monday-night-football-espn

One of the oldest traditions in the NFL is Monday Night Football. Whereas nearly every game is played on Sunday, one special game a week gets a Monday playing window — in front of a national TV audience, no less. All eyes are on this matchup since there’s no other football game on. With the extra attention, you get more betting too. MNF bets come far and wide.

For this reason, we’ve created a betting guide for Monday Night Football. We’ve got everything on this page — odds, tips, and how-to’s to football betting. By the time you’re done reading, you’ll know everything there is to know about Monday Night Football bets. There’s a lot to cover so let’s get it started.

 

MNF Playoffs: Philadelphia Eagles at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

That’s right, we get one final week of Monday Night Football in the playoffs. When the NFL expanded its playoff to include seven teams instead of six (adding an extra postseason game for both conferences), that’s when the MNF playoff edition was born.

This year, the MNF honors go to the NFC South champs, Tampa Bay, and the defending NFC champions, Philadelphia. The Bucs get hosting honors despite the Eagles winning two more regular-season games than they did.

As it stands, Philly is the favorite to win in NFL betting circles. The Bird Gang is getting three points on the spread — all this despite a downtrend to end the season. Remember, this team was 10-1 at one point before losing five of its last six games. Last weekend, the Eagles fell down 24-0 to the Giants BEFORE they pulled their starters in the second half. This is one of the coldest teams in the postseason, and aren’t exactly healthy going into Monday’s matchup either.

Quarterback Jalen Hurts seemed to dislocate a finger on his throwing hand last weekend. Stud wide receiver AJ Brown also left the game with a knee injury. Defensive back Sydney Brown also tore an ACL. Whether it’s bad luck or the cursed MetLife Stadium turf, Philadelphia’s injuries only throw gas on the fire of its second-half struggles.

 

For what it’s worth, these two sides did meet way back in Week 3 in Tampa Bay. It was a one-sided affair as the Eagles won 25-11. The big theme of the game was offensive struggles from Tampa, which gained all of 174 yards that day. Perhaps you can let the Bucs off the hook because it was week 3 and quarterback Baker Mayfield was still getting accustomed to the team.

However, Tampa’s offense enters this postseason on a slump of its own. They’re averaging a meager 11 points per game the past two weeks — against bad teams like Carolina and New Orleans. Mayfield completed only 48.3% of his passes in the two games. He appears to be battling a rib injury and ankle sprain, which can’t help.

Somehow, someway one of these teams is going to reach the divisional playoff round despite looking like the weakest links in the whole field. You can obviously bet on who that ends up being, which leads us to our next section.

MNF Betting Odds

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Let’s take a quick look at some of the best MNF bets available. For now, we’re going to be focused on the “classic” bet types — spread, moneyline, and point total (over/under). We have a separate section for betting on in-game props later on this page. Check out the MNF best bets:

Best Monday Night Football Bonuses

Do you know all your Monday Night Football bets could be free of cost? It’s completely possible so long as you leverage a promotional bonus for free play. Across our favorite bookies for MNF bets, deals are available for hundreds to thousands of dollars in free play. Pick one and you’re gambling with “house money” per se. Here’s a list of our favorite offers going into the Monday night meeting:

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How To Bet Monday Night Football Like A Sharp

Want to actually hit on your Monday Night Football betting picks? Welp, it would be smart to think like a “sharp” bettor. Sharps are professionals who profit off sportsbooks more than the other way around. We’ll stop short of saying you can become a professional right away, but applying the three tips below will go a long way in winning off this MNF game:

Wait For Injury Reports

As we mentioned before, both teams are battling injuries to big-name players. Undoubtedly, this will affect the game — especially if it’s a quarterback or star player.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is to take a wait-and-see approach with injuries. Both teams will update their injury report in the days leading to the game, designating players as questionable or doubtful. This tag lets you know who is on track to suit up on Monday or not.

Many times, you’ll see sharp bettors lay bets hours before game time once injury situations become more clear. It would behoove you to do the same so you’re best bets Monday Night Football are using the latest info.

Analyze The Matchups

Analyze The Matchups

Not only does this rule apply to Monday Night Football, but it’s a blanket rule for all football games. When researching the best sports bets today, it should start with a comparison of the matchups. By that we mean, offensive line vs. defensive line or wide recovers vs. secondary, for example.

