Injuries play a key role in the (mis)fortunes of every team over the course of the NFL season. Nearly a quarter of the way through the 2026 campaign, the list of star players facing significant injuries is staggering, leaving bettors and bookmakers alike scrambling to adjust.
Quarterbacks play the most important position in the game and are, naturally, perennial favorites for Most Valuable Player. Thus far, five quarterbacks who began the season as starters have sustained serious injuries: Jayden Daniels, Lamar Jackson, Baker Mayfield, Caleb Williams and Jaxson Dart (who is out for the season).
Individual games are usually a starting point for sportsbooks when adjusting for injuries. Every player has a value that plays into any given game's line, so when an injury occurs -- whether before a game or during it -- sportsbooks take into account how many points to the spread that player is worth. For example, the Chicago Bears opened as 1.5-point home favorites in lookahead lines for their Week 3 matchup with the Philadelphia Eagles, but when Williams sustained his hamstring injury in Week 2, the line ultimately moved to Bears +4.5, a five-point swing based essentially on one player.
"One of the biggest lessons from this season has been that we've probably undervalued the backups," Caesars Sportsbook's head of football Joey Feazel told ESPN over email. Most of the major sportsbooks also now offer some form of injury insurance -- a more popular feature in recent seasons -- that refunds player props should a player leave hurt. Draft Kings sportsbook director Johnny Avello told ESPN that bookmakers clearly cannot account for injuries happening, but rather have ...
Source: ESPN NFL · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing