Detroit Lions: Sports Bettors Are Drinking That Honolulu Blue Kool-Aid
The Detroit Lions are getting a lot of love and hype from the media. Earlier this week, Pro Football Talk's Peter King penned a glowing column about Dan Campbell and the Lions. Clearly impressed by the Lions and their second-year head coach, King wrote that he expects Detroit to be at or around .500 this season.
But it's not just the media who's buying into the Lions in 2022.
According to Caesars Sportsbook in Las Vegas, the most popular sports bet placed in the month of July has been on the Lions to surpass 6 wins in the 2022 season. The Lions are coming off a 3-13-1 campaign, but many expect the team to make a significant improvement courtesy of some free agent signings and continuing development of the team's young core of players.
But that's not all. Among wagers placed on who will win the NFL Coach of the Year award, Caesars says the most money has been bet on Campbell. Since the NFL expanded to a 16-game regular season (it's now 17 games), the lowest win total for the Coach of the Year award winner was 7 by Jimmy Johnson of the Dallas Cowboys in 1990. Johnson led the Cowboys to a 6-win improvement that year as Dallas had been 1-15 in 1989.
There's even more, though. When it comes to the NFL's leading rusher in 2022 proposition, the most money has been placed on the Lions' third-year running back D'Andre Swift. For context, last year's leading rusher, the Colts' Jonathan Taylor, ran for 1,811 yards. The lowest rushing yardage to win the NFL's rushing title in the last 20 years was 1,327 by Kareem Hunt in 2017.
Swift rushed for 617 yards on 151 carries in 2021, when he was limited to 13 games by injuries. During his rookie season, Swift ran for 521 yards on 114 carries in 13 games.