How to Use Opening, Closing, and Look-Ahead Lines to Find Value in NFL Betting

A betting line and what it represents is rather mundane and straightforward to most bettors: they log onto their book, take a glance at the lines, and make their bets.

But the reality is that those lines actually represent an evolving and nuanced market deserving of more attention.

This is especially true for the NFL, as the lifetime of a line for any given game spans nearly two weeks, whereas in other sports a line may be on the board for 24 hours at most.

The chronology of NFL lines

In the NFL, the chronology of a line usually looks something like this:

•    Lookahead lines open two Tuesdays or Wednesdays before teams kick off
•    Lookahead lines close as that week's Sunday games begin
•    Lines reopen as the Sunday afternoon slate concludes
•    Lines take shape Tuesday through Sunday morning as limits increase
•    Lines close as each game kicks off

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Don't fall for anecdotal sentiments

But why does this matter? Why should we care?

Quite simply, football is flawed fundamentally. Teams play one game per week and just seventeen games in a season. Those games are also subject to incredibly high levels of variance given how much win probability is distilled into a handful of plays in each game, whether it's turnovers or a few high-leverage third and fourth downs.

Despite this, bettors, for the most part, largely 1) remember results as earned wins or losses and 2) whether a team was able to cover or not.

And because bettors tend to remember these game results in such a binary and rigid way, crowd-sourced narratives tend to echo loudly in the lead-up to the following week.

Because of this, books can make anticipatory adjustments between the closing of lookahead lines and the reopening of those lines during the actual week of those games to help cushion anticipated liabilities.

For example, books can rather easily and expectedly know where money may flow into when you have crowdsourced narratives such as "Lamar Jackson always chokes when it matters most, he's an autofade" or "The Rams are just too good on both sides of the ball, you have to take them". 

Yet going against these anecdotal sentiments would have netted you a 30-17 record against the spread, good for a 64% cover rate that bettors fantasize about even coming close to.

It's these types of market inefficiencies caused by the discrepancies between the actual and perceived merit of teams that provide an opportunity for more savvy bettors. 

Reading the market and anticipating moves can help bettors time the market better and make more winning bets.

5 key takeaways

• The perception of teams changes faster than actual teams do, causing inefficient moves when lines reopen on Sundays.

• Although the impact injuries have on lines is the easiest to observe, they can be understated in the following week’s lookahead lines due to the uncertainty and/or short-term nature of those injuries.

• Identifying misleading results (turnovers, late-down conversion rate, injuries, etc.) in matchups can help spot unwarranted line moves at reopen.

• Using the closing line from a previous matchup between two divisional teams while adjusting for context and situation can reveal if a current line is off and if it should move.

• Using these skills can help you time the market better and get the best number possible.

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