Super Bowl 50 Odds: Cardinals, not Panthers, the current favorites
The Carolina Panthers finished with the best record of the 2015 regular season going 15–1 straight up and 11–5 against the spread, and they start their postseason this Sunday against the red-hot Seattle Seahawks.
Carolina heads into the divisional round going off at +500 to win the Super Bowl according to sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. Very little separates the top three contenders in the NFC on the betting board with Arizona going off at +425 to win the championship and Seattle paying +550.
Arizona going off as the +425 favorite to win the Super Bowl and a +170 favorite to win the NFC isn't necessarily a declaration by oddsmakers that the Cardinals are the best team in the conference, but rather that their path looks less tumultuous.
While the Seahawks and the Panthers will have trouble just surviving this week against each other, Arizona is a 7-point favorite at home against Green Bay on Saturday.
Green Bay suffered a 38–8 loss to the Arizona Cardinals on December 27 and is currently on the board at +1200 to win the Super Bowl. Arizona is 3–0 straight up and against the spread in its last three postseason home games, including a 51–45 win over the Packers back in 2010.
Over in the AFC, the New England Patriots are the favorite to win the conference at +160 and are paying +450 to win Super Bowl 50.
The Patriots are getting a lot more respect from futures bettors than the Denver Broncos (+200 to win the AFC, +550 to win the Super Bowl), who are a bigger favorite this weekend and who would have home field in a potential matchup against New England next week.
Two hot teams will be looking to break up that potential AFC Championship Game with a road upset this week. Kansas City is 11–0 straight up and 8-3 against the spread over its last 11 games, and a convincing win over Houston last week has bumped the Chiefs' Super Bowl betting line up to +900 heading into Saturday's game against New England.
Pittsburgh (+1200 to win the Super Bowl) is 7–2 straight up and 4–3–2 against the spread in its last nine games going into Denver on Sunday.
