NFL Futures 2026: Finding Value

The NFL season is almost here, which means it is time to start thinking beyond Week 1.

While weekly sides, totals and player props will dominate the betting landscape from September through February, there is another market worth attacking before the season gets rolling: NFL Futures.

At FTO, we view futures as a valuable part of an NFL betting portfolio. Our goal is not to have fifteen futures tickets sitting in our account by Week 1. Instead, we aim to identify a handful of prices where we believe the market is giving us a better number than the true probability warrants. Most importantly, we need to make sure we're sizing those bets appropriately.

💰The Importance of Bet Sizing

This might be the most important part of betting futures: Don't confuse a futures bet you really like with a futures bet that deserves a huge percentage of your bankroll.

A $100 bet on a +500 Super Bowl ticket can look incredibly attractive when we're imagining a $600 payout in February. But that $100 is also unavailable for the next five months. That's a real cost.

At FTO, we'd much rather have a portfolio of appropriately sized futures than one giant position on a single team or player. For example, imagine a bettor has a $1,000 NFL bankroll. Putting $250 on a Super Bowl future because it's a favorite doesn't make much sense. Even if we love the team, we're risking 25% of the bankroll on an outcome with enormous variance.

A better approach might be:

• 1-2% of bankroll on a speculative long-shot

• 2-3% on a strong futures position

• 3-5% for an exceptional edge

• Keep the majority of the bankroll available for weekly betting

👉Remember: The longer the bet takes to settle, the more careful we should be about how much capital we commit to it.

We also don't need to bet every market. If we like a team to win its division, that doesn't automatically mean we should also bet that team to win the conference and the Super Bowl. Those wagers are correlated, and stacking several bets on the same outcome can create much more exposure than it initially appears.

🔍The Hidden Cost of Futures: Your Bankroll Is Locked Up

One of the biggest downsides of futures is something that doesn't show up on the betting slip: opportunity cost.

If we bet $100 on a Super Bowl winner in September, that $100 is effectively removed from our usable bankroll until the market settles. That can become particularly problematic for bettors who have a limited bankroll.

Imagine having $500 available for the NFL season and putting $200 into futures. Suddenly, 40% of your bankroll is sitting in bets that might not settle until February. Meanwhile, we're going to encounter hundreds of weekly betting opportunities. Maybe an injury creates an enormous line move. Maybe a team is mispriced because of a matchup. Maybe we find a player prop we think is 5-7% off the true number. If most of our bankroll is tied up in futures, we have less flexibility to take advantage of those opportunities.

There's also the possibility that the futures market moves against us. A team we bet at +1200 to win the Super Bowl might fall to +500 after six weeks. That's great from a theoretical perspective—but unless we're able to cash out at an attractive price, our money is still sitting there. And, of course, the opposite can happen. A team can suffer injuries, lose games and see its odds explode.

This is why we view futures as one component of a betting portfolio, not the entire portfolio.

✅Our Favorite NFL Futures Markets (and some bets for 2026)

Not all futures markets are created equal. The biggest markets tend to get the most attention, but that doesn't necessarily mean they offer the most value. Our preference is generally to look for markets where we can build a reasonably strong projection. As such, we prefer to lean towards win totals and statistical props. Awards and championships can still offer value, but they come with significantly more variance.

Here's how we'd approach the major markets:

Team Win Totals

This is probably our favorite futures market. There's something appealing about betting a number rather than a single outcome. If we bet the Rams Over 11.5 wins, for example, we're asking them to win 12 games not win the Super Bowl, win the NFC, or beat a particular opponent in February.

👉 FTO's early lean: Jaguars Over 9.5

Jacksonville is an interesting example of the type of team we're willing to target.

The Jaguars are currently sitting around 9.5 wins, with the Over at approximately +120.

Jacksonville won 13 games last season, meaning the market is already pricing in some regression. But regression doesn't necessarily mean a team suddenly becomes mediocre.

If we believe the Jaguars' underlying roster and quarterback play are strong enough to remain above league average, 9.5 gives us a reasonable path to an Over.

We're not saying Jacksonville is guaranteed to win 10 games, but we are saying +120 gives us enough upside to consider the probability that they do.

Player Over/Under Props

Player season-long props are another market we really like. Instead of trying to predict an award winner, we're trying to predict a number. That is something FTO naturally gravitates toward.

👉FTO's early lean: Caleb Williams Over 4,000 passing yards

Williams threw for 3,942 yards in 2025, and the market has offered a 4,000-yard threshold at a plus-money price in some books. We don't need Williams to suddenly become an elite 4,500-yard passer. We need modest year-over-year improvement. A quarterback entering Year 2 in the same offensive system, with another offseason of development, only needs to clear the number by a small margin for this bet to become profitable.

