Move The Line - 2026 NFL Schedule Betting Guide: Eagles, Chargers & Cardinals Got Buried

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

The 2026 NFL schedule handed the Eagles, Chargers, and Cardinals brutal draws. Connor and Ryan break down the biggest rest disadvantages, look-ahead lines for all 32 teams, the record nine international games, and when to time your win total bets. (00:00) Intro (00:42) How We Analyze the NFL Schedule (01:45) Does Net Rest Edge Matter? (Bears +15) (03:00) Nine International Games & the Wednesday Opener (05:06) Primetime Slate: Rams, Seahawks, Bears, Bills (06:08) Eagles Rest Disadvantage Weeks 1-9 (07:45) Chargers Schedule, Travel & Win Total (09:02) Rams Schedule & Roster Fragility (11:37) Cardinals Week 14 Bye & Look-Ahead Lines (15:30) Cardinals Roster: Model vs Market (18:23) Dolphins: Worst Roster in the NFL (19:13) Broncos Market Timing & Road Game Pockets (20:29) Jaguars Back-to-Back Europe Trips (21:01) Wrap-Up: Futures & Circa Millions Subscribe to 4for4's Betting Package or try SharpStack free for 7 days: https://www.4for4.com/plans Circa Sports Survivor and Circa Million, $30 million guaranteed: http://circasports.com/contests Watch Move The Line on YouTube: https://4for4.co/3OupraJ Join the Discord: http://discord.gg/4for4 Follow the show: https://x.com/MoveTheLineNFL Connor: https://x.com/ConnorAllenNFL | Ryan: https://x.com/RyNoonan Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome the move of line presented by Circa Millions. Ryan and Connor Allen back for some more schedule discussion today. Connor, what's going on? How are we doing? Yeah, not a whole lot. There's a lot of ways to skin the cat with the schedule here. And there's a lot of new ways looking at it, a lot of old ways looking at it. I think it's important that we break down what we think matters, what doesn't matter, and then maybe a couple angles here and there.

Yeah, we always know really coming into the season, who's playing who. But then it's the timing of like when you play them. There are the rest angles. There are the travel angles. You know, the old school way I think you're referring to is like just looking at like last season's wind totals, right? Versus like moving it forward into a more, what are the projected wind totals of your opponents. We do know though that like those are very flawed, right? When we talk, you know, the opportunities in the, you know, the space and embedding some of the market inefficiencies to win totals.

You know, sometimes you'll see these wind totals. I think whalecapper did some great work. a couple years ago, right? I don't know where it's been in the last handful of years, but sometimes like a win and a half off on average. So even that system is somewhat flawed. I know you've done some good work on trying to pull up, you know, looking at cumulative wins and stuff like that.

So, you know, how much are you factoring in? I guess week to week, I don't want to speak for you. I would think more maybe like rest advantages, travel things would probably be more granular week to week versus like big picture stuff would be more like cumulative win totals and stuff like that. Would that be correct? Yeah, I think so. And like there's, you know,

Warren Sharp has done a bunch of like net rest stuff for the last couple years. And I think that that can matter. Like that kind of stuff can matter, especially in a week's week basis. Like that certainly matters. But it's like Chicago this year is the most net rest edge, which means like they have the most rest advantage over their opponents

over the course of the entire season. Now, I just don't know how much that specifically matters because you're looking at like three games with, three days extra rest advantage and they have one game with seven days rest advantage because that's like they're coming off the buy and the other team's not how much does that matter over the totality of the season I'm a little bit skeptical but at the same time I think there's definitely something there I'm just not sure if this is like the right package fully yet to like blindly cited and like all right I like Chicago win total over because they have the most rest advantage I guess

if that makes sense does yeah I remember sharp Clark when we would do this with him he was a big poo poo the rest advantage thing pretty a leader yeah Big hater of it. I'm not sure he's wrong. And I think you're kind of making a similar case, right? Where it's, you know, it's overfitting, I think, really good analysis and it's factually correct. But in terms of like extrapolating that and then trying to price it into a market that already

is getting priced daily, I think you're, you know, could be some double counting. I think it's kind of what you're saying there too. So it's just some interesting nuggets we continue to get like they don't care about our holidays. Connor. They don't care about our families. They don't care about any of those things. They are jamming NFL football in wherever they can. We got a Wednesday game this year.

