Today’s Best Bets: Bad Football, Good Basketball

Nice little payoffs on Saturday and Sunday for our college football futures portfolio. More on the NFL side today, plus Thursday Night Football and Cy–Hawk.


AFC

We still like the Broncos’ value. We’re not sold on the Patriots being able to rein in that 1-seed.

Pick: Denver to win +400. 4.00 units to win 16.00.

NFC

We still love the 49ers’ value. They’re a good team and they’re probably going to make the playoff.

Pick: San Francisco to win +1200. 2.00 units to win 24.00.

Super Bowl

More on those two here, plus Houston, who’s only very narrowly valuable but who’s currently absent from the rest of our Super Bowl portfolio.

Pick: Denver to win +1000. 4.00 units to win 40.00.
Pick: San Francisco to win +2200. 1.00 unit to win 22.00.
Pick: Houston to win +1600. 1.00 unit to win 16.00.


Atlanta at Tampa Bay

This mostly boils down to this idea:

The Falcons can’t play worse, right?

Pick: Atlanta +5.5 (–110). 1.30 units to win 1.18.


Iowa at Iowa State

Simply trusting kenpom here. Definitely no bias creeping in.

Pick: Iowa State –11.5 (–115). 1.36 units to win 1.18.

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I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. At some point we’ll get that Google Sheet up which tracks all our bets this year.

2025–26: –519.64 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)

2025–26: –6% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 995 single-game markets plus four completed futures portfolios and one partly completed futures portfolio)

Pre-2025: 0% average ROI (worse when limited to only sports)

Units taken from best odds we can find at major sportsbooks available to most Americans.

These bets are not investment advice. If you’re worried you or someone you know might have a gambling addiction, call 1-800-GAMBLER for free, confidential help.

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The Barking Crow's resident numbers man. NIT Bracketology, college football forecasting, and things of that nature. Fields inquiries on Twitter: @joestunardi.
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