Our Official 2026 NFL Win Total Bets
Three Unders, One Over, and Our Numbers on the Board
The Bets
| Bet | Line | Sim Wins | DVOA / FPI / PFF | Median Gap | P(cover) | Our Fair | Mkt Price | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under BAL | 11.5 | 10.3 | 9.8 / 10.8 / 10.8 | +1.2 | 65.8% | -193 | -140 | +7.5% |
| Under CIN | 10.5 | 9.6 | 9.8 / 10.0 / 9.4 | +0.9 | 60.2% | -151 | -125 | +4.7% |
| Under KC | 10.5 | 9.3 | 8.9 / 9.8 / 9.7 | +1.2 | 63.1% | -171 | -140 | +4.7% |
| Over IND | 7.5 | 8.6 | 9.1 / 8.1 / 7.7 | +1.1 | 61.7% | -161 | ~-125 | +6.1% |
P(cover) is the mixture-model probability the bet hits. Median gap is our projected win median versus the posted number. Every edge below is our P(cover) against the price's break-even.
Before the team-by-team, one thing has to be said up front: three of these four are the same bet wearing different jerseys. Under Baltimore, under Cincinnati, and under Kansas City are all a fade of a marquee team that the market is pricing to bounce back from a lost 2025, and our number sits a full win or more under the line on each. Indianapolis is the mirror image, a team the market is pricing down that our models still like.
Baltimore, under 11.5
This is our biggest edge of the four and the easiest to explain, because it is a bet about the number, not the roster. To cash the over you need 12-plus wins. Our sim gives that a 34 percent shot and lands the team at 10.3. Read the inputs: even our most bullish measures, FPI and PFF both at 10.8, sit a full win under the line, with DVOA the low man at 9.8. Blend 10.3, market 11.5, under prices at -140 against our fair -193. That is a 7.5 percent edge, and it does not require Baltimore to be bad. It requires them to not be one of the four or five teams that actually win 12 games.
The bounce-back case is real. This was an 8-9 team whose season turned on a missed 44-yard kick in Week 18, and the roster is still loaded. But two things cut our way that the raw talent read misses. First, they fired John Harbaugh. 48 hours after the Steelers loss they moved on from the winningest coach in franchise history, and Jesse Minter runs the team in 2026 as a first-year head coach. Eighteen years of continuity gone, and Monken headed over to the rival Browns and a new OC is in, so the offensive staff is in flux too, less certainty of continuity. First year head coach transitions are exactly the kind of variance the market is slow to price, and in our opinion it is treating this as a foregone conclusion. Jackson was good, last year was a blip, he will be back. And maybe he will, but we think this is a good price for betting under 11.5.
The fair counter: they added Trey Hendrickson to the pass rush, Lamar is still a top quarterback, and if the close games flip back this cashes the over. We know that. The edge is not that Baltimore is overrated as a roster. It is that 11.5 asks for near-perfection from a team in a coaching transition, and our sim says that is a 34 percent outcome priced like a coin flip.
Cincinnati, under 10.5
This is the one where the fundamentals and the schedule point in opposite directions, so know that going in. The case against 10.5 is the defense and the durability, and unfortunately, as a Burrow guy, there does seem to be a trend: 9-8 and out of the playoffs in 2024 with a healthy, excellent Burrow, because the defense was among the worst in the league. The ceiling with peak Burrow has been 9-8. Then this offseason they let Trey Hendrickson walk. Their best pass rusher, the reigning sack leader, gone to a division rival in Baltimore that now gets him twice a year. A bottom-tier defense did not get its one difference-maker back, and it is hard to squint and see the unit as meaningfully better. Our defensive input already has that defense 27th, and that projection was arguably generous before Hendrickson left.
So to clear 10.5 you need Burrow to play a full 17, which he has failed to do in two of the last three years, plus a defense that just lost its best player to improve. Both, in the same year. Our sim lands 9.6, P(under) 60 percent, a 4.7 percent edge at -125. Price is the key here. They just win 10 games so often, and that 11th win is the one Burrow misses or the defense gives away.
Now to call out some of the upside we may be ignoring, because this is our thinnest edge of the four. Cincinnati has one of the easiest schedules in the league in 2026. Sharp has it third-easiest, our PFF input agrees, and DVOA has them with the easiest slate of all.
To address the elephant in the room, forward-looking strength of schedule is not very helpful or predictive. Here is SOS rank year over year from 2015 to 2024, using DVOA. You can see the probability that it carries any predictive power beyond random is 26 percent. Said differently, it is noisy at best. In my view that is because it is a derivative forecast of what we think is going to happen. We simulate the season based on how good we think teams are today, and every season there are good teams that regress and bad teams that improve. Our job in betting is to find which teams those will be. The SOS before the season starts is just a comment on how many good or bad teams you will play based on how good we think they will be, and that is not very precise. An easy schedule is itself a forecast with error. It is precisely why the market can defend 10.5, but the market is likely not pricing that uncertainty well. If Burrow stays upright, the soft schedule alone can drag them to 10 or 11 even with a bad defense. This is a real under, but it is a coin flip with a nudge, not a lock.
