Carolina Panthers at Jacksonville Jaguars
Friday, August 21, 2026
7:30 PM ET, EverBank Stadium
Friday night’s early game at EverBank Stadium is another preseason spot where the setup all points in one direction, and the value is on the Over.
The Jaguars are 2.5-point home favorites with a total of 38.5. The spread has been steady at Jaguars -2.5 since opening. The total, however, has moved from 39.5 down to 38.5 as we’ve gotten closer to kickoff. Some sharp money has come in on the Under side, which is worth noting — but the situational factors and the recent data both push the opposite direction, and this is a spot where I’m happy to fade the market movement.
Let’s start with what both teams have already done in the preseason.
The Jaguars opened preseason last Saturday with a 24-20 win over the Saints. That game finished with 44 combined points, well over the total of 35.5. Head coach Liam Coen sat his starters in that game, including Trevor Lawrence, and even with backups running both offenses, the game still went comfortably Over. The Jaguars also held a joint practice with the Saints in the days leading up to that game. Same setup as this week. Same result: Over.
The Panthers have been even more prolific offensively so far this preseason. They opened preseason at the Hall of Fame Game on August 6 with a 33-30 win over the Cardinals — a game that finished with 63 combined points, well over the total of 42.5. Then last Saturday, they lost 29-14 at Buffalo, but that game still hit the Over on the 38.5 total. Two games, two Overs. Bryce Young got his first preseason action against the Bills, and the Panthers played their second and third-string offenses for most of the night with points still ending up on the board.
That’s two teams whose preseason offenses have been producing points regardless of who’s under center or how vanilla the playcalling has been.
Now the joint practice piece.
The Panthers and Jaguars are scheduled to hold a joint practice on Wednesday, August 19 at the Jaguars’ facility, two days before Friday’s game. As mentioned above, Coen used the exact same setup last week with the Saints — joint practice on the Thursday, game on the Saturday, starters sitting for the game — and it still went Over. Coen has been consistent about his preseason philosophy: he uses joint practices to give his starters live-game work, then uses the actual games to evaluate the back end of his roster. That approach is going to leave both offenses in the hands of backup quarterbacks and roster-bubble players for the majority of Friday’s game.
Which normally would push me toward the Under. But the data is telling me the opposite. When backup QBs and second-string units are cycling through possessions in preseason, mistakes and short fields lead to more scoring opportunities than you’d expect. That’s what we’ve seen in each of the three preseason games between these two teams so far.
There’s one more angle worth flagging. The Panthers finished the 2025 regular season with the most passing touchdowns in the NFL when trailing inside two minutes — five of them across the season. Their offense has been built to score in bunches when the game gets loose, and preseason games where backups are trying to make plays and impress coaches are exactly the kind of loose, chaotic environments that produce those scoring bursts.
The line movement down from 39.5 to 38.5 gives us slightly better value on the Over than we would have had at open. Combine that with the three preseason games these teams have already played all hitting the Over, plus the joint practice setup that just produced an Over last week for Jacksonville, and this is a total I’m comfortable buying.
I looked at the side too. Jaguars -2.5 at home coming off a Week 1 win is defensible, but preseason spreads that small can flip on any garbage-time possession. The total is the cleaner path with more predictable data behind it.
The Pick: Panthers/Jaguars Over 38.5
