The race for places in Super Bowl LVII will begin on September 8 and it’s fair to say that the lineup for last season’s Super Bowl was not what anyone expected. The appearance of the Los Angeles Rams was not a huge surprise — Sean McVay’s team were 15/1 shots to lift the Vince Lombardi Trophy at the start of the season — but the team that lined up opposite them at SoFi Stadium would have stunned a lot of NFL fans if you’d told them at the start of the campaign.
The Cincinnati Bengals were 150/1 for the Super Bowl last season as they were coming off a 4-11-1 year which had seen them finishing last in the AFC North. Quarterback Joe Burrow was coming off major knee surgery, people were fearing the worst for him playing behind what looked set to be a terrible offensive line and there were even training camp reports that top rookie receiver Ja’Marr Chase was having trouble learning to catch an NFL football. It’s safe to say that proved to be wide of the mark.
Rather than another season of struggle, Burrow came back looking like an elite passer, Chase had 1,455 receiving yards and the Bengals won the AFC North before beating the Raiders and upsetting #1 seeds Tennessee and #2 seeds Kansas City on the road to reach the Super Bowl. Not bad for 150/1 shots!
So which team at triple-digit odds could be this year’s Bengals and dramatically outperform their market price? We’ve identified three teams at the bottom reaches of the market who might just have enough spark in them to stage a dramatic turnaround in them if everything falls into place.