Week 1 brought touchdowns galore and 'bettor-friendly trifecta' on opening Sunday

The Chicago Bears' 59-37 victory over the Carolina Panthers in Sunday's early slate kept the momentum of the team's offseason hype train going and was representative of a great first Sunday of NFL action for bettors. For starters, the Bears were one of the most popular teams to win and cover the spread (-3) on Sunday, which they did with ease in the second half. DraftKings classified the Bears as the second-most-backed team by bets and handle going into Sunday's action, while BetMGM said Chicago -3 was the most-bet spread of the early slate by tickets, with the sportsbook's senior trading manager Christian Cipollini classifying it as "a good outcome for bettors." Then there was the avalanche of touchdowns. Five different Bears got in the end zone on Sunday, with QB Caleb Williams and RB D'Andre Swift each getting in multiple times. With the Panthers contributing plenty of scoring on their own, the game flew over its total of 47.5 with 2:35 left in the second quarter. The final score's 96 total points were the most for a Week 1 game in NFL history. The game set the pace for an explosive opening Sunday that saw six teams score 24 or more points in the first half of their games -- also the most in Week 1 in NFL history, according to ESPN research. With players like Jahmyr Gibbs, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Derrick Henry, Jonathan Taylor and Josh Allen finding the end zone multiple times, that made for a tremendous day for a betting public that makes a habit of rooting for scoring from superstars. "The first NFL Sunday of the season was a champagne-popping day for bettors, while the book was left cleaning up the corks," Caesars Sportsbook football lead Joey Feazel told ESPN. "Seven of the eight morning favorites won outright, six games flew over the total -- many reaching that mark by halftime -- and eight of the top 10 most popular touchdown scorers found the end zone. "Favorites, overs and touchdown scorers combined to create a bettor-friendly trifecta on opening Sunday." Chicago's big win built on the good will they had accrued with bettors throughout the offseason via the futures market ... both for the team as a whole and its star quarterback. The Bears were a hot commodity in a variety of futures markets before the season, chief among them being the Super Bowl. Just prior to the campaign kicking off, DraftKings reported 7.5% of its Super Bowl handle backing Chicago -- the third-most behind the Los Angeles Rams (20.2%) and Buffalo Bills (9.8%) -- while BetMGM said that the Bears had garnered the most NFC Championship tickets at 14.4%. Feazel called Chicago "a moderate position" in the Super Bowl market on Sunday. "Chicago's offense looks great. Bad defense is going to hold them back from being real contenders," Circa Sports NFL oddsmaker Jamey Pileggi told ESPN. At DraftKings, Chicago only made a small move from 24-1 to 21-1 to win the title, but the big odds move came for Williams in the MVP market, where he went from 12-1 to +700, tying him for second with Lamar Jackson behind Allen in the lead at +500. Several sportsbooks considered Williams a liability in the awards market coming into the season, and he accumulated around 10% of the tickets at both BetMGM and Caesars. Joe Burrow (+950) has been the public's favorite throughout the offseason, but if Williams can continue to put up performances like Sunday's, he could continue to gain traction with bettors. "Given his Week 1 performance and the amount of early support we've already seen, we would expect Caleb Williams to remain one of the more heavily backed players in the MVP market moving forward," said Feazel. Odds & Ends The Arizona Cardinals closed as 8.5-point underdogs to the Los Angeles Chargers before upsetting them outright on the road. It's the largest Week 1 upset since 2018 (Tampa Bay Buccaneers +10 over the New Orleans Saints). The Chargers were the most-picked team in ESPN Survivor contests (21.4%), the second-most in Circa Survivor (30.3%) and the second-most in Splash Sports' $1,000 entry survivor contest (21.5%). The Cardinals are the first team with a preseason win total of 3.5 or lower to win their Week 1 game since at least 1990, according to ESPN Research. After losing and failing to cover +3.5 on Sunday, the Buccaneers are now 0-10 against the spread in their last 10 games, tying the longest ATS losing streak in the Super Bowl era. On the flip side, the Jacksonville Jaguars have covered nine consecutive regular-season games, the longest ATS winning streak since the Green Bay Packers in 2021 and the longest in Jaguars history. ESPN's David Purdum contributed to this report.