With this being the second year of a 17-game schedule in the NFL, it’s not as mathematically easy to break up the season into four quarters like it used to be, but after four games, we’re starting to get a handle on which teams are performing up to expectations, who is disappointing, and who is surprising.
After a rough decade or so, the New York City teams are in the surprising column, while the upstate Buffalo Bills are around where people expected them to be a little under 25% into the 2022 NFL season.
A quantitative way to see how teams are performing compared to expectations is to look at NFL win total odds and compare them to where they were in the preseason.
All 3 New York Teams Have Higher Win Total Odds
After dominating in their first two games, Buffalo lost a close game in Miami and then fell behind 20-3 before scoring the final 20 points in a comeback win at Baltimore, improving to 3-1 and back into a first-place tie with the Dolphins, who lost at Cincinnati last Thursday night.
| TEAM | RECORD | CURRENT WIN TOTAL ODDS | PRESEASON WIN TOTAL |
| Buffalo Bills | 3-1 | 13 | 11.5 |
| New York Giants | 3-1 | 8 | 7 |
| New York Jets | 2-2 | 5.5 | 5 |
Looking at the Case for the Over for All 3 Teams
While the Bills are 3-1, they own wins over the defending Super Bowl champions, the best regular-season team in the AFC from 2021, and the always competitive Ravens. Their loss was at Miami, which is sure to be their most difficult division game of the season. It’s fair to say the oddsmakers probably saw the Bills starting 2-2. Buffalo has two difficult road games remaining–Week 6 at Kansas City and Week 17 at Cincinnati. All other teams with winning records come into Buffalo, so finishing 10-3 or better seems plausible.
The Giants won as slight favorites over Chicago and Carolina at home, but the difference was winning outright at Tennessee as 5.5-point underdogs. That extra win was not expected, and it looks like Barkley could be a force and win an extra game or two for the G-Men. After the next two games, the Giants have a good chance to add to their win total in games at Jacksonville and Seattle and then, after a bye week, home against Houston and Detroit.
As for the Jets, they could as easily be 0-4 as they are 2-2, so there wasn’t a huge shift in their odds. But in looking at their schedule, games against New England aren’t automatic losses, and Denver doesn’t look as good as early projections believed, so four more wins are certainly possible.
