NFC West Odds & Bets: Best 2023 NFL Futures
A case can be made that tying up funds in NFL futures for 5+ months is a pretty -EV way to handle your money. But let's be honest; you've made more egregious -EV decisions in your life than getting down on the Seahawks to make the playoffs in late July.
We've recently kicked off our Divisional Preview Series on Move The Line, and a ton of work goes into that on my end. I deep dive into all aspects of each roster, along with scheduling anomalies and anything else that might matter in preparation for each episode. I'll go division by division here on the site, in lock-step with each week's show, giving you my elevator pitch for each team and the best way to bet on them in the futures market.
This was a fruitful venture for those that tailed in 2022. In this space, I went 20-11-1 overall (+9.55 units).
This season, the NFC West teams face the AFC North and NFC East while rotating through the NFC South, NFC North, and AFC West for their "unique 3" opponents.
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NFC West
San Francisco 49ers
The 2022 San Francisco 49ers finished 13-4 and were the best team in the league over the season's final stretch, but that simple statement doesn't even begin to tell the story of last year's squad. What began as Year 1 of the Trey Lance era ended with Mr. Irrelavent, Brock Purdy taking over and winning every start until the NFC Championship when Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Hassan Reddick eviscerated Purdy's right arm and San Francisco's Super Bowl aspirations in one snap. There was a good amount of Jimmy Garoppolo mixed in there as well, but he's now in Las Vegas, and Purdy's elbow is intact and healed enough to avoid the PUP List, which answers one of the NFC West's biggest questions heading into the start of the season.
The offseason questions around Brock Purdy and San Francisco's viability in a wide-open NFC were twofold. But now that the injury concerns appear to be behind him, and the team has been adamant that he'll be the starter if healthy, we can shift gears into a discussion around the sustainability of his late-season run. Handicapping Purdy's performance without acknowledging the fact that Kyle Shanahan seems capable of scheming a top-10 offense with me at quarterback, especially one with the best assortment of skill position players in the league, would be a mistake. We have countless examples of this now, but last year was different.
Prior to the NFL Draft, Purdy was groomed by fellow Iowa State Cyclone legend Sage Rosenfels. Rosenfels played in the league for a dozen years, with his most productive seasons coming under Shanahan's tutelage while a member of the Houston Texans. So when Purdy got his shot in Week 13's matchup against Miami, he hit the ground running and never looked back. Purdy finished the year fourth in EPA + CPOE composite and second in yards per attempt, thanks to one of the league's top yards-after-the-catch marks at 6.2 per completion. That's a hallmark of Kyle Shanahan's system, and Purdy executed it well. Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, and George Kittle certainly help make life easier.
The offensive line has more question marks than in years past, anchored by All-World left tackle Trent Williams, but if the coaching staff can get Purdy to be more decisive, it may not matter too much. Purdy ranked 10th in PFF's passing grade (sixth in adjusted completion percentage) when he got the ball out within 2.5 seconds of the snap, comfortably ahead of incumbent Jimmy Garoppolo, who ranked 18th in that same metric. All this to say that I'm a believer in the Purdy and Shanahan marriage and the 49ers offense as a whole.
Defensively, Steve Wilks takes over for DeMeco Ryans, who's now running the show in Houston. Of course, Ryans took over for Robert Saleh after he took the Jets head coaching gig, so things are trending well for Steve Wilks to get a head coaching gig after he failed to land one after righting the ship in Carolina last fall. I feel like I have concerns about the back half of San Francisco's defense every year, and then their front seven performs so well that it doesn't matter. Well, expect more of the same in 2023. The big offseason move came when the 49ers poached conference foe Philadelphia's top interior pass rusher, Javon Hargrave. With Arik Armstead and Hargave upfront and 2022 Defensive Player of the Year Nick Bosa screaming off the edge, the 49ers will continue to be among the league leaders in pass rush win rate (fifth in 2022), while the league's top linebacker duo, Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw, do their part to ensure San Francisco's run stop win rate (sixth) isn't far behind.
The 49ers are on the wrong side of the week-to-week rest advantage more than any other team in the league this season, and they play a league-high four games against teams coming out of their bye week. Overall though, the 49ers draw a fairly easy schedule on the whole, and it's significantly easier than any other first-place schedule in the league. They're currently favored in 16 of 17 games, but just eight of those are by 3.5 or more. DraftKings is offering alt win totals along with +500 to start 5-0, which I think is very much in the cards with San Francisco's soft opening schedule, though you'll likely see a better return by just rolling over those moneyline wins. Over 4.5 division wins, +140 on Caesars, is also a strong lean for me.
