I was taking a stroll through our NFL Expert Picks just now, and it occurred to me: We need an update on the Super Bowl futures market before Week 1 gets underway. This is an excellent time to take a snapshot of the 32 teams and their football odds, and compare them to the projected Super Bowl odds at Football Outsiders and Team Rankings. It’ll help us sort out which teams are undervalued and overvalued heading into the regular season and improve our NFL betting strategy. Maybe you’ll even want to place a bet or two on some of these bargains.
After some diligent research, and heavy use of the SBR Betting Odds Converter (get yours today), we’ve identified seven teams that would pay out better than their projected odds if they won the Big Game. We’ll put these seven teams into three categories: favorites, outsiders, and long shots. No, the Green Bay Packers are not on the list.
Favorites
Both FO and TR have the Seattle Seahawks and the Arizona Cardinals at or near the top of their Super Bowl contenders list. FO are particularly bullish on the Seahawks, giving them a 15.7-percent chance of hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the second time. TR have Seattle at 11.9 percent, but that still works out to +740; at press time, the ‘Hawks are available at +900 over at Bovada.
The Cardinals are right behind Seattle at 11.7 percent on the TR list, and still competitive at 10.4 percent over at FO. Even that lower percentage would suggest a +862 payout, while our friends at 5Dimes have Arizona pegged at +1075. And they said there was no value on the NFL futures market.
Outsiders
Surprise surprise, the Kansas City Chiefs are here. Nobody takes the Andy Reid-Alex Smith Era seriously, but they should: The Chiefs are the No. 5 Super Bowl contenders at both FO (8.2 percent) and TR (8.1 percent). That puts Kansas City around the +1135 mark. So how do you like the Chiefs now at +2300 odds, courtesy of 5Dimes?
Long Shots
These ham-and-eggers rarely get spoken of in terms of value, but as Leicester City reminded us across the pond, sometimes the long shots do pay off. In this case, we’re talking about four teams in the middle of the NFL pack, and not the likes of the Cleveland Browns – who “should” be priced at +99900 in a fair market. Their current top price: +21500.
The four teams in question are the Buffalo Bills, the San Diego Chargers, the Los Angeles Rams, and the Detroit Lions. There’s a fair amount of discrepancy between the FO and TR projections for these guys – except for the Bills, who check in at 2.3 percent and 2.0 percent, respectively. That’s a fair price of +4900 at TR, well below the +7500 payout you’d get at Bovada should the Bills go all the way. Stranger things have happened.