New York Coach of Year Gamblers Have Fever For Brian Daboll, Not Robert Saleh

Posted on: October 24, 2022, 04:59h. 

Last updated on: October 25, 2022, 05:34h.

Chris Sheridan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Live Casinos, Sports Betting.

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll has dropped from +1600 to +250 in Coach of the Year futures markets, and New York Jets coach Robert Saleh has dropped from +7500 to +800 over the course of this month.

But when it comes to wagering that one of those two will beat out Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni for the award, New York gamblers are all about Big Blue.

“Since midnight, Brian Daboll received 59% of the bets and 72% of the handle in the NFL Coach of the Year market.  Robert Saleh only had one bet for him since midnight,” Fan Duel spokesman Kevin Hennessy told Casino.org Monday. That’s as New Yorkers mourned the sweep of the Yankees, but took solace in the success of the two local football teams, whose winning ways have been a shock to the NFL and the sports gambling universe.

As we reported last week, the nine sportsbooks operating in New York were heavily exposed on the Jets and the Giants going into Sunday’s games. The Giants defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars, 23-17, to improve the NFL’s second-best record to 6-1. The Jets defeated the Denver Broncos, 16-9, for their first four-game winning streak since 2015.

The lack of action on the Jets’ coach can be explained in two ways:

  • New Yorkers must go to a neighboring state to place wagers on Coach of the Year, and more of those may be made as the workweek goes on and gamblers find time to cross the borders and place these wagers in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.
  • Jets fans may be thinking Saleh is not all that great of a bet anymore because the victory came with a costly price: Star rookie running back Breece Hall tore his anterior cruciate ligament and was carted off the field in the second quarter. He was the leading candidate to be voted the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year.

Saleh now must find someone to replace the rookie from Iowa State, who had a 62-yard touchdown run in the first quarter, reaching a maximum speed of 21.87 mph — the fastest this season by any NFL ball carrier, according to Next Gen Stats. He was averaging 5.8 yards per carry and has twice as many rushing yards as the Jets’ second option, halfback Michael Carter.

Jets general manager Joe Douglas got to work immediately, acquiring running back James Robinson from Jacksonville for a conditional sixth-round draft pick. This is an example of the Jets trying to build on the only positive momentum they have experienced since 2015. If more deal are made, they will need to happen soon. The NFL trade deadline is Nov. 1. For now, Saleh must incorporate Robinson, who has been 4.2 yards per carry playing second fiddle to Travis Etienne Jr.

What Lies ahead for the Giants and Jets?

Gang Green plays at home next Sunday against the New England Patriots, and has opened as a 2 1/2-point underdog against the 3-3 Patriots.

The Giants are on the road in Seattle against the 4-3 Seahawks, who lead the AFC West, and the visitors have opened as 3-point underdogs. This will be the fourth consecutive week the Giants will be playing as underdogs, and they are tied with the Atlanta Falcons for the NFL lead with a 6-1-0 record against the spread (ATS). The Jets are 5-2-0 ATS, same as the Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Bengals. And they are 4-0 on the road for the first time since 2010, which also happens to be the last time they qualified for the playoffs.

The Jets have outscored opponents 74-20 in fourth quarters.

“This one showed we have a little bit of dog in us,” Carter told reporters in Denver on Sunday.

For the New York sports fan, it was a day of mixed emotions after the Yankees were swept out of the playoffs by the Houston Astros. That’s in what may have been Aaron Judge’s final game in pinstripes. He is a free agent this off-season, and may want out of the Bronx after fans booed him while he was striking out 15 times in 36 at-bats in nine postseason games.

The success of the Giants and Jets is nice. But the Yankees were within reach of going to the World Series for the first time since 2009, and now they are out of the picture. That void might eventually be filled by the Giants and/or the Jets. But their fans are both snakebitten and in a state of disbelief over these runs of good fortune.

What Will It Take For Daboll or Saleh To Win?

We are still not yet at the midpoint of the NFL season, and fortunes can change on a dime in the NFL, as Hall learned in Denver.

The Giants have played only one divisional opponent, the Cowboys, and lost to them in Week 3 on Monday Night Football. After playing Seattle, they have a bye week, and then play the Houston Texans and Detroit Lions, the teams with the two worst records in the entire NFL. Beginning Thanksgiving afternoon against the Cowboys, they begin a stretch of four straight games, and five of their final seven against NFC East opponents, including two against the league-leading Eagles.

The Jets must play the Buffalo Bills and MVP favorite Josh Allen in two weeks, then have a bye week before playing the Patriots again. Road games at Minnesota and Buffalo occupy the first two Sundays of December, so the schedule will get very tough very soon.

Still, 5-2 is 5-2, and if Saleh can get his team to move past the season-ending injuries to Hall and former first-round pick lineman Alijah Vera-Tucker to a torn triceps, he may end up actually being the more deserving of the two New York head coaches. Vera-Tucker has started at right guard, left tackle, and right tackle this season, providing blocking for Hall and quarterbacks Zach Wilson and Joe Flacco.

Hall has been the face of the Jets transformation into a run-reliant offense. His 681 scrimmage yards are the fourth-most by a Jets player in the team’s first seven games over the past 20 seasons. The group ahead of him includes running backs Curtis Martin (917 in 2004) and LaDainian Tomlinson (688 in 2010) and wide receiver Brandon Marshall (686 in 2015).

Both Teams Still Longshots For Super Bowl

Thirteen teams have shorter odds than the +4000 line on the Giants winning the Super Bowl, and there are 17 teams with shorter odds than Salah’s Jets, who are at +8000, along with Kyler Murray and the 3-4 Arizona Cardinals, who are tied for last place in the NFC West.

The lack of respect from the oddsmakers has not gone unnoticed by both New York metropolitan area football teams. That’s especially with the saturation advertising taking place in the New York market, as the nine licensed operators in New York and a dozen other companies operating in New Jersey flood the airwaves with advertisements.

Many of those ads are from DraftKings, which has lowered Daboll’s Coach of the Year odds from +450 to +250 and Saleh’s from +2000 Sunday to +800 Monday, spokeswoman Cassie Buontempo said.

Or, to put it another way, J.B. Smoove seems to be everywhere lately:

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