The Super Bowl betting odds as we approach the second round of the NFL playoffs amount to a 4-on-4 battle that’s been brewing all the way since August. Four of the five teams that were the preseason Super Bowl favorites are left, and all are in separate games, going against four darkhorses. Whether you believed in the favorites or thought that 2013 would be the year of the darkhorse, the decisive hour has arrived.
The NFL playoffs begin tomorrow, and before we dive into previews on a game-by-game basis, let’s stop and take a bigger picture look at the Super Bowl betting odds.
After a couple weeks in a row filled with premier showdown games (New England-Denver, New Orleans-Seattle, Carolina-New Orleans, etc), NFL Week 15 is a little on the dry side. But when there’s just three weeks left in the race for the playoffs and for seeding, most games take on heightened importance.
The second half of what amounts to the NFC East-NFC North Challenge goes on Monday Night Football. The Dallas Cowboys go on the road to meet the Chicago Bears (8:30 PM ET, NBC). The Cowboys have to keep pace in the East with the Philadelphia Eagles, who knocked off the Detroit Lions on Sunday. That same result opens the door for the Bears to pull back even with the Lions in the North.
When the whiff of turkey is in the air it means the NFL stretch drive is at hand. Everybody has five games left, there are no more bye weeks, and we’re only two weeks away from the end of the college football regular season, giving the NFL the weekend to itself. Let’s check in on the Super Bowl betting odds as the crunch point of 2013 begins.
When the 2013 NFL season started, the Las Vegas oddsmakers saw five teams as head and shoulders above the rest when it came to the Super Bowl betting odds. The Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49ers, New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers were the favorites, ranging from 3-1 to 6-1, and from there it was a big dropoff to the next team up at 18-1.
…t it’s easy to under why Las Vegas has structured the betting odds on winning the NFC North in such a way that you can basically take the field against the Packers. Green Bay’s price for winning the division is 5-7. Meanwhile, Chicago is 18-5, Detroit clocks in at 4-1 and Minnesota is a 10-1 shot. If you bet equal amounts on all three teams and one of them takes down the leader, you turn a profit.