Urban Meyer’s firing, sharp bets move line on Jaguars-Texans game

Sharp bettors are banking on the Jacksonville Jaguars to benefit from a case of addition by subtraction in Sunday’s home game against the Houston Texans.

The Jaguars climbed from consensus 3½-point favorites to 5-point favorites on Thursday after Jacksonville coach Urban Meyer was fired Wednesday night after only 13 games following a string of missteps with players and coaches.

“I think this helps the Jaguars a lot,” Circa Sports oddsmaker Chris Bennett said.

So do professional sports bettors. Bennett said Circa took sharp action on the Jaguars both before and after the news that Meyer was fired.

“I moved from -4 to -5½ off of a money line bet,” Bennett said.

Caesars Sportsbook also took sharp bets on Jacksonville before and after the news. Vice president of trading Craig Mucklow said the book took a $250,000 wager on the Jaguars -3 prior to the news “from an account we respect.”

After taking another sharp bet on Jacksonville after Meyer was fired, Caesars moved the number from 3½ to 4½.

Mucklow compared the situation to the Raiders, who beat the Denver Broncos 34-24 as 5-point underdogs in their first game after coach Jon Gruden abruptly resigned.

“Bettors expect the better effort, which we saw on the Raiders’ first game, then a return to normalcy,” he said. “It helps that they’re playing a bad Texans team for motivation.”

The Jaguars and Houston are each 2-11. The Texans whipped Jacksonville 37-21 in their season opener for their seventh straight win in the series.

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com. Follow @tdewey33 on Twitter.