Odds To Win Super Bowl XLVII

The Giants had barely finished celebrating their thrilling victory in this year's Super Bowl before many of the sportsbooks released their odds to win next year's game. These odds are based more on public perception than anything else as it is next to impossible to get a perfectly clear picture on where any of the 32 teams in the league will be when training camps start opening at the end of July.

The one thing we know for sure is that with a 10-year CBA (collective bargaining agreement) in place, we will have a normal free agency period this offseason that gets underway on March 13. We will also have a normal college draft in the sense that the newly drafted rookies will have a chance to get properly acclimated with their teams well before the start of the regular season.

It will be business as usual this offseason so all 32 teams will be on equal footing when it comes to being prepared for opening day in early September. That being said, the inequities between the have-and -have not’s in the league still exist, so it is easy to see why teams such as Green Bay and New England are once again at the top of the list in terms of the odds to win Super Bowl XLVII.

When it comes to the Eagles, they are considered in that second-tier of teams after the Packers, Patriots, New Orleans Saints and Pittsburgh Steelers. This is a much better position than last year’s ‘dream team’ fiasco that vaulted the Birds to the top of many of the books’ future odds list. The expectation level was set too high, too soon for a bunch of high-priced free agents that had far too little time to come together as a team before the games started to count for real.

With an entire offseason to get his team ready to go, Andy Reid has to be licking his chops more than a trip to Pat’s Steaks with the amount of talent he now has on this squad. The Eagles have no real free agent issues and can easily slap the Franchise Tag on DeSean Jackson if they actually want the talented, but troublesome wide receiver back for next season. They can take their time in free agency to fill a couple of glaring holes on both sides of the ball and are in excellent position to pick-up a couple of immediate impact players in the draft as a result of their 8-8 finish.

While I generally believe that every season will be the one that the Birds finally add a Vince Lombardi Trophy to their resume, if this offseason goes as expected, they will put themselves in the best position to actually accomplish this feat since T.O. came to town in 2004.

The following is a link to my early look at the odds to win Super Bowl XLVII as originally posted on Bang the Book.


Odds to Win Super Bowl XLVII