NFL Betting Futures Play: San Francisco 49ers O/U Win Total

Added on Aug 24, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

The NFL regular season doesn’t get underway for a few more weeks, which gives us an opportunity to evaluate teams and schedules and look for good value opportunities in NFL futures plays. One of the more popular NFL futures betting options offered by most major sportsbooks offshore and in Nevada is the Over/Under win proposition. Much like a game total, the book deals a number of wins which you can bet over or under. If the team wins more games than the posted total, bets on the over win; if they win fewer the under cashes.

We gave out a position on the Philadelphia Eagles O/U win total last week, and we’ll now take a position on the San Francisco 49ers. 49ers showed improvement in Mike Singletary’s first full year as head coach, and we’re looking for them to show even more improvement in 2010. They’ve got a lot working in their favor, starting on the defensive side of the ball where the stop unit is built around linebacker Patrick Willis. Willis is considered by many to be the best in the NFL at his position, and he’s such a force for opposing teams to deal with that it makes the rest of the defense better. They’ve already got a good defense against the run (ranked #6 in the NFL last year) but they need to upgrade the secondary.

On offense, the Niners may be in even better shape. Despite the retirement of Glen Coffee to pursue a career in the ministry San Francisco is very talented and deep at the running back position with Frank Gore, Brian Westbrook and Anthony Dixon (who has looked very good in preseason play). Alex Smith is a year older and could benefit from some continuity at offensive coordinator—he’s playing with the same OC for the first time in his career. He’s now got a good backup for the first time in his career, with veteran David Carr the #2 quarterback. They’ve even got a serviceable #3 option at quarterback with Nate Davis, who played his college ball at Ball State.

The Niners should be a better team across the board this year, and they could show a drastically improved W/L record by virtue of a favorable schedule and a weak division. The NFC West is there for the taking, with the only real threat being an Arizona team in transition. The Cardinals have a mess at the quarterback position, with either Matt Leinart or Derek Anderson to be the starter. The Cards could be in for a down year. The other two teams are a rebuilding Seattle Seahawks team under former USC coach Pete Carroll and the lowly St. Louis Rams. The Niners could very well be the best team in the NFC West by default.

San Francisco’s toughest games of the year are at home—New Orleans and Philadelphia—and both necessitate a long cross country flight providing a further advantage to the Niners. The other home games are all very ‘winnable’—Oakland, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Seattle and the final game of the year at Arizona. They will play a neutral field game this year at Wembley Stadium in London, but that occurs before their bye week and shouldn’t mess up their routine too much. On the road they have Seattle, Kansas City, Atlanta, Carolina, Arizona, Green Bay, San Diego and St. Louis. All in all, we’re looking at 7 games against opponents that won 5 or fewer games last year. The Niners are getting better while the rest of the division is getting worse. They’ll have a double digit win season and win the NFL West.

BET SAN FRANCISCO TO WIN THE NFL WEST -120
BET SAN FRANCISCO OVER 9 WINS -125