Matt Haynes thoughts on the NFL future markets with five weeks of the regular season remaining.
I thought we’d revisit the Conference & Superbowl betting markets now we’re at the backend of the NFL regular season to see if we can extract any value from either of them. We currently have pre-season bets for the Superbowl on Philadelphia @ 14 & Green Bay @ 34, both of these teams should make the play-offs, with the Eagles looking poised for a serious Superbowl run.
The opening game of Week 14 sees the Packers travel to the Lions and this game has huge implications for the NFC number one seed. If the Lions win they have it virtually locked up, if they lose tonight though it throws it wide open.
Looking at the NFC picture we see Detroit, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Green Bay & Washington as having more than one foot in the door of the play offs, so that leaves us with two spots and those will be the divisional winners of the NFC South & NFC West. To be honest whoever wins the South & West divisions will get a beating in the wild card game by one of the 5 teams mentioned above. So, we can overlook the Superbowl market in this case.
A bet I do like in the NFC West is Arizona to win the division at 2.80, they are improving and a team that I rate as the best in the division. Current division leaders Seattle look to be a team with a lot of weaknesses who are regressing hard from their early season form. They play each other on Sunday in Arizona, the winner of this match puts themselves in the divisional driving seat.
Moving over to the AFC we find Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Houston & Kansas as virtually play-off certainties, of these five teams I’d have Buffalo as the strongest and Houston as the weakest. The two remaining wild card spots should go to the Chargers and the Broncos, either of these two teams could quite feasibly beat Pittsburgh, Kansas or Houston and could quite possibly gate-crash the AFC Championship game. The way things stand after 13 weeks the Chargers could get the Texans, then the Chiefs, both beatable in my opinion. On the other side of the bracket we could potentially see Baltimore having to go through both Pittsburgh & Buffalo away from home. If things fall right for the men from LA and they do have their destiny in their own hands then they will potentially fall into the easier side of the draw and so can be backed to win the AFC Championship at 15.5. I’d also be very hopeful of a trade from that price, where I’m looking to remove liability or hedge my profit if they do indeed make the Championship game on the last Sunday in January.
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