The 2018 NFL season is still young, but the past three weeks of football have given us loads of clues about where most teams are headed, even some Super Bowl favorites.
Teams like the Oakland Raiders, the Houston Texans, and the Arizona Cardinals are in for a long season if they can’t turn things around quickly. But for the elites of the league, the shine of the Vince Lombardi Trophy continues to dazzle.
Below are five of the heavy favorites to take home the hardware at the end of the season.
Note: NFL Future odds used in this article are from BetOnline.ag.
5. Philadelphia Eagles
Odds to win Super Bowl 53: +1,400
The Eagles are the defending Super Bowl champions and they have Carson Wentz back. They should be here on this little rundown of early favorites to win it all. In his first game since suffering a season-ending injury in 2017, Wentz completed 25-of-37 passes for 255 yards a touchdown and an interception in a 20-16 win at home against the Indianapolis Colts. He also lost a fumble.
As evidenced by his performance in the Colts game, Wentz is not quite 100 percent yet, but the Eagles found a way to win to improve their record to 2-1. That’s not to mention Philly played the Colts minus top running back Jay Ajayi and No. 1 wide receiver Alshon Jeffery.
The early season success of the Eagles is also a credit to their defense that has kept games winnable for the team despite a shaky offense.
All things considered, the Eagles have shown they’re capable of winning even in the face of an injury-riddled roster. Imagine how good they can be once they get to full strength.
4. Jacksonville Jaguars
Odds to win Super Bowl 53: +1,200
The Jaguars have sent mixed signals the past two weeks. On one hand, they looked like one of the teams to beat when they handed New England a 31-20 loss in Week 2. On the other hand, they played like the Jacksonville of old in Week 3’s 9-6 loss to the Tennessee Titans. The Jaguars should have scored more than six points in the Titans game, let alone defeat a team that force-played an injured quarterback in Marcus Mariota. The Jaguars barely had anything going for them with Blake Bortles throwing for only 145 passing yards on 21-of-34 completions. The Jags didn’t have a single trip to the red zone in that game.
It seemed that Leonard Fournette’s absence was a huge deal for the Jags, who struggled all game long to march their offense downfield. The good news is that Fournette is closing in on a return and the Jags’ defense remains imposing. Jacksonville is no longer the big joke it was in previous years. Hopefully for them, their stumble in the Titans game will eventually prove to be nothing more than an anomaly.
3. New England Patriots
Odds to win Super Bowl 53: +1,000
Remember last season when people were already writing epitaphs for the Patriots when the team lost its Week 1 assignment to the Chiefs? That’s what folks are doing again this year after New England went on a 1-2 start to the season.
After downing the Houston Texans at home in Week 1, the Patriots have lost back-to-back games to the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Detroit Lions. Without looking at the stats and just purely focusing on their general body language, it’s fairly easy to tell that the Patriots have not had it the past two weeks. But you know what, they’re still the Patriots. They’re the only team in the entire NFL that can struggle mightily and still afford that kind of convenient reasoning. They’ve earned the right to it. The lengthy history of the franchise’s success speaks for itself: it never feels right to write New England off, especially when a season isn’t even a quarter deep yet.
The Pats’ defense has been bad and their offense has become anemic. They lack playmakers. Their backfield just got thinner with Rex Burkhead recently placed on the injured reserve. Josh Gordon remains a big unknown and there are reports of an internal rift between Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. But, the Patriots didn’t build a dynasty only to crumble this way. If anything, these +1,000 odds for the Patriots to win Super Bowl sound like a tasty value bet.
2. Kansas City Chiefs
Odds to win Super Bowl 53: +800
How can a team that was once priced as high as +3,000 to win the Super Bowl manage to get their odds all the way down to +800? For the Chiefs, they did it by having a sophomore quarterback who entered the 2018 season as an unproven commodity lighting up the stat sheet through the air.
In just his second career start, Patrick Mahomes proved he’s the real deal when he left the Los Angeles Chargers’ defense a smoking pile of rubble by throwing for 256 passing yards and four touchdowns without an interception. The following week, Mahomes added 326 passing yards and six touchdowns in a shootout with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Then, he added three more touchdowns and 314 passing yards in last Sunday’s victory over the San Francisco 49ers.
Mahomes has 13 touchdowns this year, the most by any player in the history of the NFL through the first three games of a season, and what’s probably even more amazing is the fact that he’s yet to get picked off. With Mahomes under center, the Chiefs have become an unstoppable war machine on offense. They are converting 50 percent of their third-down plays and have a 91.7 touchdown rate in the red zone.
It seems that the only entity that could stop the Chiefs right now is their own defense. Kansas City’s stop unit can’t stop itself from shooting the team in the foot repeatedly. The Chiefs are 30th in the league with 30.7 points allowed per game and last with 474.0 total yards surrendered each week. That kind of faulty defense wasn’t unexpected at all after the team lost the likes of Derrick Johnson, Tamba Hali, and Marcus Peters in the offseason.
Still, the NFL is an offense-driven league, and it’s fair to say that when it comes to scoring, no one does it better this season than Kansas City, so far.
1. Los Angeles Rams
Odds to win Super Bowl 53: +400
The Rams are a problem – a big problem. Under head coach Sean McVay, the Rams have made a 180-degree turnaround from being a 4-12 team in 2016 to an 11-5 squad the following year. They crashed out of the Wild Card round in the last postseason, but the Rams are bouncing back in a big way, zooming to a 3-0 record to start the 2018 NFL campaign. In all those wins, Los Angeles’ opponents didn’t look like they stood a chance. The Rams toyed with the Oakland Raiders in Week 1 (33-13), grabbed the Arizona Cardinals by the collars and hurled them out of the window in Week 2 (34-0), and blasted the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 3 (35-23).
Clearly, this franchise and its fans are expecting nothing less than a Super Bowl win parade downtown next year, an ambition that was mightily fed by the team’s rich haul of talents in the offseason. Already an imposing team on the defensive front, the Rams’ front office went on the aggressive and added monster defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh to pair up with fellow defensive line beast Aaron Donald. The Rams didn’t stop there, adding a pair of Pro Bowl cornerbacks in Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib to ensure that if they’re going to get scored upon, their opponents will have to bleed first.
Sure, Talib has been put on the injured reserve with an ankle injury, but the Rams are still good enough to weather a prolonged absence from the star corner, thanks in large part to an offense that has shown it can get the job done despite the departure of offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur in the offseason. Jared Goff and Todd Gurley form a duo that has been a weekly headache for opposing defensive coordinators.
At this point of the season, the Rams are fourth in the league in scoring offense, third in total offense, and they have the top scoring defense, allowing just 12.0 points per game through the first three weeks.
It’s still early in the season, but the Rams do seem to be assured of a spot in the playoffs considering the lack of a worthy adversary in the NFC West.
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