In Nevada and in a number of other states you can currently place bets on some of the best teams to win Super Bowl 55. The Las Vegas bookmakers and released odds immediately following this year’s Super Bowl.
Coming off their Super Bowl win it’s the Kansas City Chiefs who are the early +600 favorites. Recall that Kansas City erased a 4th quarter 10 point deficit by rattling off 21-straight points to win the title. While the Chiefs have some holes to patch up in free agency, they still have Patrick Mahomes who appears to be the heir apparent to Tom Brady when it comes to winning quarterbacks.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco 49’ers are favored to return to the big game. They will bring back largely the same team in 2020 and open at +800. That’s tops in the National Football Conference.
The Baltimore Ravens and the New Orleans Saints are both at +1000. The New England Patriots are +1200 but that could swing one way or another depending on where Tom Brady lands. The Los Angeles Chargers who won’t be bringing back Philip Rivers are at +1600. The Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys are tied at +1800. And the Pittsburgh Steelers +2400 and Atlanta Falcons +2800 round out the rest of the top 10.
Collective Bargaining Agreement
A new collective bargaining agreement is currently being discussed in NFL circles, and it appears there could be some drastic changes on the way.
As it currently stands, the NFL season is 16 regular-season games in addition to four preseason games, and six teams from each conference make the postseason with the top two seeds earning first-round byes.
If all goes to plan though, that will no longer be the case. According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, one of the changes being discussed and likely to be put in place for the 2020 season is expanding the postseason to seven teams per conference:
If and when a new collective bargaining agreement is finalized — and there is now mounting optimism it could be done sometime in the next week — it is expected to change the NFL’s playoff structure as it is currently constituted for next season, league sources told ESPN.
Under the current proposal that is expected to take effect in the new CBA when it is done, seven teams from each conference will qualify for the playoffs instead of the six that currently do. In addition, only one team from each conference will receive a first-round bye as opposed to the two that currently do, league sources said.
The changes to the NFL’s playoff format would take effect immediately for the 2020 season. One other change that owners are pushing for is adding an extra regular-season game at the expense of a preseason game:
More details: Under the current CBA proposal that NFL owners are pushing for, the playoff field would be expanded to seven teams, while the regular season would be increased to 17 games per team, and the preseason shortened to three games per team, per sources.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 19, 2020
There likely won’t be any objections to adding a seventh playoff team, but the players union has drawn back about adding regular-season games in the past though so it will be interesting to see how those talks go this time around.
The Las Vegas Raiders play in one of the best divisions in football in the AFC West, so the addition of another playoff team could benefit them in the future.
