Morning Coffee: Hurts a popular choice for MVP at FanDuel

The Philadelphia Eagles are the defending NFC champions. The Minnesota Vikings are the eighth choice to win the NFC at FanDuel.

If you needed a reminder of just how big the gap between the two teams is right now, just watch last night’s game.

Despite missing several key starters, the Eagles cruised to a 34-28 win over Minnesota on Thursday Night Football.

Philadelphia averaged 5.4 yards per carry and rushed for 259 yards and three touchdowns in the victory.

The Eagles picked up 19 rushing first downs without conceding a single one.

Meanwhile, Jalen Hurts improved to 19-1 straight up in his last 20 regular-season starts.

Hurts to win NFL regular season MVP has been a popular bet at FanDuel.

Still, you could find the Eagles’ franchise quarterback at 10-to-1 odds as the third choice to win NFL MVP at FanDuel this morning.

Is there value betting on Hurts to win MVP?

There are a couple of different ways to consider his chances. Allow me to explain.

This is the Morning Coffee for Friday, Sept. 15, 2023.

Hurts a popular choice for MVP at FanDuel

Patrick Mahomes was voted NFL MVP in 2022.

Hurts ended up as the second choice in the voting after throwing for 3,701 yards and 22 touchdowns, while rushing for 760 yards and another 13 scores.

Fast-forward to this year, and the traders at FanDuel told us that Hurts has been an overwhelmingly popular bet in the NFL MVP futures market.

In fact, Hurts to win MVP has received about twice as many bets and twice as many stakes compared to any other player, including the betting favourite Mahomes.

Despite being a popular bet and leading Philadelphia to a 2-0 start, the odds for Hurts to win NFL MVP ballooned from +900 to +1000 over the past 24 hours.

He has the exact same odds to win MVP as Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence this morning. For perspective, Mahomes and Tua Tagovailoa are co-favourites to win that award at +650.

Is there value betting on Hurts to win MVP?

The 25-year-old has completed 71.4 per cent of his pass attempts for 363 yards and two touchdowns while leading the Eagles to a 2-0 start for the second year in a row.

He’s also rushed for 72 yards and two touchdowns. Those are solid numbers.

At the same time, Tagovailoa threw 466 yards and two touchdowns in Miami’s Week 1 win alone.

In fact, Hurts’ 181.5 passing yards per game currently ranks 20th in the NFL.

Last night, Hurts connected with DeVonta Smith on a 63-yard touchdown pass.

That one throw accounted for a third of his total passing yard production last night.

On all other throws, Hurts went 17-of-22 for 130 yards. Minus the deep shot to Smith, Hurts averaged 7.6 yards per completion.

Let me explains why all of this matters.

With the exception of an interception, Hurts delivered another extremely efficient performance in a game that Philadelphia never appeared to be in jeopardy of losing.

The Eagles gashed Minnesota for 259 yards and three touchdowns on the ground.

Their defence and special teams forced four turnovers.

Kirk Cousins threw for 364 yards and four touchdowns – nearly double the number of passing yards that Hurts finished with.

It was a similar situation last week, when Patriots quarterback Mac Jones threw for 316 yards and three touchdowns compared to just 170 passing yards and a touchdown for Hurts.

Cousins and Jones aren’t in the same class of quarterback as Hurts. However, the Eagles don’t need Hurts to put up massive MVP numbers through the air or on the ground in order to win most games.

They will be able to lean on their rushing attack and defence against inferior opponents, which is exactly what we saw them do against Minnesota last night.

In fact, Hurts’ toughest test most weeks might be figuring out how to spread around the touches efficiently enough to keep all of his playmakers happy.

Apparently, that could be an issue.

There is no doubt that Hurts ranks among the top quarterbacks in the league. Considering he finished second in MVP voting last year, it wouldn’t be a surprise at all if he won the award this year.

However, the fact that Philadelphia didn’t need Hurts to put up big numbers and still cruised to a pair of easy wins over the Patriots and Vikings could turn out to be the biggest factor that works against the case for Hurts to win MVP.

The NFL MVP futures market at FanDuel reflects that sentiment.

It’s the reason you could still find Hurts at +1000 to win NFL regular season MVP.

Is there value betting on Hurts to win MVP at FanDuel?

I understand the case for the Eagles’ quarterback. However, at this point, I’m not rushing to the FanDuel app to bet on it.

Blue Jays odds to make postseason on the move

The Toronto Blue Jays were -430 to make the playoffs at FanDuel on Monday morning.

That number represents an 81.1 per cent implied probability that Toronto will make the playoffs.

Four days later, the Blue Jays are currently +148 to make the playoffs at FanDuel. That number represents just a 40.3 per cent implied probability.

They didn’t just lose four straight games. Toronto was outscored 35-9 lost and was swept in a four-game September series at home for the first time in franchise history by one of the teams that was chasing them for an American League wild-card spot.

The Blue Jays are now 2.5 games back of the Texas Rangers for the second AL wild-card spot and 1.5 games back of the Seattle Mariners for the final spot.

Next up, the Blue Jays welcome the Boston Red Sox to town for a three-game series this weekend.

Toronto is currently a -136 money line favourite for tonight’s opener.

Can the Blue Jays snap their losing streak and get their season back on track against their division rival this weekend?

They’ll need to if they are going to avoid falling any further out of the wild-card race.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Baltimore Orioles 4-3 in their series opener on Thursday.

Tampa Bay is just one game back of Baltimore for the best record in the AL East.

The Orioles were -850 to win the AL East at FanDuel at the beginning of the week. They’re -290 to win the division this morning.

The Rays have gone from +550 to +220 to win the AL East at FanDuel this week with three more games on deck versus Baltimore.