It’s completely understandable that Las Vegas sportsbooks still have the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks as the favorites to win the SuperBowl. The Broncos sport a sparkling 8-1 record with the Seahawks one up on the win column at 9-1. So yeah, there’s nothing entirely wrong with both teams having 5/2 and 4/1 odds to win the Lombardi Trophy, respectively.
But there’s one team that can lay as much claim to being betting favorites, and they’re nowhere close to even cracking the top 5 teams.
The Kansas City Chiefs are the NFL’s only unbeaten team at 9-0 and yet, it’s only at 14/1 to win the SuperBowl. As perspective, the Carolina Panthers have the same odds as the Chiefs despite its current 6-3 record.
Either Vegas is sleeping on this team or it just flat out doesn’t believe in them. Whatever the case may be, there are a lot of people that are looking at the Chiefs and those 14/1 odds and saying to themselves, “why not?”
The team has a hellacious defense; it has a dynamic running back in Jamaal Charles; and it has a quarterback in Alex Smith that doesn’t make too many mistakes. It’s also 9-0 and is all but certain to secure a playoff seed when the season winds down.
On the flip side, skeptics will point to the lack of offensive production the Chiefs have had for the entire season. It’s averaging 24 points a game, which isn’t really bad, but once you take into account how many of those points the defense and the special teams have scored, that number drops somewhere around 20 points a game. The Chiefs calling card is its defense, which is allowing a league-leading 12.3 points, but of the nine teams KC has faced in the year, none are sporting a winning percentage better than .500.
The lack of explosive firepower and the cream puff schedule to date are the biggest reasons why Vegas sportsbooks have yet to be bullish on the Chiefs’ chances to win anything in February, much less in January.
Kansas’ remaining schedule will put its record to the test with a game against Peyton Manning and the Broncos on the docket, as well as future tiffs with the San Diego Chargers and the Indianapolis Colts.
But the faith – or lack thereof – sportsbooks have on the Chiefs could present a value bet for anybody still undecided about who the SuperBowl winner is going to be. If you’re on the fence, you ought to know that there’s a precedent for a team made up like Kansas City that went all the way to win it all: the 2000 Baltimore Ravens.
Whether the Chiefs can replicate that success remains to be seen, but with 14/1 odds to win the SuperBowl despite having the best record in the league, Vegas sportsbooks aren’t confident Kansas’ early season success will translate to the same results as the season winds down.
If you don’t agree, maybe now’s the time to put some stock on Kansas City and see if it translates to future winnings.
