LAS VEGAS -- The Seattle Seahawks hadn't even completed their 43-8 rout of the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII on Sunday night and talk already had begun about whether Seattle would repeat.
The NFL Vegas Rankings, with our panelists Teddy "Covers" Sevransky, Sal Selvaggio of madduxsports.com and yours truly, Dave Tuley, had the Seahawks and Broncos -- who met in the Super Bowl as the top seeds in each conference -- power-rated even down the stretch and into the playoffs. And now after the season is complete, we still have them tied along with the San Francisco 49ers heading into the offseason.
That makes sense -- at least to us -- as even though the Seahawks rolled in the Super Bowl, the 49ers were impressive in three straight road playoff games and were pretty much a coin-flip decision in their loss at Seattle. A lot of oddsmakers also projected a Broncos-49ers Super Bowl would have been right around pick 'em, and a lot of people said the same about the Broncos-Seahawks matchup (though the Broncos got bet to favoritism).
The LVH SuperBook pretty much agrees with our rankings in their futures for next year's Super Bowl -- to be held at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Feb. 1, 2015 -- with the Seahawks and Broncos as the 5-1 co-favorites despite the lopsided result on Super Sunday, and the 49ers right behind them at 6-1. Before the game, the Broncos had been bet down to a 9-2 fave with the Seahawks and 49ers both at 6-1. But as we look to find next year's champion, that splitting of hairs is mostly trivial as those top teams with relatively low odds aren't where we're looking for in trying to find value in the future-book odds. Last year in this column, I pegged the Seahawks as the value play on the board at 12-1 and also took a look at the Colts, who made the playoffs.
Here are the best 2015 Super Bowl value bets, along with a final ranking of all 32 NFL teams.