NFL Week 1 betting takeaways: Where oddsmakers rate the teams

How much importance do you put on one game? Sure, it's currently each NFL team's only on-field data point, but would you react as aggressively with leagues that play 82 or 162 contests? Just ask last season's Packers and Titans whether their first game was indicative of their quality. Reliable ratings don't care about the result of one matchup.

The ratings don't care about last year's playoffs, either. Playing in the Super Bowl doesn't win a team any bets this season. Just ask the Rams and Bengals.

How ratings work

Every week, we'll look at what the betting market thinks of each team based on the closing lines from that week's games, along with what we think each club is capable of going forward. The "rating" column is an educated guess at the oddsmakers' rating to create a point spread. The number itself is the percentage chance that a team beats an average one on a neutral field.

Ratings are not rankings. Oddsmakers and bettors had the offseason to shape the point spread on the Bills, Ravens, and Chiefs - who all covered comfortably - but their closing lines were still -2.5, -6.5, and -6.5, respectively. That's a better reflection of a team's value than one 60-minute game.

The range column is my evaluation of what each team could be after seeing them play this past week. Obviously, clubs don't play to the same level every week - the players are human after all. They play within a range, and it's our job as handicappers to decide how they'll perform based on things like the situation, on-field matchups, and roster/injury issues. The earlier in the season, the wider a range a team may have.

Notable Week 1 results

With a -6.5 point spread on the road, the market established that there's an equal distance between the Chiefs and Cardinals as there is between the Ravens and Jets. With Kansas City and Baltimore in the league's upper echelon, this implies the Cardinals are much worse than their 8.5-win total from the offseason. Both favorites covered easily, suggesting either a bump in their ratings or a drop needed on the Cardinals and Jets. Interestingly, that same gap applied to the 49ers and Bears as well as the Broncos and Seahawks. However, Chicago and Seattle won outright as home touchdown underdogs - a potential example of a situation causing a team to play at its floor or ceiling.

The Chargers and Vikings (even after a big move to favorite) had a modest rating that created their respective point spreads. But if their defenses can win them games the way each did Sunday, we have to be open to the idea that their ceilings could be on the same level as the Bills' and Chiefs'.

Then there are the Cowboys. The offense looked horrific even before Dak Prescott got hurt. With their quarterback out, Dallas' rating won't be 58 anymore. The Cowboys have gone from 2.5-point favorites in the lookahead lines for their Week 2 game with Cincinnati all the way to 7-point underdogs. That suggests that with Cooper Rush at the helm, Dallas has a rating of around 30/100. That's understandable after what we saw in 2020.

Conversely, the Browns' rating has to go up from 40 after they showed they can be solid with Jacoby Brissett at the helm. If you recognized that Cleveland was being rated at its absolute floor, you got a deal on that team as 2-point underdogs. You wouldn't have even needed the Browns' late game-winning field goal to go through the uprights.

Lastly, the market hated the Falcons all offseason, which is why they were 5.5-point home 'dogs to the Saints. That created value in Atlanta, as the team didn't look like the worst in the league. The Falcons' performance in a near-win moves them from 13.5-point underdogs against the Rams this week to +10, the biggest non-injury-related change from the lookahead lines.

Matt Russell is a betting writer for theScore. If there’s a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. Find him on Twitter @mrussauthentic.