I don't know how to, yeah, we don't have any historic Wednesday data. You know, insane amount of, I think we have nine. Yeah, nine international games starting in September 10th, basically almost every week. We got like a week two off, week eight off. But we're basically looking at some sort of international game, a lot of like the 930 Eastern starts. They love to jam down our throats. Anything specifically that you've taken away from that?

Are you factoring any of that into preseason stuff? Or is that still kind of like an in-season weekly thing? I think it's case by case. Like you see like with the international games like when teams travel, how like how much the time changes. I think that that kind of stuff can all matter. We're still super new and like it's all pretty green. I think across the league.

So I'm not looking at it from like a season long lens to be honest. like for most of that stuff. And the reality is like most of these teams are like pretty well-run organizations. You know what I mean? Like they're obviously there's some really important. But a lot of these guys have, you know, are doing like serious research on when the optimal time is for all that, like what players need, how much rest they need like day-to-day basis, like all that stuff.

So I think any of us sitting here and being like, oh, they can't do that because of X is like, I mean, they're like multi-billion dollar organizations. I'm sure that they've done some research on it. most of them again there's some really poorly run teams but you know yeah no it's a great point i mean i think it probably matters i mean it's human nature like your body clock when you're you know seven time zones away it's going to factor into some things but there's no way that they're not doing like pre post during like you know optimization to try to make sure that they get the most out of their players so uh you know no no different they're not fine flying flying coach um you know you're

you're not fine and these guys, you know, way to need to be in boarding group three with you when you're sitting at the airport. Like these, they're flying private. These are nice planes there. They're taking care of themselves. We got a lot of prime time games for a handful of teams, which makes sense. The Rams have seven prime time games, just some high level stuff, which is crazy. Four prime time games in the first five weeks.

It's a lot of island Rams, a lot of island Seahawks too, which is appropriate. They have six pride time games, five of them at home. Seems like a lot. I mean, a lot of Seahawks at home, Green Bay, six as well. And then I think the Bears have a crap ton of prime time games too. Deservedly so. I mean, you know, very public team. Both Bears and Bills are playing on both Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So again, after families, Chicago and Buffalo, deservedly so. Anything specific in terms of, you know, team level stuff that you kind of see in your, preseason win total work, anything, any angles, anything you want to touch on from the work that you've done this offseason. So I do think something that could matter would be, so looking at looking at the rest advantage of the most disadvantaged teams here, the Chargers and the Eagles both play four teams coming off by as it looks like or four games with seven day rest disadvantage essentially. The Eagles one is really important, I think. Go ahead. Oh, then go into it. Yeah, dive in.

Well, I think part of what, I think it's the pockets of time instead of the totality of kind of what you were touching on at the top where it's like this net rest advantage over the course of 18 weeks. Like there's a truncated part of the schedule where the Eagles have a massive rest disadvantage. Right. It's like, I have a here. So 22, negative 22 weeks one through nine. Easily the worst. And that's from sharp football. Just a brutal, brutal stretch early in the season where it matters.

So like where you stretch that out and it probably doesn't. and show as well, but like early the season, week six, they come back from London, and then they get, you know, no buy and they get Carolina coming off of a buy. Like just a bunch of little pockets like that or that stuff where that's, you know, in a granular sense, I think matters. Yeah, no, I like that here. And you can see Eagles, you said one through nine leading up to their buy or just like massive rest disadvantage here.

