Heading into the 2022 USFL season, the Michigan Panthers were the betting favorite to win the championship.
Well, those odds are likely to change as the Panthers fell to 0-1 after losing 17-12 to the Houston Gamblers on Easter Sunday.
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The Panthers stormed back from a 17-0 halftime deficit as they were led by former University of Michigan quarterback, Shea Patterson, but they came up just short of winning their first game of the season.
Patterson, who played the entire second half for the Panthers (Paxton Lynch also played time in the first half) completed 17-for-24 for 192 yards and a touchdown in the game. He also rushed for 31 yards on seven carries.
From Detroit News:
“Since our arrival here 3½, four weeks ago, the one thing that was going through my mind on a daily basis is, how do we measure up and how do we compare against the other seven teams, just because of the unknown and the lack of familiarity with their rosters, what they’re doing,” said Jeff Fisher, the Panthers’ head coach and longtime NFL head coach.
“A lot of those questions, at least from my perspective, were answered today. We did some really good things. We got some things done in a short period of time that I’m especially proud of.
“Now, in the game of football, you don’t turn the football over like we did and win very many (games).”
The Panthers’ next game is on Friday, April 22 against the 0-1 New Jersey Generals.
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NFL Draft Betting: How Early Will the Top Edge Rushers Be Drafted?
There’s a fairly well-accepted adage that “the most valuable football positions are quarterback and anyone who can get to the quarterback.” We all know that the passing game — both on offense and defense — has become the premier phase of NFL play, so it makes sense that prospects who affect it should demand attention in the NFL Draft. Especially in an NFL prospect cycle with no clear-cut, superstar-to-be quarterbacks, the edge-rushing talent is the show in town for 2022 draftniks.
Edge rusher is also a position you should be paying attention to if you want to bet the NFL Draft this year. FanDuel Sportsbook has player draft position props available for a number of NFL prospects: they give an overall draft slot number and you can bet on whether that prospect will be selected “over” (later in the draft) or “under” (earlier) that pick.
All four edge rushers with draft slot props have lines suggesting they’ll be top-10 selections. Will the top picks be dominated by defensive ends, or will any of these elite edge players slip down the board in the 2022 NFL Draft?
Methodology
I use a combination of data sources, including mock drafts and my own draft pick model to help project players into draft slots. The mock draft data I use sources the “pulse of the people” via Grinding the Mocks and their Expected Draft Position (EDP), as well as an “expert consensus mock” of the nine most accurate mockers over the last five years, per The Huddle Report.