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3 Super Bowl Favorites That You Shouldn’t Bet To Win Super Bowl 55

November 13, 2020
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Now that we have officially crossed the halfway mark of the NFL season, the speculation on the Super Bowl has really started to heat up. Coming into this season, most people expected that teams like the Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens, and New Orleans Saints would be good. But who saw the Pittsburgh Steelers being undefeated? Or the San Francisco 49ers being awful?

The first half of the NFL season has been full of surprises, and when we take a look at the current betting odds to win Super Bowl 55, I see several teams that are betting favorites, that have major flaws. In this article, I am going to focus on three teams that, despite being amongst the betting favorites to win, you shouldn’t be betting on to win Super Bowl 55. Let’s get started!

Super Bowl 55 Betting Odds

Before we get too deep into telling you which teams you should stay away from, I figured we would take a quick look at the current betting odds. For the sake of this argument, I considered any team currently priced as one of the top ten a favorite. While there are teams further down the board that I think can make deep playoff runs, I’m not sure anybody outside of the current top ten would be considered favorites, so I won’t list them here.

  • Kansas City Chiefs +350
  • Pittsburgh Steelers +550
  • New Orleans Saints +700
  • Baltimore Ravens +900
  • Tampa Bay Buccaneers +900
  • Green Bay Packers +1000
  • Seattle Seahawks +1100
  • Buffalo Bills +1800
  • Los Angeles Rams +2500
  • Tennessee Titans +2500

The top ten doesn’t have many surprises right now, as the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs are the favorites, with the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers right behind them. The top ten also features a nice mix of NFC and AFC teams, as both conferences have five teams near the top of the betting odds list. Now that we know who the favorites are, we are going to jump in and tell you which teams you aren’t going to want to back to win it all!

Pittsburgh Steelers (+550)

Well, if I am going to start trashing favorites, I might as well start near the top, with the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers. First off, let me get this out of the way, I love the Pittsburgh Steelers organization. Mike Tomlin is one of the best head coaches in the game and he has done a remarkable job of surviving through adversity in his stint in the Steel City.

Whether it has been losing Big Ben for long stretches of the season, he has played all 16 games in a season just once since 2014, or losing superstars like Leveon Bell, Antonio Brown, and Ryan Shazier, Tomlin, and the Steelers, have continued to thrive. Shockingly, Mike Tomlin has never once had a losing season as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers!

It is great to see Pittsburgh back in true contention, as they haven’t made the playoffs since 2017, and the NFL is just better when the Steelers are good. But that is where my love affair ends with the Steelers, as I have some serious reservations about this team right now.

What’s Not To Like?

It is hard to be too critical of a team that is undefeated, but when you look at who the Steelers have played this year, it is light. The Steelers have played one of the easiest schedules in the NFL this season. Wins over the New York Giants, Denver Broncos, Houston Texans, Philadelphia Eagles, and Dallas Cowboys all came against teams with a losing record. They do have two nice wins over the Baltimore Ravens and the Tennessee Titans, but it hard to argue that their record isn’t significantly inflated.

We have seen that the Steelers can beat good teams with their wins over Baltimore and Tennessee, but with their inflated 8-0 record, they are being priced far too aggressively right now. The books are pricing the Steelers so highly, based mostly on a record that isn’t quite real. Remember, the books adjust their lines based on how the public bets, and right now, the Steelers are getting a lot of public action with their NFL best record, and it is skewing the line.

Can the Steelers win the Super Bowl? Absolutely. Will they? Who knows at this point, as they have a long history of injuries, and they have a lot of season left to play. But at this price, it’s an easy decision to stay away.

The rest of the schedule lays out nicely for Pittsburg as they play the Bengals, Jaguars, and Washington Football team in the next four weeks, and unless they lose to the Ravens at home in three weeks, this team could be undefeated when they head to Buffalo for a showdown with the Bills on December 13th. With all those wins coming, the price is only going to drop, so keep your distance. You can find more value elsewhere.

Green Bay Packers (+1000)

Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers can never be too far away from any Super Bowl conversation, as they always seem to be in contention. It feels like A-Rodg can take his team to the Super Bowl every year, as he is the best passing quarterback in the league and has been for much of his long career in Green Bay. But it might surprise some of you when you realize that Rodgers and his Packers haven’t been to the Super Bowl in a decade.

Green Bay has made three NFC Championship games since their 2010 Super Bowl victory, but it has been a long time since they actually got the job done and went the distance. Rodgers will be 37 years old by the time the playoffs come around, and despite being an elder statesman, he is having one of the best seasons of his career statistically. Rodgers is on pace for the most touchdown passes in a single season in his career, and his QB rating is the highest it has ever been at 87.6.

