Every year it seems inevitable, some NFL team will lose their starting quarterback due to injury for a substantial amount of time before the regular season event commences. This year is no exception. As a matter of fact, during the last week alone, we’ve witnessed two such unfortunate mishaps. Dallas’ Tony Romo sustained a broken vertebrae last week at Seattle, and will be lost for at least half the season. Then just yesterday, Minnesota’s Teddy Bridgewater suffered a gruesome knee injury during practice,and it will definitely sideline him for the year, besides quite possibly jeopardizing his playing career.

Futures Moves

On 2/5/16, opening NFL betting odds at Bovada had Minnesota at +1400 to win the Super Bowl. Those odds have changed dramatically due to Bridgewater’s injury, and as of this morning (8/31/16) the Vikings are now +6000. Furthermore, just last week, Minnesota was +200 to win the NFC North, and they now find themselves at +450 in that regard
On that aforementioned 2/5/16 date, Dallas opened at +1400 to win the 2017 Super Bowl. At the time of this writing, the Cowboys odds have risen to +3000. It’s interesting to note, their futures odds to win the NFC East have moved some, but not as dramatically as one may think following Romo’s injury.At this time last week, Dallas’s division futures odds were at +175, and have since moved to just +240 since losing their top signal caller.Keeping things in proper perspective, it speaks more to the lack of respect for the NFL East, opposed to that directly shown toward Tony Romo.

The Replacements

Minnesota will open the season with 36-year-old Shaun Hill as their starting quarterback. Ironically, Hill’s career began with Minnesota in 2002. He’s also played for the 49ers, Lions, and Rams prior to being resigned by Minnesota prior to last season. Hill has a career completion rate of 62.0%, passed for 8053 yards, and threw 49 touchdown passes against 30 interceptions. His most extensive playing time came with Detroit in 2010. He started 11 games that year for the Lions, and his quarterback rating of 81.3 was less than inspiring.

Dallas’ quarterback situation looks to be a bit more promising. Rookie Dak Prescott has been nothing short of sensational this preseason. Prescott has gone a suburb 39-50 (78%) passing for 459 yards and 5 touchdowns. He’s yet to throw an interception, and also ran for 53 yards and 2 touchdowns. Nevertheless, let’s keep things in proper perspective. The rookie out of Mississippi State has seen nothing but vanilla defenses thus far, and opposing teams have yet to game plan against him. That’s not saying he can’t be successful. However, it would be delusional to think, Prescott can continue to play this efficiently during regular season action, compared to that of his off the charts preseason performances.

Final Take

Dak Prescott certainly has a much higher ceiling than Shaun Hill. He gives Dallas a better chance to win, compared to what Hill is capable of doing for Minnesota. Either way, I’m going to steer clear of making any NFL betting picks on either of these team’s futures odds.