NFL Preseason Betting: Indianapolis Colts at Buffalo Bills

Canada’s ‘adopted’ NFL team–the Buffalo Bills–will begin preseason play on Friday night against the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts were *supposed* to begin their preseason play a week ago against the Green Bay Packers in the Hall of Fame game. It didn’t quite work out that way as the unplayable field conditions forced the NFL to cancel the game. That means that the ‘game under their belt’ angle is out the window here. Sure, the Colts did report to camp three days earlier than Buffalo but that’s no replacement for ‘in game’ action. For all intents and purposes, that fact is irrelevant to this matchup. Buffalo head coach Rex Ryan is no longer in ‘new coach in first home game’ role but after an 8-8 regular season and watching his support erode in New York at the end of his previous gig he’ll likely be anxious to win any game he can.

Andrew Luck and the rest of the Colts’ starters are expected to play only a few series here. Luck hasn’t had much ‘luck’ against Ryan’s teams in the regular season or preseason–in fact, he’s never beaten a Ryan coached team. Even though Luck won’t see much action that’s still a salient point as Ryan’s defenses will be facing the same type of tactics only with a less effective quarterback at the helm. That sure doesn’t bode well for the Colts here. If Luck couldn’t do it against Ryan there’s not much reason to expect Scott Tolzein or Stephen Morris to be any more successful.

Ryan has dealt with injuries and any number of other distractions during training camp but that likely seems like a ‘walk in the park’ compared to what he dealt with in New York heading into the season. Indianapolis has a lengthy record of shabby performance in preseason play. Much of that was attributed to the Tony Dungy regime but it’s not like things have improved greatly since then. Colts are have won only 7 of their last 30 preseason games and with their skill positions pretty well ‘set’ on offense don’t have much motivation for a big performance here. Tyrod Taylor just signed a 6 year $90 million contract extention BUT the Bills have an ‘out’ after a year if he stinks up the joint. Doubtful he’ll be judged much by his preseason performance but in this kind of situation every bit helps.

BET BUFFALO BILLS -2′ OVER INDIANAPOLIS COLTS