Best Bet: Over 11.5 Wins (+125, DraftKings)
Seattle Seahawks
No team's 2022 performance surprised me more than the Seattle Seahawks. I didn't play it personally, but I applauded anyone who leaned under on Seattle's paltry 5.5 preseason win total. I questioned the talent on both sides of the ball and wasn't very optimistic that the winner of the Geno Smith/Drew Lock quarterback battle had any chance to improve on the 7-10 record that Russell Wilson's Seahawks had the year prior. I was wrong.
The Seahawks altered their future trajectory by moving on from arguably the franchise's greatest player. They've hit multiple home runs in back-to-back drafts, and while 32-year-old Geno Smith isn't a long-term answer at quarterback, he's good enough to keep Seattle in contention this year in a wide-open NFC Playoff race. They drafted bookend offensive tackles Charles Cross and Abraham Lucas in the 2022 draft, and both should continue to improve after getting a season under their belt. The wide receiver room got better when Seattle used its second of two first-round picks on Ohio State wide receiver Jaxson Smith-Njigba, who compliments DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett well. After refusing to 'Let Russ Cook,' Seattle was fifth in pass rate over expectation last season, running three-receiver sets on 70% of the team's snaps. JSN showed an elite ability to create separation, which is a perfect fit for Geno, who led all quarterbacks in completion percentage over expectation last season.
A tougher slate of opposing defenses led to a second-half dip in production for Geno Smith, but I'm not overly concerned by it. The lack of a consistent rushing attack impacted the offense's overall efficiency as well, with rookie Kenneth Walker doing his best Barry Sanders impression during the season's final two months. Seattle ranked fifth in explosive run rate but dead last in rushing success rate last season, but I attribute that more to Seattle's young offensive line, which ranked 28th in run block win rate on the season. The Seahawks used a second-round pick on UCLA running back Zach Charbonnet, who was an excellent short-yardage back and pass-catching option out of the Bruins' backfield last season. He's a nuisance to Walker's ceiling in fantasy, but it's a collective win for Seattle's offense overall.
Seattle's defense wasn't good last season, but they were better than expected. Their young secondary outperformed even the most optimistic expectations, and they brought in reinforcements this offseason. Last year's surprise rookie corner, Tariq Woolen, will be joined by this year's top cornerback prospect, Devon Witherspoon, whose NFL Combine medical report featured an x-ray that confirms he has that dog in him. They also added safety depth in free agency with former Giants' safety Julian Love, who'll get plenty of run if Jamal Adams is slow to return to full strength. Bobby Wagner is back after a one-year hiatus in Los Angeles, capable of anchoring the linebacker group, while Jordyn Brooks works his way back after a late-season knee injury. Upfront, Dre'mont Jones was a nice signing after finishing in the top ten in run-stop win rate in the past two seasons. Overall, Seattle is still lacking a league-average pass rush. Jamal Adams will help since he's better at collapsing the pocket than matching up in coverage, but they finished 28th in pass rush win rate in 2022 and will likely finish in the bottom half of the league again.
Outside of a brutal late-season stretch from Weeks 12-15 (SF, @ Dallas, @ SF, PHI), the schedule is pretty favorable. The Seahawks maintain one of the league's best home-field advantages, and that's bolstered this year with four home games against teams on the second leg of back-to-back road games. I like the Caesars Over 3.5 division wins, but I don't love the price at -140. Their win total opened at 8.5 with palatable juice, but it's steamed out to -142 on FanDuel now, and Caesars moved to a flat 9.
Best Bet: Over 9.5 Wins (+125, DraftKings)
Los Angeles Rams
The Rams take a unique approach to team building, and after winning the 2021 Super Bowl, it's difficult to argue against their strategy. They've targeted and acquired top-level talent, often via trade or, at times, through free agency, happily trading off draft picks in order to do so. It's the ultimate stars-and-scrubs strategy. When your stars deliver and stay healthy, you contend, and that was 2021. When your stars don't deliver or stay healthy, your lack of depth beyond the blue-chip players is exposed, and that was 2022 for the Los Angeles Rams.
After a Super Bowl run that saw the Rams rank inside the top five in fewest adjusted games lost due to injury, a Football Outsiders metric that accounts for both absent players and those playing at less than 100%. It gives more weight to injuries for expected starters and situational players than to expected backups; they were among the league leaders in 2022. Matthew Stafford was shut down with a spinal cord injury shortly before Cooper Kupp went down with a high ankle injury that required surgery. Both the offensive and defensive lines were decimated by injuries, and with no depth behind them, the Rams were exposed. But let's not pretend that this was a high-functioning offense with Stafford and Kupp healthy. They ranked 31st in EPA per play last season with both guys on the field.
