The online sportsbook Bovada released its opening odds for which team will win Super Bowl LIII, and Washington Redskins fans may want to have a seat.
The Redskins opened at 50-1, some of the longest odds for any team. Only six teams were deemed a longer shot than Washington.
The Redskins finished 7-9 in 2017 and traded for quarterback Alex Smith last week, but they still opened with the same odds to win the Lombardi Trophy as the New York Giants, who went 3-13 and fired their head coach. The Tennessee Titans, a 2017 playoff team, are also curiously at 50-1, as are the Arizona Cardinals.
The New England Patriots opened as 5-1 favorites, to no one’s surprise, and the newly crowned Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers are close behind at 9-1.
Even the Dallas Cowboys, who narrowly missed the playoffs in 2017, checked in as an 18-1 pick, one of the top 10 teams on the list.
Perhaps the odds reflect a “What have you done for me lately?” mentality to a certain extent. The Redskins have only made the playoffs once under head coach Jay Gruden and haven’t won a postseason game since the 2005 campaign.
The only teams with longer odds than Washington? There are four at 66-1 (Buffalo, Cincinnati, Miami and the New York Jets) and two at 100-1 (Chicago and Cleveland).
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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