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NFL Props Odds with Expert Betting Picks and Predictions

by - 1/1/2016

Sam Bradford Philadelphia Eagles

The NFL regular season comes to a close this Sunday. And while the head coaches of 12 teams will begin preparations for a possible playoff run all the way to Super Bowl 50, there will be a number of head coaches looking over their shoulder to see if they will still have a job with their current team when the 2016 regular season gets underway next September.

The first axe fell earlier this week when Eagles' owner Jeff Lurie decided to pull the plug on the Chip Kelly experiment in Philadelphia, and you know that there are bound to be even more vacancies by this time next week. Bovada has decided to weigh in on the NFL coaching carousel issue with a pair of special prop bets, and I decided to weigh in with the best betting value for each one.

How Many NFL Head Coaches will be Fired before Super Bowl 50?

Not counting Kelly, Bovada has set the "over/under" for this prop at five, with the betting odds set at an even +100 for the under. The moneyline odds that the carnage goes over five have been set at -140.

In todays age of "what have you done for me lately," NFL team owners have already proven to have some of the least patience in all of professional sports when it comes to their head coach. Looking at the current coaching situation with the non-playoff teams in the NFL, you could easily find five more coaches that are in serious jeopardy to lose their jobs, with Detroit's Jim Caldwell and Tennessee's interim head coach Mike Mularkey leading the list.

The three other coaches on real thin ice would be Chuck Pagano in Indianapolis, interim head coach Dan Campbell in Miami and Cleveland's Mike Pettine. You could easily add San Diego's Mike McCoy to that list, especially in light of the team's possible move to Los Angeles.

A couple of high-profile Super Bowl coaches in both Sean Payton in New Orleans and Tom Coughlin in New York may have finally worn out their welcome following yet another disappointing season. Payton offers some solid value in a possible trade, and it may be time for Coughlin to call it a career.

You could also throw San Francisco coach Jim Tomsula into the mix even though he is only in his first year at the helm, and veteran coach Jeff Fisher could end up unemployed following four straight losing seasons in St. Louis.

No matter how you add it up, in my book it still adds up to more than five head coaches losing their jobs in the coming weeks given just how many really bad teams there are in the NFL right now. We have not even talked about Marvin Lewis's future in Cincinnati should his team make another early exit from the playoffs.

Chip Kelly's Coaching Future

Kelly is suddenly looking for a job after the recent fall out in Philly, and Bovada has set the betting odds that he becomes the next head coach of the Tennessee Titans at +200. The next choice on the list is the Cleveland Browns at +500, followed by Indianapolis at +700.

The best betting odds on the board at even money (+100) is that he returns to the college ranks, and the odds that is not a head coach next season have been set at +700.

As a tortured Eagles' fan, I have been following the situation in Philadelphia all season long and my only conclusion as to why Kelly was fired this week was his sheer arrogance as a major egomaniac. That may sound harsh, but I honestly think that Kelly would agree with those statements. Reports are that he went on the offensive in a meeting with the team owner and refused to relinquish control of all player personnel decisions. Jeff Lurie has proven to be a patient owner in the past, but I believe he was pushed into a corner and given no choice to move in a different direction given Kelly's overall attitude towards this season's collapse.

Given the other NFL teams listed in this prop, I cannot see any of the three bringing Kelly on board given the way things went down with his former team. A Kelly/Marcus Mariota reunion in Tennessee makes for good storylines, but that alone will not turn this franchise around. The ownership in Cleveland is capable of anything, but you would have hoped they learned their lesson with a rash decision to draft Johnny Manziel. Colts' owner Jim Irsay is out there, but not that far out there.

All this adds up to make the play in this prop a no brainer that Kelly returns the college ranks. He was not the first successful college coach to fail in the NFL and he will not be the last.

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