The Rams' offseason has been interesting, to say the least. Sean McVay has flirted with early retirement. Both Aaron Donald and Matthew Stafford have been involved in trade rumors, albeit subtle, but it speaks to how desperate this team is to reshuffle the deck and start over. They've been quiet in free agency, letting most of their free agents walk while only resigning a handful of their in-house free agents. They've also traded away one of their blue-chippers, Jalen Ramsey, a sign that they're closer to bottoming out than retooling for another run at the top.
They've restructured contracts in an effort to clear cap space, but not so they can make a splash on the open market. They needed to do so in order to create enough room to sign their 2023 draft class, even though none of those players are coming in at a prohibitive price. The Rams were once again without a first-round pick this year and haven't made a first-round pick in the draft since 2016, when they selected Jared Goff first overall. They had just three selections in the first 166 picks of April's draft, which is bad news for a club that needs to add cheap starters and depth. Now, they have a roster full of late picks who will be called upon to contribute in Year 1, which is a difficult ask considering making the team is often the goal for picks in that range.
If you go unit by unit and grade each of them out, this is a bottom-five roster in the league. Outside of Aaron Donald, the defense is a disaster. Robert Rochell and Derion Kendrick, their current projected starters on the outside at cornerback, ranked 192nd and 217th, respectively, in PFF cornerback grades in 2022. They have no edge rush threat to support their secondary, and linebacker Bobby Wagner is gone after an outstanding year in Los Angeles. His 1.4% missed tackle rate was the lowest in the league among linebackers with 140 or more tackles on the season. I believe this is the worst defense in the league, narrowly edging out their NFC West rival, Arizona Cardinals.
With Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp returning to full strength, the offense should return to form in a sense, but the offensive line has more questions than answers. I believe that Sean McVay and defensive coordinator Raheem Morris are excellent coaches, but you can only make so much lemonade out of these lemons. I'm not convinced that the goal isn't to completely bottom out with the hopes of putting them in a position pick near the top of next year's draft. My first official play of the offseason was the under on the Rams opening win total of 7.5. That money is already spent, and I'm annoyed that I couldn't get more down. At this point, I'm happy to take an alt under on 5.5 wins on DraftKings.
Best Bet: Under 5.5 Wins (+150, DraftKings)
DraftKings Bonus
Arizona Cardinals
To say that 2023 is a transition year for the Arizona Cardinals is an understatement. The Cardinals finished 2022 with a 4-13 record and lost Kyler Murray to a season-ending ACL injury late in the season, putting Murray's 2023 status in serious jeopardy.
Ownership parted ways with recently extended head coach Kliff Kingsbury and General Manager Steve Keim, paving the way for a new regime in the front office and on the sidelines. New General Manager Monti Ossenfort brought in former Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon to be his head coach and, with eyes towards the future, gutted an already below-average roster. Ossenfort executed a brilliant trade on draft day, moving the Cardinals off of the third overall pick while still getting the player they were targeting, left tackle Paris Johnson, pillaging the Houston Texans along the way. Arizona is now set up to have two early selections in a top-heavy 2024 draft. In this era of the NFL, no rebuild is complete without a quarterback on a rookie contract, so Kyler Murray's status in Arizona is in question beyond this year's ACL injury updates.
While Murray recovers, which could very well be for the entire season, Arizona will be left with two very different options at quarterback. Career backup Colt McCoy is returning for his 14th season, and fifth-round rookie Clayton Tune, who put up video game numbers at the University of Houston. Either way, the ceiling for Arizona's offense, one that's now also without wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, is very low. Running back James Conner and wideout Marquise Brown will be called on for heavy workloads for as long as they can stay healthy, which is a big ask for both players historically.
Defensively, they're a mess. Jonathan Gannon is a defensive head coach, but he was often criticized for playing a fairly predictable, vanilla scheme while in Philadelphia. Things got better when he was flooded with defensive talent and playmakers, but I'm hesitant to give him credit for Eagles' General Manager Howie Roseman's work. The Cardinals have been bleeding pass-rushing talent over the past few years (Chandler Jones, J.J. Watt, Zach Allen, Ben Niemann), and they've done little to replace it. A lack of pass rush makes for a long season when paired with below-average talent at cornerback like we have here. I suspect the Cardinals will be battling with their division rival, Rams, for the league's worst defensive unit.
The Cardinals' win total of 4.5 is the lowest in the league, and they're the runaway favorites to have the league's worst record (+250, FanDuel). Even if Kyler Murray comes back this season, the Cardinals spend most of December playing on the road in cold-weather cities (@ Pittsburgh, @ Chicago, and @ Philadelphia) or hosting far superior talent (San Francisco and Seattle). Players don't tank, we know this, but organizations do. In this instance, we have an organization that's loaded with first-year decision-makers who made moves this offseason to put them in a position to turn the tide next offseason. Even at 4.5, I have no interest in betting on this team to exceed expectations.
Bets Bet: Total Division Wins - Under 1.5 (+110, Caesars)