Kansas City, under 10.5
Best story, and once you read the fine print, our most uncomfortable ticket. Both directions are live, so here are both.
Reid can hit this. Say it plainly. Mahomes is targeting Week 1 off December ACL and LCL surgery, he has been ahead of schedule, threw through OTAs and minicamp, and the league slotted Kansas City on Monday Night Football in Week 1 as a vote of confidence. All of that, and we are on them at -2.5 against Denver in Week 1. Reid and Mahomes have made seven straight AFC title games. If Mahomes is the real Mahomes by October, this roster wins 11 and the under is dead. We do not fade Patrick Mahomes here, and our sim still hands the over 37 percent for a reason. That said, we are not alone: 9.3, 8.9, 9.8, 9.7 across our number and the three models. Ten wins is the clear ceiling.
So the path to 11-plus wins stacks conditions: Mahomes healthy Week 1, fully himself early and not just upright, mobility back, on a roster that went 6-8 with him last year and swapped out McDuffie, Watson, and Chenal on defense. Denver would also need to regress and the Chargers to take no step forward, both direct headwinds for Kansas City. Our sim lands 9.3, DVOA the low man at 8.9. The market already knows most of this, which is why the line is 10.5 and not the 11.5 Kansas City used to carry. Our under is the narrower claim that they did not mark it down quite far enough. P(under) 63 percent, 4.7 percent edge at -140. Real, but this is the one where a clean Mahomes camp report in late July should move you to pass, not press.
If Mahomes starts Week 1, I assume we see negative CLV here, meaning the market may push this to 11.5. But in all the work I have done, I assume he plays the whole season. So I think the market is, and probably should be, giving the Mahomes bump. The dude just wins. This is a new world for him coming off this injury, though, and last year they did not win the close games they have historically always found a way to steal. Was that inevitable, or a blip? Maybe. But the division is not getting easier. Denver and the Chargers both beat them last year, and Mahomes was healthy for most of it.
The more aggressive version of this same view, KC to miss the division, the conference and the Super Bowl, is laid out in the Futures Deep Dive. Those deep run markets carry a fatter premium on the name, so the edge there is bigger than on this total. Think of this under as the cautious cut of that fade, not a different opinion.
Indianapolis, over 7.5
The lone over and the mirror image of the other three. The market is pricing this team down and our models will not follow. In 2025 Indianapolis finished top-five in offensive efficiency and top-five in total DVOA. Then Jones tore his Achilles, a 44-year-old Philip Rivers had to come out of retirement to start, and they still went 8-9, dropping a handful of close ones. By quality they were a 10-win team. On a middling schedule, a roster of that caliber clearing 8 wins is the base case, not the ceiling.
The unknown here is one name: Daniel Jones. His 2025 was a career outlier by a mile, and the profile screams regression, year seven, heavy mileage, a prior career best near replacement level. PFF rates the Indianapolis quarterback spot a 2 on their scale, dead last among these four and five points below Baltimore and Kansas City. Our own QB number has him at -0.8247, worse than average over his career, and given all of that, we still bet the over. Said differently, the Colts are a good team and Jones just needs to play average, for him. If he can play a few levels above dog shit, they win 8 games. He is tracking to be ready for Week 1 off the Achilles, so this is about his level, not his availability. And remember, this team almost beat Seattle, the eventual Super Bowl champion, with a 44-year-old who had not thrown an NFL pass in five years. They led 13-3, held the Seahawks to zero touchdowns, and lost 18-16 only on a last-second field goal. So the over is not a bet that Jones repeats 2025. It is a bet that the non-quarterback quality, the defense, the run game, special teams, holds up enough that even a meaningful step-back still clears 8 wins. If Jones falls all the way back to his Giants form, the form that got him cut, the offense craters and 5-7 wins is live. This is a bet on the roster's floor, not the quarterback's ceiling.
On the methods, because it is the fair question
If you want to understand the methods in depth, see the Methods writeup. I get into the detail there and give guidance on how we ultimately landed on these bets versus others you may see showing some value.
How to size this
One unit on all season totals. We have historically done well with these, but they tie up bankroll for a full season.
Division, Conference and Super Bowl Futures
See the Futures Deep Dive. That is where the division analysis live, Green Bay in the NFC North, Tampa Bay in the NFC South, Buffalo in the AFC East and Jacksonville in the AFC South, along with the Seattle and Houston deep run bets. Same sim and same blended numbers, just the futures side of the board. If the futures are what you came for, go read that one.
We take this same analytical approach to our weekly bets for NFL and College Football.