Last Updated on September 16, 2025 7:15 am by admin
On the opening week of the 2024 NFL season, the San Francisco 49ers secured a commanding victory over the New York Jets. The game was billed as “Aaron Rodgers’ return,” which was duly spoiled by the 49ers, who never looked like breaking a sweat in a 32-19 victory. Post-game, the Jets head coach Robert Saleh said: “That’s a championship outfit, and they introduced us to some championship football.”
Saleh’s words echoed what many thought at the time – this was a championship outfit. The 49ers had entered the new season as Super Bowl runners-up the previous February, and many felt that they could go the distance again. This wasn’t mere fan optimism, as many sportsbooks had listed the 49ers as co-favorites for Super Bowl LIX alongside the Kansas City Chiefs.
The 49ers soon fell away
Thus, if you had backed the 49ers preseason, you would have felt fairly comfortable in your betting position after the routine win in the first week of the 2024 season. Of course, as we know, the 49ers’ season went broadly downhill from there, losing 4 of the next six games, and then embarking on that dreadful run that saw them lose seven of the final eight games of the season. It was a capitulation.
The question, perhaps, is at what point did people who’d backed the 49ers in NFL Playoffs futures betting markets know that their bet was going nowhere? We would say that the writing was on the wall in mid-November after being thrashed by the Packers at Lambeau Field. The 49ers never really recovered from that one.
The Eagles got better as the season went on
And here’s the rub: Around the time the 49ers were limping off the field in Green Bay, you could still back the Eagles at around +1000 to win the Super Bowl. Those mid-season odds were almost double the preseason odds (approximately +550) you would have found for the 49ers. The Eagles were 9-2 after Week 12, whereas the 49ers were 5-6 and would never recover after the 38-10 loss to the Packers.
The point, as such, is that the Eagles’ season was one that was clearly building in momentum, whereas the 49ers ‘ season was one that declined markedly. Yet, you could still find decent betting value on the eventual Super Bowl winner in mid-November. It’s an interesting discussion to have – should you be patient with your futures bets for the Playoffs? Or stick with your instinct at the start of the season?
Of course, the example we used is one that feels more obvious in hindsight, and it’s not always the case that you can find value when backing the eventual Super Bowl winner mid-season. Sometimes, a well-backed team starts the season well, and their odds simply get shorter and shorter until they win the championship game. Yet, we do know that in all types of sports betting, patience can trump risk-taking.
Indeed, it will be interesting to see how this season pans out. Right now, we have four teams lumped together at the very top of the Playoffs and Super Bowl betting markets – the Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills, Philadelphia Eagles, and Kansas City Chiefs. They all have odds ranging from +550 to +700. While the Ravens might be narrow favorites with some sportsbooks, it’s almost a four-way tie. Yet, you can be almost certain that one of these four teams will have a surprisingly bad season; history tells us as much. And thus, perhaps a wait-and-see approach is a good way to go, trying to spot signs that things aren’t working as expected, much in the same way as the 49ers last term. Perhaps the Super Bowl winner will come out of that four, or maybe there is a team that comes to the fore from further down the markets. But betting can be a lot like financial trading: You can have conviction on your picks, yes, but it’s also about adjusting and adapting to new information. If your Super Bowl pick looks out of sorts in October and November, it’s usually the case that they don’t excel in January and February.