One of the better Week #1 preseason matchups is on Friday as the Indianapolis Colts host the Minnesota Vikings. With the Brett Favre saga behind them, the Vikings must now choose a starting quarterback between Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels. The Colts on the other side have a new head coach in Jim Caldwell so everything is not the same with Indianapolis. The Vikings are a 1 point NFL football betting favorite in this game with a total of 35.
This game has seen some movement towards the Vikings in online NFL betting. The Colts opened up as the favorite but now Minnesota Vikings is the choice. The Colts obviously won’t give starting quarterback Peyton Manning more than a couple of series so that means Jim Sorgi will get the bulk of the first half. That is not a bad thing for the Colts though since Sorgi is a very experienced backup. The problem for Indianapolis could be in the second half when rookie Curtis Painter gets most of the playing time. Minnesota has a quarterback battle between Tavaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels while John David Booty will be the third string quarterback.
The edge so far looks to be with Jackson as he already knows the system. “It’s great for me,” Jackson said. “I’ve been doing it for four years now and I know what the coaches want out of the offense. I know exactly what I got to do before getting the ball to my guys, who my guys are.” Rosenfels has some work to do to win the starting job. “You need to have that experience with those guys, you can’t just make it happen, you got to go through those experiences and sometimes there are mistakes, but you have the experience to see how each guy comes out of his routes and speed and that kind of thing,” Rosenfels said.
The NFL football betting edge for the Colts on Friday will be when Manning and Sorgi are on the field. The Vikings may have an NFL football betting advantage when John David Booty is playing, although it may not be much of an edge.
Normally in the preseason you could count on going against the Colts in NFL football betting. That may or may not be the case anymore since Indianapolis has a new head coach. How much emphasis Jim Caldwell puts on the preseason remains to be seen.