Super Bowl LXI Odds Seem Unusually Packed – Here’s Why

Before the action, teams will be busy getting new additions to the rosters, hiring and firing coaching staff, and, most certainly, puzzling out what to do with the NFL Draft. Yet, odds are live for the Super Bowl next February, and they are intriguing for a number of reasons. Most of all, it’s the heavy concentration of teams considered contenders at this, admittedly early, stage of the offseason.

For instance, we have seen one major sportsbook that lists no fewer than 16 teams – half the league – with odds below +2000 to win Super Bowl LXI. The reigning champions, the Seattle Seahawks, are favorites, and understandably so, but it’s not very clear-cut. Their odds trend from around +8000 to +1000, with teams like the LA Rams, Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers, and Ravens just behind. Others cited as being in the contenders bracket at this point are the LA Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs, Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, New England Patriots, San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions and Denver Broncos.

NFL betting markets are tight

This is an unusual, tightly-packed market, even at this early juncture. Certainly, if you learn how to bet on NFL, you’ll understand bettors aren’t beholden to Super Bowl futures markets alone, but the outright winner market does bring in most of the eyeballs at this stage. And it is markedly different from last season when four teams – the Chiefs, Eagles, Ravens, and Bills – were all priced around +700 for Super Bowl LX preseason and had a huge gap to the rest of the field.

So, why is this the case? Why do sportsbooks pack the teams together so tightly? Well, the clue is in the list of names we supplied above. Teams like the Ravens and Chiefs had stinkers last season, and sportsbooks have not yet determined whether that was a sign of a marked decline or a simple offseason. Similarly, the Bills and Eagles, while making the Playoffs looked under-par for most of the campaign. The Lions, too, should be considered an underperforming team compared to expectations going into the 2025 season.

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In addition, there were last season’s surprises. As has been well-documented, the Super Bowl between the Seahawks (+6000 preseason) and Patriots (+8000) was one of the biggest underdog events in football history when viewed through the lens of the combined odds.  But there were also several other teams that defied the odds – the Bears and Jaguars, for example – to have successful seasons. In short, sportsbooks and a lot of pundits got their predictions spectacularly wrong for the 2025 season.

Sportsbooks seem tentative

The result is that we now have a market for the next Super Bowl that features a mix of teams that did surprisingly well last season and those that underperformed. Let’s put the Patriots, Seahawks, Texans, Chargers, Broncos, and Jaguars in the former column and the Ravens, Chiefs, Bills, Lions, and Eagles in the latter.

As stated previously, there will be a lot of movement in the offseason, and trades, free agency, and draft signings may bolster teams and move the betting markets, but right now, it feels like sportsbooks are tentative on the market. They know that the actuary last year was wrong, but they also know that those top-level teams did not become poor overnight. It is, for all intents and purposes, too difficult to call. It may change between now and September, but for now, we have a lot of teams looking like – in betting terms – they are Super Bowl contenders.