Will Levis NFL Draft Odds: Did Reddit Cause Huge Tuesday Movement?

As we've entered draft week, NFL Draft odds have gone off the rails.

The star of the chaos has been Will Levis, who has gone from an uncertain prospect who might be a top-10 pick to someone who has a 50/50 chance to go in the top two.

The steam on Levis started about one week before the draft. The consensus top-two quarterbacks had been Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud, with both being the favorite to be the No. 1 pick at some point over the past month.

After Young usurped Stroud last week — shooting up to -1400 odds last Monday — Stroud naturally became the presumptive No. 2 overall pick. That's completely changed over the last few days.

Levis is far-and-away the favorite to go No. 2 across the market as of Tuesday afternoon. While he had been as long as +1000 at FanDuel on Sunday night to go No. 2 to the Texans, he's now the prohibitive favorite at +175.

In a corresponding move, Stroud's odds have fallen from +150 to +350 over the last 36 hours.

The culprit? An anonymous user on Reddit, perhaps.

SaleAgreeable2834 has posted twice on Reddit. The first was speculating about the casting of Robert Pattinson's next Batman movie. The second was this.

There were no major mocks released this morning with Levis going to the Panthers at No. 1, and there hasn't been any real intel that's led people to believe that's a realistic option. NFL insider Jay Glazer told the Dan Le Batard Show on Tuesday that Young was going to be the first pick:

And yet, Levis went from 60-1 to 6-1 at FanDuel to be the first overall pick. At one point, he was 3-1 at PointsBet, but he's gradually moved over the past couple of hours (as of 2 p.m. ET) back to +600.

Here's what Kevin Lawler, PointsBet's head of trading, told Action Network's Darren Rovell about the movement:

“PointsBet's trading team was surprised by the movement overnight. There was a significant volume of bets, which was likely attested to some of the widespread speculation that arose this morning. The draft is one of the most high profile events where asymmetrical information is known to exist and sudden interest can and will lead to prices moving within the industry. As a trading team, we're surprised at the popularity of Levis, even for the 2nd pick, which was considered to be a reach, but even more so by Carolina trading up from pick 9 to potentially take at pick 1 for a player who is as much a projection at this point.”

As of 2 p.m. ET, Bryce Young is -1250 to go first overall at PointsBet, while Levis is +600 to go to the Panthers. Levis is the favorite to go second overall to the Texans at +175, and he’s also +115 to go fourth to the Colts.

This Levis update is among the most prominent odds movements this week. The others? Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker and Alabama RB Jahmyr Gibbs.

Peter King's mock draft had Hooker No. 12 overall and Gibbs to go in the first round. Hooker had been mocked as a second-round pick as recently as last month, while two first round running backs is an absolute rarity.

This created a massive piece of movement on over 4.5 quarterbacks and over 1.5 running backs to go in the first 31 picks. (The Dolphins don't have a first-round pick this year.) While those picks had been plus-money early Tuesday, they've dipped to as low as -210 in the marketplace.