A difficult season for the Cincinnati Bengals and Joe Burrow got worse on Friday when an MRI showed that Burrow tore a ligament in his right (throwing) hand, which will require surgery and end the quarterback’s season. Burrow had seemingly recovered from a calf strain he suffered in preseason, which slowed him down in the early part of the season.
Sportsbooks were quick to react, as DraftKings Sportsbook raised the Bengals’ Super Bowl odds from 30-1 to 100-1. Cincinnati was a popular Super Bowl bet for public bettors, as the Bengals were the second-most popular Super Bowl wager at BetMGM sportsbooks with 9.5 percent of bets, according to BetMGM’s John Ewing.
“We went from 20-1 to 85-1 [to win the Super Bowl],” Chuck Esposito, sportsbook director at Station Casinos said in a text to For The Win. “We also moved the Ravens from +750 to +600. Catastrophic for the Bengals.”
It is a massive drop-off in talent with Jake Browning presumably starting now, as Burrow is one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks and Browning is a relative unknown. When I asked eight Vegas oddsmakers before the season to rank QBs by their point spread value, Burrow was tied for second in the entire league, worth 6.75 points ATS.
Two oddsmakers said they’d power rate the Bengals in the bottom 10 of the NFL’s teams now.
“They’re now at 100-1 between the loss last night and the Burrow injury,” Thomas Gable, sportsbook director at The Borgata in Atlantic City said via text. “It would have been an uphill battle to even get to the playoffs with Burrow after the loss [on Thursday night], but it’s basically a lost season at this point.”
Indeed, it’s likely a lost season for both the Bengals and their futures backers. That is the inherent risk in making futures wagers, though, especially in the NFL.
