The big boys come to play tomorrow night, which will make it the third time in modern NFL history the league has kicked off on a Wednesday, and it took a rematch too good to wait for Thursday to get there. New England travels to Seattle on September 9 to open the season against the team that beat them in Super Bowl LX just seven months ago, a 29-13 result at Levi’s Stadium that sent the Seahawks home champions and sent the Patriots into an offseason of retooling around Drake Maye. New England added A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs to the receiving corps. Seattle mostly stood pat behind Sam Darnold, though the Seahawks did just lose rookie safety Bud Clark to a broken ankle in the preseason. The two teams that closed last season now open this one, on NBC, in prime time, on a Wednesday, because the league apparently decided the rematch was too good to make anyone wait until the weekend.
That is the marquee opener. The rest of the league’s storylines are already being priced out in futures markets that have been trading since the confetti fell in February. The championship, the MVP race, and the Defensive Player of the Year race are all live right now, a day before a single meaningful snap. To the board.
TRADE 1: 2027 NFL Champion
The Los Angeles Rams are the clear favorite here, sitting at 16% with $83.8 million already traded on this market, well clear of Buffalo and Seattle, who are tied for second at just 8% each. That is a real, decisive gap in a 32-team field. The Rams’ case is built on an offseason defensive haircut, Myles Garrett arriving via trade and Aaron Donald back in the fold, stacked on top of Matthew Stafford coming off his first career MVP season. The more interesting number is Seattle’s. The reigning Super Bowl champion has drifted down to a tie for second, the same price as a Buffalo team that has not won it all in decades. Betting against the defending champ this early has burned traders before, last year Seattle and New England were both buried in the preseason board and still met in the final, but an 8% price says the market is not assuming any repeat magic. The Rams are the number to beat. Everyone else is background noise until the games start proving otherwise.
TRADE 2: NFL MVP
Josh Allen leads Kalshi’s board at 11%, with Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson both sitting at 10% or higher right behind him, making this one of the tightest MVP races the market has priced in years. Nine different players carry at least a 7% share, and of those nine, Mahomes, Jackson, Allen, and Matthew Stafford are all past winners, while Burrow, Drake Maye, Dak Prescott, and Justin Herbert have all picked up MVP votes in recent seasons without ever finishing on top. That depth at the top is the story. A field this bunched means the award is genuinely up for grabs, and the eventual winner is more likely to be decided by which contender’s team wins the most games down the stretch than by raw statistical dominance in September.
TRADE 3: NFL Defensive Player of the Year
Myles Garrett remains the runaway favorite entering his first season with the Rams, and his odds have shortened since the June trade that sent him from Cleveland to Los Angeles, a defense also getting Aaron Donald back this year. That is a rare combination for a player switching teams: more talent around him, not less, the opposite of the diluted-usage risk that normally comes with a star defender changing addresses. History says the favorite is not automatic, though. Only a handful of true edge rushers have won this award in three straight seasons over the last two decades, and voters occasionally reward a cornerback or safety instead, as they did last year with Patrick Surtain II. But Garrett just set the single-season sack record with 23 takedowns, and the market has not found a reason yet to doubt he does it again.
That’s the bell. New England and Seattle run it back tomorrow night on a Wednesday nobody saw coming a year ago, and every futures market in the sport is already live and repricing by the hour. Have a great week. Football is officially back, a day early.
About The Spread Sheet
Your comedic entry into what is trending on prediction markets. Hosted by Noah Gardenswartz. Each week Noah and a guest take the questions the markets are actually pricing, across sports, pop culture, power and tech, and call them. We explain them. We make fun of them. Then we give the verdict: YES or NO.
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Not financial advice. Prediction markets discussed for entertainment and editorial purposes. Trade at your own risk and verify all odds independently.