The NFL is a big venue for sports betting. People love football, and the sports books love taking bets on it. This is because football is one of the hardest sports to bet on, still, people visit the DraftKings website every day to place their bets. Teams have a week to strategize and game plan, home field plays perhaps the biggest role in football then it does in any sports, there are 22 men on the field at once… this means match-ups are much more important than big names.
That being said, I am going to throw caution into the win and make a bold statement… one of these 5 teams WILL win this year’s Super bowl.
Before we pick the 5, let’s look at the odds for each team to win it all:
New England Patriots +575, Green Bay Packers +600, Houston Texans +850, Philadelphia Eagles +1200, San Francisco 49ers +1300, New Orleans Saints +1600, Dallas Cowboys +1750, Baltimore Ravens +1800, Denver Broncos +1900, Pittsburgh Steelers +2000, Atlanta Falcons +2500, New York Giants +2500, Chicago Bears +2600, Detroit Lions +3000, San Diego Chargers +3300, New York Jets +5000, Seattle Seahawks +5500, Carolina Panthers +6000, Cincinnati Bengals +6000, Kansas City Chiefs +6000, Buffalo Bills +7000, Oakland Raiders +9000, Washington Redskins +9000, Tennessee Titans +10500, Tampa Bay Buccaneers +13500, Arizona Cardinals +15000, Miami Dolphins +15000, Indianapolis Colts +20000, St Louis Rams +20000, Minnesota Vikings +25000, Jacksonville Jaguars +30000, Cleveland Browns +35000
In case you are new to American gambling odds, The Cleveland Browns at +35000 basically means they are 350:1, which means your $100 bet would profit $35,000. Save your money though, cause the Browns are in the first group we are going to eliminate. We will call this group the “No chance in hell” group. The Browns will be joined by the Vikings, Bucs, Panthers, Seahawks, Jags, Rams, Colts, Dolphins, Cards, Redskins, and Bills. These teams will be lucky to be in playoff contention in the last 3 weeks of the season.
That leaves us 20 teams left. We have fifteen more to eliminate. The next group to exit will be our “Almost relevant group” These teams are the Titans, Raiders, Bengals and Chiefs. All of these teams will be fighting hard for their division, but they will fall just short.
Now we are down to the final 16 and we have to start eliminating potential playoff teams. The next group will be called the “The shortstops” cause even if they make the playoffs, it will only be for a short stop.
The offense will only get the Jets so far this season, and their defense looked a little shaky last year, the Falcons do good during the regular season, but they just cannot seem to contend with top tier teams, the Saints were everybody’s pick entering the playoffs last year. They hit a wall in the solid 49ers defense. Even if they made the Super bowl, they will be facing a tough AFC defense, but they will not even make it that far. They are getting some players back from the suspensions, but Head Coach Sean Payton has yet to be pardoned, the team will suffer. The Giants will not repeat. They get hot when it matters, but I think with a healthy Eagles team, they will be fighting for their playoff lives and probably come up just short. The Chargers will be fighting for their relevancy lives, but the offense was ate up by the Broncos last year, add manning to the mix and I just do not see them getting past Denver. I enjoy watching the Lions play, but they still have some gelling to do before they can hang with the top teams in the NFC. Perhaps next year Detroit.
Ten teams left, but only 5 can make the guarantee. The next group will be the “Contenders” cause these guys will have great seasons and make it to the playoffs…
The Steelers have about as much firepower as France. The defense is good, but I like the Ravens defense more, and offense twice as much as I like the Steelers. The Cowboys have a much improved defense, Romo was very good last year, but the offensive line is not good enough to win against great defenses. The Boys were lucky the Giants have a horrible secondary. Don’t worry, everybody will blame Romo. The Eagles are going to be a good team, but can Vick stay healthy? Can that offense go down and beat a great defense ? Can the defense hang with a high powered offense? Not after the first round of the playoffs. The 49ers have tried alot to boost their offense, the defense looks solid, but I think they fall short once again. It is hard to imagine the Broncos team with a veteran HOFer running the offense and them not being good. I think they win a bunch of games and make some noise in the playoffs, they MAY even make it to the AFC championship game, but they will probably take a divisional round exit once again.
This leaves us with our 5 teams and one is GUARANTEED to win the Super bowl!
Chicago Bears +2600: Quit hating on Jay Cutler! The hate is unwarranted. The guy makes plays, the Bears were looking awfully tough until he got hurt… then Forte. I have the feeling the Bears are going to make people some money this season. Is it really that hard to imagine the Bears winning it all this season? The Giants did it last season after all.
Baltimore Ravens +1800: What a beautiful price tag. The Ravens were a dropped pass and a shanked FG away from the Super bowl last year. The defense is always ready to go and the offense is slowly grabbing momentum. This play has good value.
Houston Texans +850: I was hoping for a higher number, but I will take this. Houston has the easiest path to the playoffs. They play the Jags, the Colts and the Titans twice each, so they could be in legit contention for a first round bye. This is a talented team, do not overlook them.
Green Bay Packers +600: Aaron Rodgers has one goal, to put up points faster than his defense can give them away. He has a good offense in place and everything clicks. They almost went perfect last season and they will definitely be in the thick of things at the end of this season.
New England Patriots +575: This is a horrible number if you are worried about the Patriots preseason woes, but I am not. This is the same Super Bowl team from last year, they looked good the whole season and they will be dominating once again.
There you have it. If you were to take $500 and bet $100 on each team, you would profit $175 if the Pats won, $200 for Packers, $450 from Texans, $1200 on Ravens and $2200 from the Bears. Remember, you only lose $400 if one of those teams win, the other $100 is returned. This also works for smaller amounts of money for all of you broke gentlemen out there.
Good luck! I look forward to the complaints about how your team did not make the Top 5.
