Week 18 didn’t offer any last-second surprises, and now that the playoff field is set, the Super Bowl odds table looks a lot like it has all season.
The two teams leading the field have been the odds favorites most of the year, if not wire-to-wire. The Lions, who were a trendy preseason Super Bowl pick for the contrarians, became the mainstream favorite somewhere in the middle of their 11-game win streak. Coming off a masterful Week 18 win in which they out-maneuvered Minnesota at every turn, Detroit leads the field at +275.
Right behind them is Kansas City at +350, a product of having only really lost one game (no key players were anywhere near the lineup in Week 18’s defeat) and the fact they’ve won the last two Super Bowls and three of the last five.
Super Bowl 2025 odds
The Lions and Chiefs are in a tier of their own odds-wise, thanks to their 15-win seasons and accordant first-round byes. But both have nagging concerns that, if you squint hard enough, begin to look a lot like vulnerabilities.
Will any of their potential opponents through the postseason be able to capitalize on those vulnerabilities?
Stacking up Detroit’s potential NFC competitors
For Detroit, it’s the health of their defense, which, despite the return of linebacker Alex Anzalone in Week 18, is still down an astonishing 12 players. Defensive end Aidan Hutchinson’s broken leg was the biggest headline, but heading into the season’s final game, he was one of four defensive ends on the IR. Joining them are three defensive tackles, two linebackers, and three cornerbacks, which makes Detroit’s domination of the Vikings all the more impressive. The bye will certainly help, and several players have declared they could return for the late playoff rounds (Hutchinson has maintained he is on track to return by the Super Bowl).
But the question is whether the Lions can survive defensively until they do. Their first opponent in the playoffs will be the lowest seed out of the wild-card round. While the Lions lead the league in scoring offense (33.2 points per game), three of their four potential opponents in the divisional round average more than 25 points per game.
The Washington Commanders are the lowest NFC seed but are fifth in scoring and rattled off five straight wins to close the season. They’re +3500 to win it all, a reflection of their middling defense and the fact their star player, Jayden Daniels, is a rookie. But if they can make it out of the wild card, they have the type of improvisational offense that could stress the Lions’ elite scheming to its limit. If Washington can create disorganization and Jared Goff struggles with turnovers, the Commanders have a path to victory, albeit an unlikely one.
The Green Bay Packers would need a major upset against the Eagles to make it to Detroit, but at +1800, there’s more confidence in the Packers than one might expect. Christian Watson is done for the year, but there is still enough talent at wideout that teams can’t completely sell out to stop Josh Jacobs. The Packers lost to Detroit twice but played them to a field goal in their most recent meeting and possess one of the few defenses that allows less than 100 rushing yards per game.
However, the likeliest opponent for Detroit will be the winner of the Minnesota Vikings vs. Los Angeles Rams game. Los Angeles (+3500) took a fully-staffed Lions team to overtime in Week 1 despite having star receiver Puka Nacua carted off mid-game. Their offense sagged tremendously due to injury during the middle of the season, but they won five straight before benching their stars in Week 18, including a 44-42 adrenaline fest against Buffalo. Given Sean McVay’s ability to scheme right into an opponent’s weak spot, Detroit would have to keep their foot on the gas offensively to put them away.
The Vikings have the third-best odds in the NFC (+1600), and though they looked completely out-foxed by Detroit to close the season, they’ll be on their third crack at solving the puzzle. They blew away expectations by keeping pace with the Lions all season, and if it’s tough to beat the same team twice, it’s nearly impossible to beat them three times in a year.
Assuming neither the Packers nor the Commanders pull off an upset in the first round, Detroit’s next opponent would be the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or Philadelphia Eagles.
