The NFL seldom allows a favorite to simply stroll to Super Bowl glory. As Thanksgiving fades into memory and nights get longer, one truth has crystallized: the Los Angeles Rams sit alone atop the mountain. Fresh off a 34-7 obliteration of the Buccaneers—a contest that felt over by the end of the first quarter—Sean McVay’s squad owns the shortest odds in the entire league.
The latest Super Bowl betting odds currently list the SoCal side as the clear +450 frontrunner, and after Matthew Stafford’s clinical (273 yards, three touchdowns, 122.7 rating) dissection of Tampa Bay at SoFi Stadium, it’s clear why. While the veteran QB was steering his side to yet another win, their biggest rivals, both in the NFC and indeed in the hunt for the Lombardi, the Philadelphia Eagles, were busy surrendering a 21-point lead at Jerry World as they collapsed spectacularly, somehow conspiring to lose to the Cowboys 24-21.
But while the Rams are deserved favorites, a whole host of underdogs still haven’t given up on their hopes of hoisting the Lombardi. Here are three such teams that we feel are certainly still alive in the race to Santa Clara.
Buffalo Bills
If football is poetry in motion, the 2025 Bills have been a work of jagged verse. Buffalo were the clear Lombardi favorites in the preseason, and they remained exactly that throughout the opening weeks of the campaign as they amassed a perfect 4-0 record. Since that first defeat at the hands of the New England Patriots, however, the wheels have well and truly come off the championship hopefuls’ bus.
After going 3-4 since that perfect start, the Bills now sit at 7-4 and enter the home stretch having inflicted as much suspense on their fans as any team in football. You want volatility? Consider the raw data: a negative turnover differential, a defense that shape-shifts from dominant (as against the Jets) to porous (debacles against Atlanta, Miami, and most recently Houston), and a run game that waxes and wanes.
What is going on in Miami 😱
The Bills were 8.5 point favorites (-500) 🥶
— Bovada (@BovadaOfficial) November 9, 2025
And yet, there is no more dangerous threat in cold-weather playoff football than a team quarterbacked by Josh Allen—an alchemist capable of transforming broken plays into lightning strikes. The reigning MVP enters Week 13 having set the league’s record for quarterback rushing touchdowns (79) and writes a different history every time he takes the field: 46 career games with both a rushing and passing TD.
Alongside him, running back James Cook has blossomed, averaging over 5 yards per carry and devouring red-zone snaps as if this were fantasy football come to life. Dalton Kincaid, finally freed from 2024’s injury shadows, is quietly morphing into Buffalo’s most reliable third-down and red-zone threat.
The secret sauce, though, is urgency on defense. The retooling post-2024 has paid dividends at times, but now comes the litmus test. Joey Bosa continues to stalk quarterbacks on a regular basis, but he must inspire a unit that can steal extra possessions come playoff time. If the Bills manage to marry Allen’s supernatural improvisation with ball security and defensive opportunism, their +1400 odds look less like a reach and more like recompense for years of heartbreak. For Buffalo, it’s boom or bust, and failure to deliver this season could trigger a rebuild and the end of their championship window.
New England Patriots
You could have bet the family car on New England remaining mired in the muck. Imagine the disbelief in Boston: after back-to-back 4-13 seasons and watching “The Hoodie” ride into the sunset, the Patriots now sit 10-2, owners of the AFC’s best winning streak (nine games) and a defense that bends but rarely breaks. Mike Vrabel—equal parts tactician and motivator—has distilled this squad to its essence: tough, creative, and utterly unafraid of reputations.
Sophomore quarterback Drake Maye is the face of the renaissance—poised, supremely efficient (3,130 yards, 24 TD, 110.7 passer rating), and above all, a dealer in third-down pain for opposing defenses. He now finds himself as the favorite to win the MVP award in just his second season, with the front office’s biggest swing, acquiring a new primary target in veteran wideout Stefon Diggs, certainly aiding his bid. The former Bills star’s arrival has paid immediate dividends, stretching the field and opening creases for tight ends Hunter Henry and Austin Hooper, who together posted double-digit catches against a feisty Bengals squad in Cincinnati in week 12.
Still, the question looms: can Maye handle the white-hot scrutiny of January football, particularly in AFC cities like Buffalo or Kansas City? Odds of +1800 say it will be tough, but if he can, a Patriots revival in Las Vegas this February would feel less like a fairy tale than a reset of the established order.
Green Bay Packers
Who are these Packers? Sometimes, they look like world beaters (23-6 over Minnesota, stat-padding blowouts); sometimes, like stragglers, dogged by injuries and the faint odor of missed opportunity. At 7-3-1, Matt LaFleur’s squad is perhaps the most enigmatic of the underdogs, and yet, their top-five rankings in offensive and defensive yardage suggest something brewing beneath the surface. Statistically, they confound: a tie that felt more like a loss, defeats snatched from the jaws of victory by special teams gaffes against both lowly Carolina and Cleveland, and moments of offensive transcendence few in the NFC can match.
Jordan Love, at his healthiest, has flashed the big arm and gutty improvisation that recalls Aaron Rodgers’ late-career scarf-and-beanie nights, while unheralded running back Emanuel Wilson stunned Minnesota for 107 yards and a pair of scores last time out. Josh Jacobs brings power to the running game, and rookie wideout Matthew Golden is suddenly a matchup nightmare for opposing secondaries. Still, the defining element is defense: the blockbuster Micah Parsons trade needs to pay off against division rivals—think, say, a Thanksgiving annihilation of the Lions.
Can their front seven—Parsons, Quay Walker, and McKinney in the secondary—hold up against the NFC’s most creative attacks? If the chemistry holds and Love rediscovers his December magic, nobody will relish facing Green Bay at snowy Lambeau with a ticket to Santa Clara on the line.
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