And I mean, this is tough because they play a lot of really winnable games. And so they maybe they take care of business. obviously their favorites in all but two games and you know small dogs in those games um but that stuff can matter like that's how you slip up and like lose a random game here to like i don't know carolina or washington is only two-point favorites things like that on the road especially um so yeah those things can definitely matter i think on like a week-to-week basis yeah they kind of just they can pop in there um yeah that one's that one i think is is pretty notorious the charges one is tough there's like a couple of things going on like the cumulative rest disadvantage is tough

their strength of schedule is tough. If you want to factor in the amount of miles that they travel, that's on the higher side. I don't think that that's any signal at all. But kind of an interesting team. That kind of a good offseason, there's a lot of like arrows pointing up on the chargers. You know, I think the nine and a half wind total has been down a little bit,

factoring some of the rest and travel disadvantages, anything to kind of expand on the thoughts on the chargers. Yeah, not too much. It looks like before the buy is pretty tough here. They're underdogs in three games, favorites in three games. But, and, you know, obviously easy start of the season. Cardinals and Raiders is pretty good start there. We don't know if we're going to get Fernando Mendoza there in week two as well.

So that's not bad, but, I mean, they really probably got to win one of these games here to really make a run down the stretch here. Because obviously they have a good five game stretches favorites or six game stretch favorites close, you know, middle end of the season here. But I don't know, the charges of the team. We don't need to dive too deep into team level analysis here. But I think, I like what they're doing, but there's just, you know, a lot of question marks still. Yeah. Well, stay in LA.

What do you make of the Rams? It's a difficult schedule, deservedly so. They're, you know, an elite football team. What's interesting is a lot of their meat and potatoes of their schedule seems to come later in the year. And, well, I think that could be, that could hold true. And those teams can still be really good. We just know the attrition of the NFL season, a team that sets.

to be really good in the preseason, might not have the same forecast when we get to week 13, for instance. Are you hesitant on any Rams stuff? Again, without getting super granular, knowing that it's obviously a deep team that might be getting Aaron Donald back, which seems more likely than not even, which is kind of crazy. I mean, that's what the prediction markets would tell you.

He's at the facility in pads, like working out. Pretty terrifying. Pretty interesting. Still a young guy. Any thoughts on the Rams with kind of the kind of their schedule and all the expectations there. I think last year we talked about it too. It's like if everyone stays healthy, they're one of the best teams in the league.

If any of their pieces, which are increasingly fragile now with Puka Nakua's mental health taking a dive and Devante Adams aging and Matthew Stafford aging, like they're a really fragile team. They're not a team that I'm looking to, especially as chalk. So not a team that I'm looking to like lay is like a long-term favorite over the course of the season because, you know, I mean, maybe a Devante Adams injury wouldn't, like, kill them or anything like that. But there's, you know, Pooka Nakua one would certainly hurt.

Matthew Stafford one would be, you know, catastrophic for them. And so I think there's a lot of points of fragility for this aging Rams team here. And so, again, week one, they're a great team. They're awesome. Week, I don't know, 13 against the Chiefs. I don't know. You know, what are we going to, what Rams team are we going to get at that point? So for me, they're not a team that I'm, like, looking to back for the full season necessarily.

but at a week-week basis, yeah, they're obviously an awesome team and getting Aaron Donald and everyone there is just insane. Like I think they have one of the best defenses, according to my roster model right now. I do. I mean, the upgrades in the secondary, I think we're really important and solid for them. So, you add Miles Garrett. So pretty good off-season.

In that division, I'll probably end up touching base on this a little bit more on Thursday when we go in the weeds on the NFCs. Wednesday will be more AFCs. Thursday, we're in the weeds on some of the specifics on the NFC team's late season buys. In particular, for a team that projects to be pretty poor to begin with and has a rookie coach in Arizona and Michael Flore. Week 14 by, just tough. You know, I think it only is probably beneficial for a team that maybe has like season aspirations, maybe a Rams for.

instance, if they were to have a draw like that because knowing that their season is going to last beyond 18 weeks. But when you're a pretty bad roster, new coach, questions at quarterback, you know, what are you going to, you know, are you going to fold in the rookie? What's going on there? Like those things matter. Like it's a little bit easier to have a week 8th by, for instance. Week 14 by for a team like Arizona, I think is really bad.

A lot around on the screen. from looking at what you have here and you're watching on YouTube with us. They are dogs and all of those games before the buy. Yeah. And for those of you watching YouTube, this is the look headlines sheet. So I blended a couple of different sources like draft kings and Fandul, you know, anyone who had look headlines the whole the whole season here. And then, and obviously there's a couple of games like week 18 is off, sometimes week 16 is off.

