It’s impossible to avoid talking about taking the under on an NFL futures bet without sounding like a hater. Fundamentally you’re stepping up a month before the season begins and telling a fanbase that their team is overrated, which is conflated with “they suck.”
To be clear: None of the teams being mention here suck. In fact, they’re all really good teams, some of whom have a chance to make noise this season. It simply means that they’re being a touch overrated right now based on what we can expect in 2025, and that means there’s an opportunity here.
These are the current NFL win total unders available on Fanduel that we think are worth taking a shot on.
Chicago Bears: Under 8.5 wins (-145)
The Bears were one of those teams everyone had high expectations for in 2024, and they didn’t deliver. Now they’ve hired Ben Johnson and history is repeating itself. There’s no doubt Johnson was a phenomenal hire at head coach with the chops to turn this organization around, but the tea leaves are settling for this to be a challenging year in Chicago.
Right now the core issue is that Johnson is working on a complete transformation to mold this team in his image. He is an offensive coach who bases his game off precision, efficiency, and adhering to an established game plan. The Bears have not had a coach like this in years, and the growing pains are going to be real as players adjust to a more exacting, strategic coaching style than they had over Matt Eberflus.
This shift is going to be especially challenging for Caleb Williams, who is a phenomenal athlete who thrives out of structure. He is fundamentally not a Ben Johnson QB, and while he can certainly become one, it feels iffy to say that will happen overnight in the NFC North of all divisions. It just feels like the Bears are a five or six win team that will take their lumps in 2025, then start to surge forward in 2026. It’s too early to hand them two more wins right now.
Cincinnati Bengals: Under 9.5 wins (-110)
I don’t know if anyone is prepared for just how bad this team could be on defense. The Bengals have gone all-in on keep their offense together and thrown all their resources there, while failing to ignore the worst parts of their organization. Defensively the team is shambolic, and they still lack an offensive line which can consistently protect Joe Burrow.
A nine win team a year ago, Cincinnati essentially dared teams to try and stop Joe Burrow, then laughed as they failed. Now every single defensive coordinator in football has had a year of watching Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase at their best and scheme up ways to stop them. There just isn’t much more of a ceiling those two guys can push individually, and when you zoom out further the rest of the picture is murky.
Until the Bengals improve their defense enough to be passable they feel like a six or seven win team. There will be some regression this season, and that means opportunity.
Los Angeles Rams: Under 9.5 wins (+105)
The Rams are a sneaky team that’s coached well enough to be really, really good — but this Matthew Stafford back injury is a real problem. Two weeks ago the Rams don’t make this list, but Stafford is so important to the offense that they’re poised to backslide, even if he’s just playing through pain.
It’s not like the Rams are a lock to be bad at all, there’s just a mammoth question mark here that makes taking the under worth the gamble. If Stafford isn’t able to play a full season, or is simply slowed by his performance they will struggle to win six games on the schedule.
New Orleans Saints: Under 5.5 wins
The Saints have the extraordinary potential to be one of the worst NFL teams we have ever seen. The shock retirement of Derek Carr in the offseason put this team in a lurch, and Tyler Shough was a panic draft pick to plug the leak. When you look top down at this team there’s very little talent at any position outside of Alvin Kamara at running back, and Chris Olave at receiver. The rest of the team is either old, overpaid, or old and overpaid.
New Orleans won five games last season with Carr under center, and as much as people bemoan Derek Carr, the dude still threw for 15 touchdowns and 5 interceptions in 10 games. There’s very little reason to believe this team won’t struggle to win three games, let lone four.
Seattle Seahawks: Under 8.5 wins (-165)
This team went through some serious offensive downgrades in the offseason, and they’ve been glossed over quite a bit. Moving on from Geno Smith and D.K. Metcalf is significant, and it’s putting a whole lot of faith in Sam Darnold to be the man he was for one year in Minnesota, rather than the player he’s been for the rest of his career.
Defensively I love what Seattle is building, but it remains a work in progress for Mike McDonald. They’re getting closer to what he wants, but there’s more to be done. Really the core issue is that this team will struggle to throw the ball as effectively as they did a year ago, and on average this team only scored 0.5 points more than they allowed per game last season. At some point the math just doesn’t math to envision this team keeping it up.
When the dust settles this feels like a year where Darnold underperforms for half the schedule, Jalen Milroe is put in to see if he can offer a spark, and there will be promise — but not wins. This will be a step back season to take two forward in 2026.