What’s Not To Like?

Similar to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Green Bay Packers have played a soft schedule this year. Green Bay has wins over the Minnesota Vikings, Detroit Lions, Atlanta Falcons, Houston Texans, and San Francisco 49ers. The only team that the Packers have beaten this year that has a winning record was the New Orleans Saints.

The Packers have recent losses to the Tampa Bay Bucs and Minnesota Vikings. You can only play the teams on your schedule, so I am not going to knock them too much for not having many quality wins, but I am very concerned with how this team is built.

Rodgers has basically zero weapons on the offensive side of the ball, with the exception of Davante Adams. Adams has been a beast with 53 catches for 675 yards and 8 TDs. But the rest of the Green Bay receiving squad has been non-existent, with number two wideout Marquez Valdes-Scantling second on the team with just 18 catches and slot guy Allen Lazard has just 13 receptions. That tells me that if Adams gets hurt, which he has been known to do, he hasn’t played a full season since 2016, that Rodgers won’t have anyone to throw the ball to.

The running game hasn’t been great for Green Bay either as they are just 10th in the league in rushing yards per game. Green Bay has only had one game with a 100-yard rusher this year, and that came way back in week two against the Detroit Lions, where they spent most of the second half running out the clock in a blowout victory.

The defense has question marks as well as they are giving up over 25-points a game, which ranks them in the bottom half of the NFL. The Packers defense has only forced a total of six takeaways this year, which is only one turnover more than the last place Las Vegas Raiders. Green Bay has a +3-turnover margin, which is less than half of some of the other contending teams like the Titans, Chiefs, and Steelers.

In the NFL, you have to have a balanced attack to win the Super Bowl, and you have to be able to win the turnover battle. Right now, the Packers are a two-man show with Rodgers and Adams, and that is risky in the playoffs. Rodgers and the Pack will rack up a lot of regular season wins like they seemingly always do, but they will again taste heartbreak in the playoffs, like they seemingly always do. Stay away from Green Bay.

Seattle Seahawks (+1100)

Russell Wilson might finally get some well-deserved recognition and take home the league MVP honors this season. Wilson leads the NFL in passing TDs with 28, passing yards per game with 317, and is top three in completion percentage at 71% and QBR at 117. He is having a breakout year and could challenge some single-season NFL passing records before all is said and done this year.

The Seahawks have ridden Wilson’s golden arm to a respectable 6-2 record. But as a recurring theme with each of these teams on this list, the Seahawks don’t have many quality wins on their resume. Of the Seahawks six wins, only the win over the Miami Dolphins came against a team with a winning record. They have played two teams that are currently being viewed as Super Bowl contenders, the Arizona Cardinals and the Buffalo Bills, and they lost both games.

What’s Not To Like?

DK Metcalf and Tyler Locket have emerged as one of the deadliest receiving combos in the NFC, and Wilson has fed them the ball all season long. But this Seattle offense is completely one dimensional right now. They have no semblance of a running game, as they have seen Chris Carson, Carlos Hyde, Travis Homer, and DeeJay Dallas all start games at running back in what has been a revolving door of poor performances and injuries.

The Seahawks have been their best under head coach Pete Carroll when they are a hardnosed running team. The fact that they can’t run the ball has allowed opposing defenses to key in on the passing game and rush the quarterback. Wilson has already been sacked an absurd 24 times, which is 4th most in the game behind Carson Wentz, Joe Burrows, and Daniel Jones, and I can promise you none of those guys are winning a Super Bowl this year either.

The added pressure has also forced Wilson into bad throws, and his 8 interceptions are 4th most in the league, and he will for sure break his career record for most picks in a season. The defense hasn’t done Wilson any favors either, as they are giving up a whopping 30.4 points per game! Only the Dallas Cowboys and Jacksonville Jaguars are giving up more points per game than Seattle is right now.

I can’t imagine that we have ever seen a team that has allowed the most points per game in the league ever win a Super Bowl, and at the halfway point of the season, the Seahawks could end up doing just that. Russell “hustle and bustle” Wilson has done an amazing job keeping the Seahawks competitive, but at the end of the day, you can’t win a Super Bowl with no running game or defense, and for that reason, I am out on the Seahawks in 2020.

Wrap Up

The first half of the 2020 NFL season has been an exciting one, and the second half is sure to deliver even more action. The odds on teams to win the Super Bowl are never going to be more attractive than they are right now, so you need to start doing your homework and making your plays now, if you want to cash jumbo tickets in February. Thanks for reading, and make sure that you check out TheSportsGeek’s NFL picks page where we bring you sharp betting advice on each and every NFL game, all season long!

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