Thursday Night Football NFL Betting Trends: Historical Spread, Over/Under Analysis

• Home Teams on TNF: Home teams win more often on Thursday Night Football, but they aren't necessarily dominant against the spread.
• Favorites Perform Better: Favorites win more often and cover the spread more frequently on TNF compared to other games. Cover rates improve later in the season.
• Scoring Is Slightly Lower and More Volatile: Scoring volatility is higher, and totals tend to decrease as the season progresses on Thursdays.

Not many things in sports are quite like primetime NFL matchups, and getting NFL action started on Thursday night is always a welcomed way to begin the weekend no matter the matchup.

Anecdotally, Thursday Night Football brings with it some lower scoring due to short rest for teams, but just how true is it over the long-term?

Let's find out.

Let's take a look at past high-level Thursday Night Football betting trends and see what emerges.

Thursday Night Football Betting Trends

I'll be looking at data from 2019 through 2024 -- six full seasons -- to account for historical FanDuel NFL betting odds.

All data is for only the regular season and comes from the numberFire database.

It's important to remember that these are all descriptive trends, meaning they tell us what has happened in the past. We still need to be aware of upcoming matchups and project forward based on current data, rosters, etc.

Thursday Night Football Betting Home/Road Trends

Let's start with home/road splits first -- through the lens of the home side.

That's a razor-thin point differential in the road team's favor on Thursday nights since 2019, so I went out to a second decimal point.

Still, the home team has won 55.3% of games on Thursday nights in this sample. However, their cover rate is just 45.7%.

Yes, historically, home teams have been a little under 50% against the spread overall, and that actually drops on Thursday night, per the data.

With that said, home teams on Thursday Night Football have a noticeable increase in win rate (55.3% versus 52.9%).

On Thursday nights, home teams that win actually win by an average of 8.9 points. The average margin of victory for all teams in 2024 was 11.3, for comparison.

When home teams lose on Thursday nights, they do so by an average of 11.1 points, an interesting wrinkle suggesting that the home team still has an advantage in getting the win but not by as much as they might when fully rested and able to take advantage of their home accommodations.

Thursday Night Football Betting Favorite/Underdog Trends

What about when we look at things from a favorite/underdog standpoint instead of a home/road standpoint?

Favorites have been more successful on TNF than in other games since 2019 -- both against the spread and in terms of outright wins.

And as we get more refined, we see some trends emerge later in the season.

Here's a look at the favorite's cover rate -- bucketed by portions of the season. Keep in mind that these are going to be small samples of roughly 30 games from 2019 to 2024.

• Weeks 1-5: 40.0%
• Weeks 6-11: 51.4%
• Weeks 12-17: 58.6%

This suggests a few things: we learn more about teams later in the season and -- likely -- the struggles of playing on Thursday night get magnified later in the season.

Thursday Night Football Over/Under Splits

Let's take a high-level look at Thursday Night Football scoring action in our sample.

While it's true that scoring is technically lower -- on average -- in Thursday Night Football matchups, it's only by 0.20 points per game.

With that said, the over rate is down to 46.8% from 48.7%.

Notably, the average over/under tends to dip throughout the year on Thursday nights:

• Weeks 1-5: 46.22
• Weeks 6-11: 45.40
• Weeks 12-17: 43.57

What really emerges as clear is that scoring is volatile on Thursday nights.

The standard deviation in point totals on Thursday nights in this sample is 14.6 points; it's 13.7 outside the sample.

The final four Thursday night games in 2024 combined for 65, 18, 61, and 9 points, respectively.

We all sort of remember the clunkers (like the Seattle Seahawks beating the Chicago Bears 6-3 the day after Christmas in 2024), but I think we forget that five Thursday night games in 2024 scored 60-plus combined points.

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The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.