Next year`s Super Bowl winner

Futures: Next year`s Super Bowl winner

By Stephen Nover
Mon, Jan 29, 2007

You might think either Indianapolis or Chicago is favored to win next year’s Super Bowl.

Wrong. The San Diego Chargers are the team to beat, according to 2007 NFL futures released recently by Las Vegas Sports Consultants.

“A lot of people think whoever wins the Super Bowl should be favored,” said Mike Seba, a senior linesmaker for LVSC, which makes the betting numbers for many of Nevada’s hotels. “But it’s just so hard to repeat that it’s usually not the case.”

The Chargers have the shortest odds at 9-2.

“There’s just so many good teams, especially in the AFC, that you can’t make any team a huge favorite,” Seba said. “But because the Chargers were the best team during the regular season – even though they got upset in the playoffs – and have everybody back, we feel they should be favored.”

The Colts and Bears are next each at 6-1.

“We’ll probably lower the Super Bowl winner to 5-1, especially if it’s a blowout,” Seba said.

Then comes New England at 9-1 followed by Cincinnati and New Orleans each at 12-1.

Are the Saints worth taking a shot on at those odds? Probably not.

“The Saints do look like an up-and-coming team, but they were riding a wave of emotion,” Seba said. “It could be back to reality next year for them.

“The Saints still are very suspect on defense. If you look at their home games against the AFC North, you’ll see they were crushed by Baltimore (35-22) and Cincinnati (31-16). It’s also still on people’s minds that the Saints lost by 25 points to the Bears.”

The team Seba likes is Baltimore at 14-1. He believes the Ravens’ Super Bowl odds should be around 10-1.

“I know their defense is getting older, but they came very close this year,” Seba said.

Seba also believes there is value with Seattle at 15-1.

“They have a very good team,” he said of the Seahawks. “They have all the players. People forget (Matt) Hasselbeck was playing hurt.”

Jacksonville and Dallas are at 18-1. The Cowboys have a lot of talent, but no coach with Bill Parcells resigning. This leaves you to wonder just how good that Cowboys team was this year. If they were actually on the verge of being a legitimate Super Bowl team, you would think Parcells would have stuck around at least one more year.

Seba likes Philadelphia at 20-1 with Donovan McNabb coming back. It helps, too, that the Eagles are in the less competitive NFC.

Pittsburgh is also 20-1. Following the Steelers are Denver (25-1), Carolina (25-1), New York Jets (28-1) and New York Giants (30-1).

The teams with the highest odds are Oakland (150-1), Detroit (125-1) and Cleveland (125-1).

Considering how bad these teams are, the odds should be much higher. Many Nevada hotels, especially the Harrah properties, are notorious for having low future odds.

Despite rip-off odds, Seba said tourists still bet on future book long shots in Nevada.

“They (the hotels) get plenty of action anyways even though they’re not giving up 400-1 and 500-1 odds,” Seba said. “The average square that comes into town for the weekend and wants to place a bet on Oakland doesn’t care that the odds are 150-1.”