The Kansas City Chiefs have been unseated. A new favorite to win the Super Bowl has emerged — and no, it’s not the Buffalo Bills, despite their masterful win against the previously undefeated Chiefs. It’s those rolling Detroit Lions.
Until this week, the Chiefs have been the undisputed favorites all season. Last week, they sat atop the odds board at +400 to win it all. The Detroit Lions trailed slightly at +450, with the Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers lined up behind.
Now the Lions are at +325, and the Chiefs dropped to +450. The top five is rounded out by the Bills (+650), Ravens (+800), and a newcomer in the Philadelphia Eagles (+850). The 49ers, despite their 5-5 record and Week 11 loss to the Seattle Seahawks (+10000), are still just seventh on the odds board (+2000) behind the Pittsburgh Steelers (+1800).
Here are all the odds for the Super Bowl winner after the close of Week 11 action.
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Super Bowl 2025 odds
Detroit is on an eight-game win streak (the longest in the NFL following the Chiefs’ Week 11 loss) after a ballistic 52-6 dismantling of the Jacksonville Jaguars last week. At the top of our power rankings, the Lions are 23-7, including playoffs, since the beginning of last season. This season, they’ve beaten seven playoff contenders and won three games by at least 38 points.
As pointed out by The Athletic’s Josh Kendall, the Lions’ point differential (plus-15.9 per game) is on pace to be the second-highest in the NFL since 2000 (behind the 2007 Patriots). They certainly don’t have an easy schedule through the rest of the season, with Green Bay, Buffalo, San Francisco and Minnesota on the docket. But Dan Campbell’s squad is looking fairly unstoppable right now.
If the playoffs were tomorrow, the top contenders to quash a Lions Super Bowl appearance look to be the Eagles (8-2), who survived a division matchup against the upstart 7-4 Washington Commanders on Thursday. The Eagles can look … bad at times, like they did in the first half against the Commanders. But they can also look like the best team in football when Jalen Hurts is humming or almost any time Saquon Barkley gets the ball. Hurts finished 18-0f-28 passing for 221 yards against the Commanders after the Philly defense bought him time to get rolling.
Leaving the NFC, three of the top five Super Bowl favorites are AFC contenders. The Bills and Chiefs might be cannibalizing each other’s odds a bit, with uncertainty over which team will ultimately come out on top. In Week 11, it was Josh Allen and company. But last year, the Bills beat the Chiefs in the regular season and subsequently lost to them in the playoffs. If the Chiefs want to duplicate that pattern, they’ll need Patrick Mahomes to look more like the 2024 Super Bowl MVP than he does right now. Mahomes finished 23-of-33 passing for 196 yards against the Bills with three touchdowns and two interceptions.
Then there’s Baltimore. The Ravens are 7-4 and coming off a critical loss to Pittsburgh that dropped them to second in the AFC North. Lamar Jackson also dropped behind Josh Allen this week in the MVP odds after finishing 16-of-33 for 207 yards with one interception and one touchdown. The Steelers are always a tough opponent for Jackson (57 percent pass completion, five touchdowns, eight interceptions and a 66.2 passer rating in his career against Pittsburgh).
Meanwhile, the Steelers are the team to watch. In Week 11, they once again managed to win a game without scoring a single touchdown. Pittsburgh’s kicker, Chris Boswell, hit six field goals to score all of his team’s points in an 18-16 win over Baltimore. With that win, in which they held the reigning MVP to his lowest passer rating of the year, the Steelers announced themselves as serious Super Bowl contenders.
Dark horse contenders
The odds for the Los Angeles Chargers (+2500), Minnesota Vikings (+2500) and Commanders (+4000) are enticing for teams that look far better than anyone expected at the start of the season.
Further down the board, the Arizona Cardinals are also outperforming expectations. After a slow start, the Cardinals (+5000) have won five of their last six games. They’ve quietly beaten several contenders this year, including the Rams, 49ers, Chargers and Dolphins (with Tagovailoa). Kyler Murray has a QBR of 74.9, good enough for third in the league, and the Cardinals lead the bafflingly close NFC West by one game. But being in the top half of the league isn’t necessarily a sign of dominance. Arizona’s upcoming matchup with the Seattle Seahawks could be telling.
(Photo of Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jahmyr Gibbs: Steven King / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