They're just basically, there's not lines out or if they are, they didn't want to use them. So, I mean, we look at this, too. They're not only dogs in every game leading up to their week 14 bot. They're dogs by a touchdown or more in all but like two games, which is quite difficult to overcome. And this is one of those things where on a week-to-week basis, like, you know, again, I know this is like look at headlines or, again, some derivative of season-long win totals in some capacity.

But when you think about it on a week-to-week basis, like, do you really want to be back in a team over? that is literally an underdog every week. Like, all right, week done, 10 point dogs, you know, like, week two, also 10 point dogs. Week three, 11 point dogs. Okay. Week four, at the Giants, you know, maybe we can get a win there. They're not a good team either, but seven point dogs, six point dogs, probably at close.

Like, when do you get your wins? You know what I mean? So maybe the Cardinals outperform. Maybe they're better team than what we think. Drafting a running back early, not addressing the quarterback position. there's a lot of problems in Arizona. So yeah, it's like one of those things when you're looking at the schedule.

And I don't know if I'm super excited to like lock the Cardinals under here, but it's certainly worth noting as again, just like where are the wins? That's that's kind of my point. Yeah, and you just think like, I mean, Mike LaFlor might be a tremendous coach. He probably, you know, he's been around for a while.

Obviously, he is, you know, a brother in the game. Like he's going to get some, some tips and tricks like most would before. It's like, you know, finding a new first time head coach that hasn't been a part of other staffs and can learn. But at the same time, like when it feels like the wheels are falling off, which it could happen with his team, a little like respite for a week to kind of relax, reassess, you know, get the players out, clear their minds versus just like beating, beating,

beating, beating week after week, you know, takes a toll. Snip, snap, snip, snap. that takes a toll on a guy after after a time. So it's just like, yeah, that week 14 thing is bad for, I think anybody and I would expect it to be particularly bad for a team that's young and inexperienced. It's interesting because like my actual, like my roster model of Arizona has them is not that bad, which they have more too.

But like this paints a picture of like they're just screwed. You know, like they have no chance. my roster model likes them like leans over on the wind total you know which is interesting so i got to dig more into that um and figure out what's going on there because i haven't dug into the nuances of like who's specifically graded there but i don't know any any like any like do or not really uh what was that in any what any what any thoughts on like the cardinals like roster specifically i mean i guess i can i probably have a yeah we're at um yeah i mean like it hasn't meant that's pretty crazy sir

Well, they spent some draft capital on the defensive side. You know, if they can get Walter Nolan healthy, it's pretty good last year on a limited basis, Darius Robinson the year before. You know, I think that they have some decent corners. You know, Will Johnson played really well last year for them when he was in there. You know, Garrett Williams, I think, is one of the better slot corners, underrated slot corner.

You know, safety group. They got rabbits, Demerson, who's finally going to emerge in play safety with Dodge, Alain Thompson moving on to Dallas. He's a fun, young, talented player. They bring Josh Sweat back, which seems like it's going to happen. There are thoughts about him pulling out or demanding a trade. And Josh Swet's, you know, a dynamic at Drush.

There's not a lot of, there's some depth behind him. No one's really good. It's one of these questions. Like if you don't have quarterback answered, Connor, like, you don't have anything really, right? Like, um, and what's it giving, you know, Marvin Harrison Jr. Like what's, um, you know, there's some exciting fantasy elements to, to Arizona, but I think there's still a lot of depth questions here. Yeah.

I mean, nothing stands out to me. It seems like a lot of like average guys, though, which I think is what, which is why I think that the player model is like, okay, this team can win whatever, five games or something like that. So I don't know. I guess maybe there's a little bit of disconnect there. Maybe Arizona ends up being a team that you're like blindly, you know, just closing your eyes and back in the season and just like, all right, maybe they find a way to backdoor

it. Not something I'm super excited about right away. But yeah, like they're going to be 10 point dogs against everyone. on maybe there's a little bit of value there. The problem is, is powerhouses in the division. You get six games, Rams, Seahawks, Niners. That's just a tough draw. Like, we think those are three playoff teams.

