2025 NFL betting wrapped: The teams on repeat, the bad beats and the perfect mix for 2026

Is there anything more disappointing than seeing that one pop song that completely infiltrated your music recaps of 2025?

If you regularly bet on the NFL, it’s probably seeing how much you lost on the Lions.

The thrilling 2025 NFL regular season featured plenty of unexpected results, and bettors weren’t spared. Of the seven teams that entered the campaign with +2000 odds or shorter to win the Super Bowl, only three made the playoffs. None got to the conference championship round.

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Favorites won 65.9% of their games outright and covered the spread 47.8% of the time this season, a far cry from 2024 when favorites were a historic 71.7% straight up and 53.3% against the spread. Though underdogs winning generally favors sportsbooks, bettors continued to put down big money in 2025, with DraftKings Sportsbook director Johnny Avello calling its NFL handle «off-the-charts great.»

Ahead of Super Bowl LX where the Patriots and Seahawks will face off in Santa Clara, California, in the biggest sports betting event of the year, it’s time for a look at the season behind us and how we got here, with two teams whose preseason odds were +6000 to make it to the Super Bowl.

Sports betting writer Doug Greenberg wraps up the season with a deep dive into the teams, players and games that made the 2025 NFL betting season (complete with some fun graphics), and NFL analyst Ben Solak puts some deep cuts on your radar for 2026 based on the bets you loved to make in 2025.

Let’s press play, starting with the most-bet teams of 2025.

These teams were on repeat all season

Detroit Lions and Buffalo Bills have been perennial «on the cusp» teams that bettors wanted to believe could finally have that breakthrough season. Both squads attracted considerable Super Bowl futures action before Week 1. Then there were the actual perennial Super Bowl contenders in the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs, who fell short (Eagles) and very short (Chiefs) of the league’s top prize.

Finally, the Dallas Cowboys — by far the league’s most valuable franchise at $10.1 billion, according to Forbes — maintained their influence with bettors to close out the top five. Internationally, the Cowboys attracted the second-most betting this season behind only the Chiefs, according to data from Sportradar.

New England Patriots’ and Seattle Seahawks’ overperformance in the regular season translated to the postseason futures market. Avello told ESPN that DraftKings has notable liability on New England winning the Super Bowl, including a $10,000 wager at +8000 that would net $800,000, while BetMGM has already paid out some $1.5 million in Seattle futures and could be on the hook for $3 million more if the Seahawks win the title — all to one bettor.

Some of the NFL’s mightiest teams fell far this season — and dragged many bettors down with them.

The Baltimore Ravens and Chiefs, two of the most reliable teams in recent seasons, struggled throughout the 2025 campaign, making them the largest losers for bettors. The Chiefs, in particular, fell very short of expectations when favored, losing nine games straight up and failing to cover the spread in 10 games, both the most in the league.

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The Jacksonville Jaguars and Chicago Bears helped savvy bettors with their impressive ATS records, tying the Atlanta Falcons and Pittsburgh Steelers for the second-most outright wins as an underdog (5). The Carolina Panthers had eight outright wins as an underdog, tied for the most in a season in the Super Bowl era.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the worst ATS team in the league, but bettors wisely avoided them. On the flip side, the Lions were a mediocre 8-9 ATS, but the sheer volume of bettors backing them week-over-week made them a loss leader.

«If you look at the Lions, losing both the offensive and defensive coordinator we thought was going to make a bigger impact despite the skill positions,» Caesars Sportsbook’s head of football Joey Feazel told ESPN. «And so we were a little bit higher [in futures odds] going into the season. Same thing with the Chiefs. The Chiefs really last year, in our opinion, overperformed in terms of just having a lot of games go their way.»

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Which players dominated 2025 — and which ones fell short?

Jahmyr Gibbs, Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry lit the NFL on fire in 2024, so their statuses as bettor go-tos in 2025 shouldn’t have been a surprise. The first two of that trio, though, failed to live up to expectations and became «loss leaders,» along with Justin Jefferson, Jalen Hurts and James Cook III.