Division Winners

Division futures can be an excellent middle ground between win totals and conference championships. We only need our team to finish ahead of three opponents rather than 15 or 31 other teams. That's especially attractive when we believe the division is weaker than the market suggests. The important thing here is to avoid simply betting the best team. We're looking for the best combination of probability and price.

Conference Winners

Conference futures are more volatile, but they can offer better value than Super Bowl futures. The reason is simple: We don't have to beat the other conference.

👉 FTO's early lean: Don't automatically bet the Super Bowl favorite

The Rams are currently around +550 to win the Super Bowl. There's a legitimate reason they're there. The Rams added Myles Garrett, and Aaron Donald's return has further increased expectations surrounding the defense. The market reacted strongly to Donald's return, with Los Angeles becoming the clear Super Bowl favorite. That's precisely why we need to be careful: A great team doesn't automatically make a great bet.

When the market has already incorporated the good news, we need to ask whether the price still provides enough value.

Super Bowl Winner

A Super Bowl future is the most fun, but it is also the easiest market in which to make a bad bet. Everyone wants to pick the champion, but remember how much has to go right. To win the Super Bowl, a team needs to stay relatively healthy, win enough regular-season games to make the playoffs, win multiple playoff games, and avoid one bad performance at the wrong time. That's an enormous amount of variance. As such, is is crucial that we are right about their probability and the price simultaneously.

MVP

MVP is one of the most difficult awards to handicap because quarterback play, team success and narrative all matter. The current market is dominated by quarterbacks, with Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow among the favorites. That creates an interesting dynamic. The market is very good at identifying the obvious candidates. It is much harder for the market to accurately price a quarterback who is about to have a breakout season.

👉 FTO's early lean: Look beyond the top of the board

We're not interested in laying a huge price on the favorite. Instead, we're looking for quarterbacks who: have a realistic path to 4,500+ all-purpose yards, play on a team expected to win 10+ games, and have a narrative that voters can latch onto.

Of note, MVP has become overwhelmingly quarterback-driven, making most running back and receiver tickets essentially lottery tickets unless the price is enormous. We find it hard to confidently recommend betting on any non-QBs to win MVP at this point.

Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year

These awards are particularly interesting because they provide an opportunity to move away from quarterback-heavy MVP markets. OPOY has increasingly functioned as something close to a "best non-quarterback" award, while DPOY naturally focuses on players who can generate splash plays. For DPOY, pass rushers are especially interesting because sacks are visible, easy for voters to understand and highly correlated with defensive dominance.

👉 FTO's approach: Don't be afraid to wait

Unlike a Super Bowl future, an award price can move dramatically after just a few weeks. If a player starts the season with five sacks in three games, we don't necessarily want to have already committed a huge amount of bankroll to the award before we know how the season is developing.

Rookie of the Year

Rookie awards are incredibly volatile, but that volatility is exactly what can create value. The market currently has Cardinals running back Jeremiyah Love and several other rookies near the top of the Offensive Rookie of the Year board. The problem with betting a rookie months before the season is that we don't know exactly how the workload will develop.

A rookie running back might be expected to receive 250 touches and end up splitting the backfield. A receiver might have enormous talent but spend half the season behind veterans. A quarterback might start Week 1 or Week 8.

👉 FTO's approach: Don't be afraid to wait here either

This is one of the few futures markets where we may actually prefer to have less information when betting a long-shot, but more information when betting a favorite. If a rookie immediately establishes himself as a 90% snap player, his award odds may still be attractive relative to his actual chances.

Comeback Player of the Year

This market has become much more interesting because the criteria were changed beginning with the 2024 award, emphasizing players returning from illness, injury or other circumstances that caused missed playing time. Patrick Mahomes currently sits as the favorite after returning from his ACL injury, with Jayden Daniels and Kyler Murray among the other prominent candidates.

👉 FTO's approach: Don't bet the story, bet the price

Mahomes is a great comeback candidate, but if he's +185 and we believe he has a 40% chance, there's no value. If we think he has a 55% chance, suddenly it's an entirely different conversation.

🧠 Final Thoughts

NFL futures are one of the best ways to express a season-long betting opinion, but they are also one of the easiest ways to get too much of our bankroll tied up before the season even begins. At FTO, we're most interested in markets where we can actually build a projection: win totals, player statistical props and select team markets. Awards and championships can absolutely be profitable, but the variance is much higher, which makes price and bet sizing even more important. Ultimately, the best futures bet isn't necessarily the team we think will win. It's the outcome where the sportsbook's price is furthest away from our true probability.

👉 Remember: The NFL season is six months long. There's no reason to have our entire bankroll committed before Week 1 even kicks off.

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