The Super Bowl is coming up a week from Sunday, pitting the New England Patriots against the Seattle Seahawks. For those two fan bases, they have the luxury of having a laser like focus on that game. They get to root for actual football for one more week. For the rest of us, rooting for the other 30 teams, it’s onto next season.
For every other team, the focus on next season should start with “What do we need to do to get to where the Patriots and Seahawks are next weekend? What do we need to do to get to the Super Bowl?” For the fans of those teams, the starting point for the offseason is the list of betting odds for next year’s Super Bowl champion.
Lo and behold, on Wednesday, the odds board was released, and there are some very interesting wrinkles in here, Texans-related and otherwise. Here are the odds:
Buffalo Bills +900
Los Angeles Rams +1000
Seattle Seahawks +1000
Philadelphia Eagles +1200
Detroit Lions +1400
Green Bay Packers +1400
Kansas City Chiefs +1400
Baltimore Ravens +1600
Los Angeles Chargers +1600
San Francisco 49ers +1600
Jacksonville Jaguars +1800
Chicago Bears +2000
Denver Broncos +2000
HOUSTON TEXANS +2000
Cincinnati Bengals +2200
Dallas Cowboys +3300
Tampa Bay Buccaneers +3300
Indianapolis Colts +4000
New York Giants +4500
Washington Commanders +4500
Carolina Panthers +5000
Minnesota Vikings +5000
Pittsburgh Steelers +5000
Atlanta Falcons +6000
Cleveland Browns +10000
New Orleans Saints +10000
Tennessee Titans +10000
New York Jets +15000
Las Vegas Raiders +15000
Arizona Cardinals +15000
Miami Dolphins +15000
A few thoughts on these early odds:
The Houston Texans are right back where they started in 2025, with one exception
After starting the season in the middle of the odds board pack, it seemed like, during the Texans’ 10 game winning streak, they’d elevated in the eyes of the oddsmakers and the experts to a team with a legitimate chance at winning a Super Bowl, with their odds topping out at +750 (or 7.5 to 1, in plain English). C.J. Stroud’s abysmal Sunday against New England, though, has dumped them back into the middle of the pack, sitting at +2000, with the Bears and Broncos. One new wrinkle — the Texans are actually behind an AFC South team this season, with the Jaguars checking in at +1800.
If these odds hold to form, the Texans are battling for their playoff lives
So, if we count up the number of AFC teams in front of the Texans, here’s how it looks — they trail the Super Bowl favorite Bills (more on that in a second), the Chiefs and the Ravens (both of whom missed the playoffs last season), followed by the Chargers and Jaguars. That’s six teams, so essentially these odds would indicate that it’s the Texans and the Broncos battling it out for the seventh and final playoff spot. I don’t need that kind of stress in my life.
Buffalo is a shaky favorite
The Bills are a +900 favorite, which is already long odds for a favorite, but then you do some examination, and this is probably a huge indicator as to how wide open it may be again this coming season. The Bills fired their coach after the playoffs! They promoted their offensive coordinator from within to take the reins, a move that rarely works out! The Bills are in the lead dog spot based almost solely on the other worldly skills of quarterback Josh Allen, which is not a bad reason, but this is as shaky a favorite as I can remember.
This article appears in Private: Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2026.