Kansas City Chiefs: Las Vegas does not believe in the Chiefs
The Las Vegas odds for the 2017 NFL season are out and the betting experts don’t believe in the Kansas City Chiefs this season. The Chiefs were picked to finish third in the division and were sixth in line to win the AFC.
Kansas City Chiefs fans are used to being overlooked, but Las Vegas tends to know things about the land of sports that we the regular fans don’t know. That’s why their latest projections for the 2017 season could be quite telling for the rest of the league.
The Chiefs were picked by Bovada to finish third in the AFC West and are the sixth most likely team to win the AFC. While it will always stings to have your team not favored as highly as you’d like, the Chiefs are playing in the toughest division in all of football. That doesn’t bode well for them heading into 2017, not to mention they’ll be facing one of the toughest schedules in the league as well.
The Chiefs are 5/2 odds to win the division in 2017 following the Raiders at 3/2 and the Broncos at 11/5. Despite being ranked third by Las Vegas, those are all still extremely close.
Fans expected many to pick the Oakland Raiders as the AFC West champion in 2017 and that’s not a crazy statement by any means. The Raiders honestly deserved to win the division last season, but a crucial late season injury to their quarterback basically handed the AFC West crown to Kansas City.
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With that division title, however, the Chiefs now have to face a first round place schedule while the Raiders will get a second place schedule.
What puzzles me is why the Broncos are favored higher than Kansas City. Yes, they won the Super Bowl in the 2015 season, but their team is much different since those days. They don’t even have a set quarterback taking snaps and to top it all off, they have a brand new coach! I get the Raiders being favored higher than the Chiefs, but come on, Vegas? The Broncos?
As for the AFC winner, the Patriots are the heavy favorites. That should come as a surprise to no one, as the Pats are sitting with 2/1 odds to win the conference. Between them and the Chiefs are the Raiders at 7/1, Steelers at 7/1, Broncos at 9/1, and the Texans at 9/1. The Chiefs are 12/1 favorites to win the AFC in 2017.
I’ll give Bovada the Patriots and the Steelers, but those other teams shouldn’t be higher than the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs have owned the Raiders the past two seasons and whooped up on the Broncos this past season. They might have lost to the Texans last year, but Houston doesn’t have a quarterback!
I know Las Vegas knows what it’s talking about, but some of these odds are a little surprising to me. What do you think, Chiefs fans? Do these odds sound about right to you?