Jauan Jennings posted a career high in touchdowns — notably, while seeing a year-over-year decrease in receiving yards — and Tucker Kraft was well on his way to career highs across the board before a season-ending ACL injury in Week 9. Jaxson Dart and Jake Tonges emerged as potential moneymakers of the future, while Darren Waller turned back the clock with his most touchdowns since 2020.

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The crowds went wild: The most bet-on games of the season

standalone island games accumulate more betting handle than Sunday afternoon contests, so prime-time matchups predictably fill the top five here.

Early-season games tended to attract more money, possibly owing to nascent optimism and fuller wallets. But several high-stakes late-season matchups also joined the ranks of the most bet, with their exciting game scripts making for ample live betting opportunities.

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2025: Year of the parlay

As the American betting market continues to mature, bettors continually flock to parlays, which give them the opportunity to win a lot of money with lower stakes. In its most recent earnings report, DraftKings noted a significant increase in year-over-year parlay handle mix.

Specifically, bettors continue to invest in same-game parlays, which have «continued to skyrocket,» Feazel said. «That’s usually what is a sweat in for us week in and week out … is when you get a really high-scoring prime-time game, all those permutations out there are going to be really good for the customers.»

Feazel also points to the emergence of division-winner future parlays as a bet type that has grown significantly year-over-year. Here are some notable ones that cashed:

• A bettor at Hard Rock Bet turned $510 into $100,980 with a parlay of the Seahawks, Patriots and Panthers winning their divisions.

• In late November, a Caesars bettor parlayed seven teams winning their divisions, turning $50 into $67,328.50; the longest leg of the parlay was Panthers for the NFC South at +500.

• In early October, another bettor at Caesars parlayed the Seahawks, Denver Broncos and Bears winning their divisions to turn a $25 wager into $18,279; Chicago was a remarkable +2500 to win the NFC North at the time.

Arizona Cardinals on Nov. 16.

Caesars: A bettor created a six-leg NFL touchdown and MLB home run parlay that turned a $50 wager into $574,000.

DraftKings: A bettor turned $0.10 into $7,356.70 with a five-leg first touchdown scorer parlay (+7,356,700) on Dec. 14.

FanDuel: A bettor used a 22-leg parlay (+96,972) to turn $5 into $4,848.60 in Week 2.

FanDuel: A bettor hit a six-leg anytime touchdown scorer parlay (+25,946) where all of the players had odds of at least +370, turning $1 into $259.46 in Week 2.

FanDuel: A bettor correctly picked the spread in a parlay of 15 Week 2 games (+17,566), turning a $0.10 bet into $17.57.

theScore Bet: A bettor created a parlay of NFL spreads, money lines and totals (+7,204,443) that hit Sept. 7 (financial terms not disclosed).

theScore Bet: A bettor made a live wager that Falcons TE Kyle Pitts Sr. would score three touchdowns (+20000) against the Buccaneers on Dec. 11 (financial terms not disclosed).

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The perfect playlist for 2026

Commanders in 2025, you’ll love fading the Bears in 2026

I was big on fading the Commanders coming off of their highly improbable 2024 season in which they were historically successful on fourth downs and went 8-4 in one-score games. They had a lightning strike of a quarterback in Jayden Daniels, but his play was far too erratic to fully trust.

I have more faith in the 2025 Bears as a stable organization, as I rank Ben Johnson extremely highly among NFL head coaches and I think Caleb Williams’ 2025 success is much more repeatable than Daniels’ in 2024. With that said, the Bears eked out their 11-6 record and divisional round appearance on the back of some highly unlikely wins.

Chicago went 8-5 in one-score games across the regular season and playoffs, including wins over the Commanders (on an end-of-game fumble), Raiders (on an end-of-game blocked field goal), Bengals (on a last-minute heroic touchdown from Colston Loveland), Packers (thanks to a fourth-down touchdown to send the game to overtime). The Bears sent the divisional round game against the Rams to overtime on an unreal Cole Kmet touchdown on fourth down.