The +3000 Bucs are an underrated unit, finishing fourth in scoring thanks to a career-best year from Baker Mayfield. Only Goff and Joe Burrow have more passing yards than Mayfield (4,500) and only Burrow has more touchdowns (43 to Mayfield’s 41). With the receiving corps at nearly full strength and the Bucky Irving/Rachaad White backfield combination, Tampa has the most balanced offense outside of Detroit, averaging 250 yards by air and 150 by ground per game. Their defense wouldn’t appear to be a match for the Lions, except the Bucs are one of two teams to beat them all season. Granted, that was in Week 2, but Tampa proved they can draw blood from the immortals and may have gotten a taste for it.
Of course, to get there, they’ll have to (in all likelihood) beat perhaps the best value bet on the board in Philadelphia.
The Eagles are fifth in the odds standings at +700 despite featuring the seventh-best scoring offense (27.2 ppg) and the NFC’s best defense. Philly allows 278.4 yards per game, nearly 33 yards less than the next closest team, and their 17.8 points allowed per game is second in the NFL. Their pass defense is the class of the league, being the only unit to allow fewer than 175 yards per contest. There is no NFC defense, including Detroit, that can shut down Philadelphia’s ground game with Saquon Barkley and Jalen Hurts. If they must go to the air, they still feature one of the best receivers in football in A.J. Brown, and maybe the league’s best number two in DeVonta Smith.
Philadelphia finished 14-3, is as healthy as a team can be after 18 weeks, and will have home-field advantage for the first two rounds. It’s hard not to love them at +700, and it’s harder not to see them as a legitimate threat to Detroit.
Stacking up Kansas City’s potential AFC competitors
For the AFC-favorite Chiefs, the question is broader: Is this team any good?
While that phrasing may be indelicate — of course a team that won 15 out of the 16 games it took seriously is good — it’s the clearest distillation of how it felt to watch Kansas City this season. They have won games and occasionally flashed offensive teeth, but they have not at any point looked like the team that just won back-to-back rings. Some of that was injury, but not enough of it to hand-wave Patrick Mahomes’ ugly statistical season, or the fact the offense never scored more than 30 points and only reached that number twice, or that at least a third of those 15 victories were improbable escapes that essentially came down a coin flip (in one case, literally).
The AFC field has several teams that look miles more dangerous than the Chiefs, and KC is helped tremendously by the fact the best two challengers will almost certainly face each other before Kansas City has to deal with them.
The Bills and Ravens are both +600 to go the distance but are set to clash in round two since neither of their first opponents are serious contenders. Bo Nix and the Broncos were a very fun story, but their odds are at +8000, and they’re nowhere near ready to handle peak Josh Allen. The Bills’ last legitimate loss was a game with 86 total points in which the quarterback made history with three touchdowns through the air and three on the ground. Ignoring Week 18, the Bills scored less than 30 points just once after October 14, and they scored 40 or more in three of the last four games their starters played. They’re through to round two.
The Ravens drew the Steelers, and at another point in the season, there would be talk about how Pittsburgh owns the rivalry recently and Lamar Jackson has the yips against the Yinzers. But the Steelers aren’t limping into the postseason; they’re being airlifted to it. They lost four straight to end the year, scored 17 points or less in all four losses, and took a beating from Jackson in their most recent matchup. They’re at +10000 to win it all, sharing the basement with Houston.
All that means the AFC’s two most electric teams should get a rematch in round two, and the MVP debate ecosystem will crash social media servers around the country. It also means the Chiefs, assuming they beat the Chargers (+3500, but peaking behind a surging Justin Herbert) or the listless Texans, only have to go through one of the two conference juggernauts to return to the Super Bowl. Both the Ravens and Bills are capable of toppling the diminished defending champs — the Bills managed it in Week 11, and Baltimore might have in Week 1 had a toe not come down out of bounds — but in the postseason, Patrick Mahomes is the one demon neither team can cast out.
Buffalo or Baltimore against Detroit or Philadelphia seems like a whole lot more fun, but the road to a ring goes through Kansas City until further notice.
(Photo of Patrick Mahomes: Jason Hanna / Getty Images)
