NFL Futures: Best Value Bets to Win Super Bowl LVIII
The arrival of the NFL offseason is no reason to curtail your football wagering. While some of us were still sleeping off Super Bowl hangovers, the busy little elves at the sportsbooks were posting odds to win Super Bowl LVIII in February 2024.
You don’t need to bet on the next Super Bowl winner now. The NFL futures market will be jumping in spring and summer. But if you see a price you like, why not lock it in now, before free agency and the NFL Draft reshape rosters and prompt shifts in the odds?
There are three picks for the next Super Bowl winner that I like enough to bet right now, and they come at three different price points. Here they are:
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Best Value Bets to Win Super Bowl LVII
THE CHALK
Kansas City Chiefs (+600)
BOR-ing!
Yeah, I know. But, hey, the Chiefs have the shortest championship odds of any team for good reason. They’ve played in three of the last four Super Bowls and won two of them. Kansas City has won the AFC West in each of the last seven seasons. The Chiefs have averaged 11.7 regular-season wins over Andy Reid’s 10 seasons as head coach.
Patrick Mahomes is building a strong GOAT case, and at 27, he’s in the prime of his career. Kansas City has a rock-solid offensive line, and the Chiefs wisely plowed resources into their defense in the 2021 draft, adding cornerback Trent McDuffie, safety Bryan Cook, and linebackers George Karlaftis and Leo Chenal. DT Chris Jones is a superstar, and LB Nick Bolton and CB L’Jarius Sneed are defensive difference-makers.
If I’m betting on an AFC team to win Super Bowl, LVIII, I’m not going outside the Mahomes/Josh Allen/Joe Burrow Axis of Awesomeness, and the Chiefs simply have a better championship pedigree than the Bills or Bengals.
THE VALUE
Dallas Cowboys (+1400)
The Cowboys have a terrific defense, a very good offensive line and an above-average quarterback. That’s a pretty good Super Bowl formula. They also play in the NFC, which has only a small handful of viable Super Bowl contenders. Yes, the Cowboys have to reckon with the division-rival Eagles, but we nearly had both of those NFC East powerhouses squaring off in the NFC Championship Game this past season, with the Cowboys falling just short against the 49ers in the divisional round.
Dallas ranked No. 2 in defensive DVOA last season behind only the 49ers. And while the Eagles led the NFL in sacks, the Cowboys led the league in pressure rate, consistently putting heat on opposing QBs. Edge man Micah Parsons is a multitalented superstar, and he’s supported by defensive blue chippers such as DE Demarcus Lawrence, LB Leighton Vander Esch and CB Trevon Diggs.
Some people have the knives out for QB Dak Prescott after he threw an NFL-high 15 interceptions last season in only 12 games. Prescott isn’t an elite quarterback, but he’s a good one. In his last two full seasons (2021 and 2019), he finished third and 10th in passer rating. Prescott hadn’t been particularly interception-prone before 2022, and he’s good at sack avoidance. If the Cowboys can find another high-quality wide receiver to complement young star CeeDee Lamb, the Dallas passing game could be explosive in 2023.
Granted, head coach Mike McCarthy is probably more of a liability than an asset in the Cowboys’ championship quest, but we should at least acknowledge that McCarthy has already won a Super Bowl, guiding the Packers past the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.
THE LONG SHOT
Chicago Bears (+8000)
Stop snickering and hear me out.
The Bears have a dynamic young quarterback in Justin Fields. He still has a lot to prove as a passer, but Fields was a very good passer at Ohio State, and it’s not hard to imagine him following the Jalen Hurts career path, where excellence as a runner is established early and proficiency as a passer soon follows. Fields’ upside is vast.
Elsewhere, the Bears have holes aplenty. GM Ryan Poles poured draft capital into the secondary last year, so Chicago has a foundation of good young defensive backs. But there are leaks everywhere else on defense. The offensive line needs some work, too, and the Bears have one of the least talented WR rooms in the league.
But the Bears have resources aplenty to address their needs. No team has more salary cap room than Chicago. The Bears are nearly $98 million under the 2023 NFL salary cap, according to Spotrac. Only one other team, the Falcons, has more than $50 million in cap room, and Atlanta is just barely over $50 million in cap space. The Bears also own the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. They don’t need a quarterback, so they could trade down to a QB-needy team and pick up a bevy of extra draft picks.
Is it far-fetched to think the Bears could win the Super Bowl after a 3-14 season? Yes. But Chicago is about to add a boatload of talent in free agency and the draft, making it a near-certainty that their championship odds will be shorter than +8000 by early May.
(All odds courtesy of DraftKings as of Feb. 15.)
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