In particular, you want to find possible exploits for either team. Say one team has a dominant run game and the opposite team’s weakness is its linebackers. Welp, maybe, just maybe, that run-heavy team can capitalize on the bad linebacker play and help cover the spread or score points for an over/under bet.

Matchups can also be on a more player-to-player level rather than entire units. Either way, you want to find where the talent discrepancies are between both teams and bet accordingly.

Prioritize Recent Information

The NFL season is long, really long. How a player or team was performing in the first month of the season won’t matter all that much by the end of the season. This could be because of a myriad of reasons — coaching changes, injuries, or opponents just “figuring them out.”

Therefore, when you’re making picks, you’re best off putting extra weight on recent games and performances more than anything else. This will give you the most accurate look at how a team is trending going into the MNF game — not what happened three months ago most likely.

MNF Prop Bets Spotlight

The prop betting market is where things get fun. A lot of the same Super Bowl betting props can also be had here for MNF or any of the primetime games (Thursday Night Football and Sunday Night Football.).

First up, there are game markets. These bets revolve around team performances as a whole. Example bets here include picking which teams score first or get to 10 points before the other. Over/under bets are also a thing. Such props are available for how many touchdowns or field goals one specific team will get during MNF.

A different category of props focuses on the players themselves. Here again, most of these bets involve statistical outcomes. For instance, over/under on passing touchdowns by the quarterback or rushing yards by the back. There’s also bets on who scores a touchdown — either the first one, the last one, or at any time.

Props will, without question, have the most bets available of all markets. For any given MNF matchup, you’ll find around 100 different prop bets that can be gambled on. Due to the variety, it’s sometimes easier to find betting value here since the markets are less “mature.” At the same time, many bookies often put betting limits on props so you can’t over-bet them money-wise.

For bettors that want to bet on props but not have to sacrifice payout upside, then same-game parlays should strongly be considered. Also called SGP, this bet allows you to combine multiple props into one ticket. Risky? Yes. Huge upside? Oh yeah. It’s on bettors to balance the risk and reward with same-game parlays.

How To Watch Monday Night Football

NFL WeekDateMatchupTimeTV
1September 11Buffalo Bills at New York Jets8:15 EST"ESPN
2September 18New Orleans Saints at Carolina Panthers7:15 ESTESPN
2September 18Cleveland Browns at Pittsburgh Steelers8:15 ESTABC
3September 25Los Angeles Rams at Cincinnati Bengals8:15 ESTESPN
3September 25Philadelphia Eagles at Tampa Bay Bucs7:15 ESTABC
4October 2Seattle Seahawks at New York Giants8:15 ESTESPN
5October 9Green Bay Packers at Las Vegas Raiders8:15 ESTESPN
6October 16Dallas Cowboys at Los Angeles Chargers8:15 ESTESPN
7October 23San Francisco 49ers at Minnesota Vikings8:15 ESTESPN
8October 30Los Angeles Raiders at Detroit Lions8:15 ESTESPN
9Nocember 6Los Angeles Chargers at New York Jets8:15 ESTESPN
10November 13Denver Broncos at Buffalo Bills8:15 ESTESPN
11November 20Philadelphia Eagles at Kansas City Chiefs8:15 EST"ESPN
12November 27Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings8:15 ESTESPN
13December 4Cincinnati Bengals at Jacksonville Jaguars8:15 ESTESPN
14December 11Tennessee Titans at Miami Dolphins8:15 ESTESPN
14December 11Green Bay Packers at New York Giants8:15 ESTABC
15December 18Philadelphia Eagles at Seattle Seahawks8:15 ESTESPN
16December 25Baltimore Ravens at San Francisco 49ers8:15 ESTABC
PlayoffsJanuary 15Philadelphia Eagles at Tampa Bay Bucs8:15 ESTESPN

Which Team Has The Most MNF Wins All-Time?

TeamWins
Pittsburgh Steelers56
San Francisco 49ers52
Dallas Cowboys51
Las Vegas Raiders45
Miami Dolphins43
Philadelphia Eagles42
Green Bay Packers40
Chicago Bears38
Denver Broncos33
Kansas City Chiefs33
Washington Commanders33
Los Angeles Rams33
Minnesota Vikings32
Seattle Seahawks31
New England Patriots29
New York Giants27
Los Angeles Chargers26
Tennessee Titans26
New Orleans Saints25
Indianapolis Colts25
New York Jets24
Buffalo Bills21
Detroit Lions20
Baltimore Ravens17
Cleveland Browns17