Top tier sports is unrelenting. It’s barely been a week since the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers at the death in Super Bowl LVIII and already attentions are starting to turn to next season.
In this article we take a look at early NFL betting and invoke our inner Nostradamus to predict next season’s Super Bowl winner.
Will we hit the mark or will our predictions be way off? Read on to find out who our 5 tips for next season’s Super Bowl are.
Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions had a good season. There’s no doubts about that. They finished top of the NFC North with a 12-5 record, beat the LA Rams in dramatic fashion in the Wild Card Round before making short work of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Divisional Round.
In the Conference Championships they lost out 34-31 to the San Francisco 49ers which is nothing to be ashamed about. In fact the Lions can take heart from just how far they pushed the 49ers in that game – nearly upsetting the NFL betting odds.
Looking ahead to next season they know that the margins they have to make up to improve and reach the Super Bowl are small. That’s why we have them as our fifth favourites to lift the Vince Lombardi trophy in 2025.
Buffalo Bills
The Bills were another team to impress this season. Finishing top of the AFC East with an 11-6 record the Buffalo based outfit then dispatched the Steelers 31-17 in the Wild Card Round before falling to the eventual Super Bowl winners 27-24 in the Divisional Round.
Like the Lions, the Bills know that the margins that kept them from progressing this season were small. Fans will however be hoping that the team can show more consistency next season after a sluggish start last time round nearly cost them.
Dion Dawkins and Spencer Brown rewarded the franchise for the faith put in them last season and could be key to a Super Bowl push in 2025.
(The Chiefs once again put paid to the Bills Super Bowl aspirations.)
Baltimore Ravens
Of the teams profiled so far, the Ravens had the best record in the regular season winning 13 and losing just 4 on their way to topping the AFC North. Their Playoff campaign came unstuck though in the Conference Championship when the wily old Kansas City Chiefs beat them 17-10.
The Ravens should not have lost that game. They could not have lost that game but somehow they did. Somehow they came up short. They lost with a home crowd at their back, they lost because of a subpar rushing game and they lost because of an underwhelming QB performance.
Mostly though they lost because they came up against a monstrous winning machine that just does not lose when it matters.
San Francisco 49ers
Everyone is backing the 49ers to go the distance next season and win the Super Bowl after the agony of losing out this year. Doesn’t that sound a little bit familiar though? Didn’t everyone say the same about the Philadelphia Eagles last season?
Sure, the 49ers appear to have more in their arsenal than the Eagles did but no one knows how they are going to react to last month’s defeat. Moments like that can inspire teams but more often than not losing out on the main stage leads to a hangover the following season.
The reason then that we have them down as our second favourites for the Super Bowl is that we know the quality in their ranks. Even if they suffer a hangover and start the season sluggishly they have more than enough quality in their ranks to go deep in the playoffs.
Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs just win. They shouldn’t have won against the Eagles last season. They shouldn’t have had enough to go away to the Buffalo Bills and win but they did. They shouldn’t have had it in them to follow that up with an on the road victory against the Baltimore Ravens but they did.
They shouldn’t then have been able to stop the unstoppable San Francisco 49ers and upset the NFL betting but they did. They did because they know how to win and winning is in their blood. They also won because they have the best QB in the league and that’s not going to change next season.
So say what you want about the main runners and riders for next season, but football is a simple game played by 22 men and at the end…The Kansas City Chiefs win.