You know, those are teams that are projected for 10 and a half to 11 and a half wins. Dead. And where is their, you see where their unique three is. I mean, you would expect it to be a little bit easier. They get the Lions, Saints, and Jets. So two teams that we kind of liked a little bit yesterday, and then they get the Jets draw. So that's a little, you know, a softer landing for them, I guess. But I think the Jets are also better and kind of an interesting team to talk about when we get there too, right?

So it seems like these are like the two clear worst teams in terms of like just schedule and total output here, especially looking at the look at the lines. Like markets are just projecting them to be the worst. It's funny, the Dolvins are really not that big of dogs in like a lot of their games, which I think is pretty interesting. But comfortably the worst roster for you, right? Like, yeah, not even close. I think we have them like, I mean, it's just, it's a disaster.

I think they're like two points worse than, it's interesting they have them worse than Tennessee here. But like Tennessee is second worst, which I don't really fully buy. But yeah, like a one and a half points, one point six points worse than those second worth roster, which is not good. And the more that I look at them, it's just a complete disaster. So, yeah, the scheduling stuff is really tough. I think the only other thing that we didn't really address would be like pockets of like multiple road games in a row that can matter as well. And then same with like early versus late season strength of schedule, I think can matter a lot. So like if you want to say you're a big like Broncos fan here, we can look at the schedule like this.

I mean, they're dogs in like, whatever, five of their first six games and then favorites and all but two games after that. So like if you're looking interested in a Broncos team total, maybe it's better to wait a little bit. see how they're doing uh you know chiefs jags rams niner's chargers seahawks to start the season is a murderer's row um i mean that's really tough even for a good pretty good bronch team they're going to win a couple of those games but two and four very possible after that stretch so i totally it's a good it's a good call out like you know market entry timing is something that's you know really important we touched on that i think you know last year we were trying to figure out like some nfc south stuff and it's like well kind of like this team but let's look at this early

schedule you might be able to get this little pocket in the week five or six if you want to jump in um there are uh three teams kansas city jacksonville and cleveland have um three straight road games um those are only three little pockets where that happens um Cleveland actually on the inverse has a spot where they have four straight home games from week 10 to week 14 which is very rare um and a buy other like what's that and a buy in the middle there looks like yeah that's cozy. That's nice. And the other like weird anomaly is the jaguars because they play back to back games in London or in Europe.

I think they don't play a home game in October. I think they have a buy week. They have, you know, a road game and they have a couple of London games. They're doing another back to back. They're the home team both at times this year. But they are doing another back to back Europe trip in for the Jags. That's a little tricky. Yeah, that's another thing. Home games in Europe, you know, that's kind of you're going to get in a little bit short end of the stick there.

Yeah. That's all I got, like that. Anything else for the folks where we wrap? I don't think so. These are all things that I'm going to be posting in our Discord at 4 for 4. You know, we're going to be releasing a couple of futures today, posting stuff, leveraging a lot of the analysis that we talk about, but in a more specific basis for each of the teams. If I have some player props too, just going to dump like whatever, their release stuff out. But yeah, and then also make sure to check out Circa Millions. Over $30 million in guarantees between their Circa Millions contest and Circa Survivor contest. Noon and Al will be firing some entries there when we go out to Vegas. You can, you know, there's a lot of ways to enter the contest there, but good people over there, they take care of you.

And pretty sick weekend. I don't know, if Circa Survivor weekend, Circa Entry weekend, they have like, you know, you have to go to the pool. They got like open bars. They got different like meet and greet events. It's pretty sick little weekend there. So definitely would recommend that if you're considering going out. Check that out. More information here in the show notes for Live.

If you want to hang out with us on YouTube, move the line wherever you listen to podcast. Come back on Wednesday. And again, we'll do more of a deep dive on the AFC. We'll get more into this Buffalo rest advantage. You know, the chiefs and what to expect there. We'll kind of touch more on all the travel issues that Jacksonville has. We'll have to unpack the Patriots. We'll come and do that on Wednesday.

So for Connor, I'm Ryan. We'll see you all tomorrow. Thanks, everybody.