a different story
Moneyline betting is the heart of The Covers Cost of Loyalty, but we also ran the same flat-stake experiment against the spread. Instead of betting $100 on each team to win outright, we risked a fresh $100 on each team ATS in every eligible game.
Over the full 10-year study, New England was the NFL's most profitable team to back against the spread. The Patriots went 98-78-4 ATS, producing $1,579.72 in profit and an 8.8% ROI.
That decade-long return came with a catch, though: 80.8% of New England's ATS profit came from its single best season.
Detroit's recent run has been even more impressive. From 2021 through 2025, the Lions went 56-31-2 ATS and generated $2,004.19 in profit with a 22.5% ROI.
 |
2016-2025 LEADER New England Patriots 98-78-4 ATS | +$1,579.72 8.8% ROI |
 |
2021-2025 LEADER Detroit Lions 56-31-2 ATS | +$2,004.19 22.5% ROI |
Whether betting teams to win or cover the spread, loyalty paid very differently depending on the logo on your ticket.
Browns and Jets fans paid the price for loyalty
And then there are the fanbases for whom this experiment feels unnecessarily cruel.
Cleveland Browns fans didn't need us to calculate the financial value of unconditional loyalty. They've suffered enough. We did it anyway.
The answer is -$4,392.40.
A $100 moneyline bet on Cleveland every eligible game from 2016 through 2025 produced the largest loss of any NFL team in our study. The Browns went 60-107-1, returning -26.2% on the money risked. They also finished dead last against the spread, just in case anyone was wondering whether betting them a different way would've made the experience more pleasant. It would not have.
The New York Jets offered a slightly different form of misery. They went 49-116, the worst straight-up record in our 10-year sample, and cost our hypothetical loyal bettor another $3,673.70. Cleveland and New York finished 32nd and 31st, respectively, in decade-long moneyline profit — and occupied the bottom two spots against the spread as well.
Now compare Cleveland with Pittsburgh.
A Steelers fan blindly betting $100 every game finished $2,262.85 ahead. A Browns fan following the exact same strategy finished $4,392.40 behind.
Pittsburgh Steelers LOYALTY REWARDED +$2,262.85 +13.0% ROI 
Cleveland Browns LOYALTY PUNISHED -$4,392.40 -26.2% ROI That's a $6,655.25 financial gap between two AFC North fanbases separated by roughly two hours of highway and several lifetimes of football happiness.
There was no secret system here. No knowing when to buy low. No merciful voice saying, "Maybe don't bet the Browns this week."
Just $100. Every game. For 10 years.
At some point, loyalty stops being admirable and starts looking like a recurring charge you forgot to cancel.
The most and least profitable NFL teams by year
A decade can hide some wild individual seasons. Here's which NFL team would have made you the most — and cost you the most — from a fresh $100 moneyline bet on every game in each season.
There wasn't one team that owned the decade from start to finish. In fact, a different team finished as the most profitable moneyline bet in every season from 2016 through 2025.
Some of the individual seasons were even stranger. Miami went just 5-11 in 2019 but still produced a +$727 profit, making the Dolphins the most profitable team to blindly back that year.
Carolina pulled off an even bigger reversal, going from the least profitable team in 2023 at -$1,234 to the most profitable in 2025 at +$907.59. Cleveland, meanwhile, finished dead last in both 2016 and 2017, including a perfect -$1,600 loss during its 0-16 season.
Methodology
The Covers Cost of Loyalty was built around an intentionally simple question: What would happen if you risked $100 on your favorite NFL team to win every game for 10 seasons?
We analyzed all 32 current NFL franchises from 2016 through 2025, including the playoffs, covering 2,761 completed games and 5,522 team-level observations. Franchise relocations and name changes were treated as continuous histories.
Primary analysis: A fresh $100 moneyline wager was placed on each team in every eligible game. Each wager was settled independently, with no compounding or reinvestment of previous winnings.
Secondary analysis: We also tracked a flat $100 wager on each team against the spread using the historical spread and available spread price for each eligible game.
Positive and negative American odds were settled using their corresponding payouts. Moneyline ties were treated as pushes with the $100 stake returned. ATS wagers were settled according to the final score and listed spread, with pushes also returning the stake.
Betting prices were sourced from the NFLverse historical games dataset. According to the dataset's creator, prices through 2023 were primarily sourced from Pinnacle, while prices from 2024 onward were primarily sourced from DraftKings, with some exceptions.
Each eligible game was settled using the listed historical price in the dataset. One 2017 Bears-Packers game without available betting prices was excluded where applicable, as was the canceled Bills-Bengals game from January 2023.
Teams were ranked by total net profit, with ROI included as a secondary measure of how efficiently each team's wagers performed.