It’s simply extremely difficult to maintain that level of end-of-game success, even if the Bears improve as a team overall entering 2026. Another team with a similar candidacy? The Broncos, who were 11-2 in one-score games during the regular season.

If you enjoyed betting on the Patriots or 49ers in 2025, you’ll love betting on the Bengals and Saints in 2026

Two of the easiest schedules last year belonged to the Patriots — as has been extensively covered in their Super Bowl run — and the 49ers. As such, they were two of the heaviest-bet teams for overs on preseason win totals.

It’s not yet clear who will have the easiest schedules in 2026. To get those numbers pinned down, we won’t use the 2025 record for each team but rather 2026 win total projections (which don’t exist yet), and we need to see the travel/rest disparities across each team’s schedule. Still, we can be fairly confident which teams will generally have easier schedules down the stretch.

The Bengals and the Saints are the teams I’m looking at here. They have the second- and third-easiest schedules by 2025 win/loss records of their opponents. They both have reason to believe they’ll be at least functional in 2026: the Bengals because they have Joe Burrow, and the Saints because they finished the season 4-1 and look secured in their quarterbacking future with Tyler Shough.

The 49ers weren’t as great of a bet against the spread (10-7) as they were for seasonlong win performance, as they easily cleared their preseason number despite enduring huge injuries. The Patriots, however, always stayed ahead of the Vegas curve. They were tied with the Rams, Seahawks and Jaguars for the best record against the spread (12-5) this regular season.

If you enjoyed betting Jaxon Smith-Njigba overs in 2025, you’ll love betting on Luther Burden III in 2026

I was recently recalling Smith-Njigba’s rookie season. He was used so heavily on screens (7% of his routes, a whopping 28% of his targets) that when his offensive coordinator Shane Waldron was fired, Smith-Njigba sent a potshot through the media. Two years later, Smith-Njigba is a revelation as a route runner and a downfield demon. Who could see a similar leap in 2026?

I like Burden for this look. Though fellow rookie Loveland gets all of the media coverage for his strong postseason finish, Burden saw a similar heavy dose of screens in his rookie season as he was slowly onboarded into the complex Ben Johnson offense. Screens comprised 7% of his routes and 25% of his targets.

Burden won’t see an offensive coaching system change as Smith-Njigba did, but he will likely see an opportunity to grab targets if the Bears move on from veteran WR DJ Moore, who does not seem to be in their long-term plans. Much like how Smith-Njigba benefited from the departure of DK Metcalf last offseason to open up his role, Burden will step into a bigger menu of downfield targets if the receiver depth ahead of him widens.

If you enjoyed betting on Jaxson Dart in 2025, you’ll love betting on Cam Ward in 2026

Dart was a great bet for big rushing totals this season, as the Giants used him heavily in the designed running game — especially in the red zone. Ward, peculiarly, was not used that way by the Titans despite the fact that he has good movement skills and a big enough frame.

In fact, Ward had one of the lowest scrambling rates of all starting quarterbacks: 3.7%, compared with Dart’s 9.2%. Ward was extremely committed to attempting passes when he escaped the pocket, but a new coaching staff should encourage him to scramble more often to keep the series ahead of the sticks.

Dart’s old playcaller, Brian Daboll, just signed on to become Ward’s offensive coordinator in Tennessee, so we should expect the designed run rate for Ward to jump as well. Dart wasn’t the only quarterback for whom Daboll schemed up carries, as that was a big part of Daniel Jones’ initial resurgence in New York when the coach first signed on. Ward had only nine designed runs on the season, and eight came in Week 8 or later — after Brian Callahan was fired.

Keep a quick eye out for Ward rushing props when the season starts, especially as we learn more about the offense Daboll wants to run in Tennessee.