NFL

Super Bowl LVII Futures: 6 Teams You Should Actually Consider Betting

Long shot bets are fun, but the data says to keep it reasonable with futures bets. These six teams should earn your attention.

As soon as the Super Bowl concludes, it's time to look forward to next season, and that's what I'm about to do.

Super Bowl LVII champion odds are already posted at NFL odds.

Super
Bowl
LVII Odds
FanDuel
Sportsbook
Odds
Super
Bowl
LVII Odds
FanDuel
Sportsbook
Odds
Kansas City Chiefs +700 Buffalo Bills +700
Los Angeles Rams +1200 Dallas Cowboys +1200
Green Bay Packers +1300 San Francisco 49ers +1500
Cincinnati Bengals +2100 Baltimore Ravens +2100
Denver Broncos +2200 Los Angeles Chargers +2400
Tennessee Titans +2400 Arizona Cardinals +2400
Cleveland Browns +2400 Indianapolis Colts +2400
Tampa Bay Buccaneers +2600 New England Patriots +2800
New Orleans Saints +3000 Minnesota Vikings +3300
Philadelphia Eagles +3300 Washington Commanders +3300
Seattle Seahawks +3300 Carolina Panthers +3600
Miami Dolphins +3600 Las Vegas Raiders +5500
Atlanta Falcons +6000 Pittsburgh Steelers +7000
Chicago Bears +7500 Detroit Lions +10000
New York Giants +10000 Jacksonville Jaguars +12000
New York Jets +15000 Houston Texans +18000


Which teams -- based on historical trends -- should we consider early on?

Past Super Bowl Winner Trends

The offseason can and does change a lot about team composition, but overall, teams are rarely indistinguishable year-over-year -- especially Super Bowl contenders.

So, here's a quick look at how each of the Super Bowl winners since the 2013 season have fared the year prior to their championship (according to our Net Expected Points [NEP] metric and nERD metric, which you can read more about in our glossary).

Top-10 units are highlighted in green, and bottom-10 are in red.

Super
Bowl
Winners
Prior
Season
Offense
Rank
Defense
Rank
Pass
Offense
Rank
Rush
Offense
Rank
Pass
Defense
Rank
Rush
Defense
Rank
nERD
Rank
Rams 2020 17 1 16 20 2 2 4
Buccaneers 2019 23 4 20 27 7 2 11
Chiefs 2018 1 28 1 5 19 31 7
Patriots 2017 1 29 1 8 23 29 8
Eagles 2016 20 5 23 11 2 17 11
Patriots 2015 3 12 5 10 13 11 5
Broncos 2014 2 11 2 8 7 10 3
Patriots 2013 4 12 6 20 9 28 7
Seahawks 2012 3 7 6 4 4 19 4


That's a lot of green. Almost like good teams stay good sometimes!

While there isn't a clean sweep in the nERD column (which is our adjusted point differential metric), each of the past nine winners were 11th or better in nERD the year before their Super Bowl season.

Elite offenses (average rank is 8.2) are more characteristic than elite defenses (12.1), and that's without adjusting for quarterback upgrades for each of the past two Super Bowl champions.

Removing Matthew Stafford's Los Angeles Rams and Tom Brady's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the average offensive rank for next year's champions is 4.9 with only one outside the top four.

But let's use that top-11 nERD cutoff (I'll stretch it to 12 for a nicer number and to include a team we should probably like a little bit).

Assuming the nERD rank trend continues, these teams would be in the mix next season. (Asterisks indicate some level of quarterback uncertainty.)

Super
Bowl
"Contenders"
Super
Bowl
Odds
Offense
Rank
Defense
Rank
Pass
Offense
Rank
Rush
Offense
Rank
Pass
Defense
Rank
Rush
Defense
Rank
nERD
Rank
Bills+7006193161
Buccaneers*+260011411212102
Cowboys+1200
543142213
Cardinals*+2400857101054
Patriots+28001131363165
Chiefs+7002212818206
Packers*+1300319696307
Rams+1200774231977
49ers*+15001012815849
Colts*+2400917151221310
Saints*+300022220244111
Bengals+210013111122211212


You can see why I threw in the 12th-ranked team, the Cincinnati Bengals. They were also the worst adjusted offense (13th) other than the New Orleans Saints (22nd) in the top-12 in nERD

While there are no hard cutoffs we should get hung up on, it's pretty evident that a top-12 offense is a key to consistent success (barring a quarterback change) and that a top-12 defense helps.

These eight teams from the above list featured a top-half offense and defense: Buffalo Bills, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dallas Cowboys, Arizona Cardinals, New England Patriots, Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, and Cincinnati Bengals.

As for some quarterback notes:
-
The Bucs have a looming question to answer with Brady's retirement (for now).
- Things aren't peachy with Kyler Murray and the Cardinals.
- The Packers will do what they can to retain Aaron Rodgers.
- Jimmy Garoppolo is likely on the way out of San Francisco.
- Indianapolis is
likely to cut or trade Carson Wentz.
- With head coach Sean Payton retiring and a bad salary cap situation, the Saints are a hard sell.

These six teams aren't off-limits for futures bets, of course, but we have fewer question marks around some others.

That leads to a pack of six that seems to check a lot of the boxes for eventual champions: Buffalo, Dallas, New England, Kansas City, Los Angeles (Rams), and Cincinnati.