The Seattle Seahawks have seen a tremendous amount of turnover this offseason, but that hasn’t stopped Las Vegas from being all-in on Seattle’s 2016 season.
According to Vegas Insider, Seattle has 9/1 odds of winning the Super Bowl. That is better than 30 NFL teams. The only team with better odds are the New England Patriots at 15/2.
The next NFC team on the list is Green Bay at 11/1. Carolina, the defensing NFC champions have the third-best odds in the NFC (6th overall) are 13/1. Arizona, which won the NFC West over Seattle last season is 4th (8th overall) at 18/1.
Vegas being so high on Seattle is a bit surprising. The national narrative on the Seahawks is that they were flawed offensively last season, and then were gutted in free agency. Clearly Vegas disagrees with that narrative.
It is also interesting that this isn’t just a “faith in improvement” line. While Seattle’s new-look offensive line is expected to improve over the course of the season, Vegas is expecting the Seahawks to be a dominant team from Week 1.
The Seahawks are currently eight-point favorites in their opening game against Miami. That line is drifting in the Seahawks favor too. It opened at 7.5, and many of the line-makers have pushed that to 8.5.
For that point spread to be where it is in intriguing. Miami’s strength is Ndamukong Suh and their defensive line. Seattle’s weakness is still their offensive line. That’s not a great combination for the Seahawks.
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If you look at Week 1 last season, the Seahawks faced a similar situation. Their makeshift offensive line was dominated by Aaron Donald and the St. Louis defensive line, and the result was a tough loss by Seattle. The Seahawks now face more uncertainty on the offensive line than they did a season ago.
Obviously, this is a huge vote of confidence in Russell Wilson and the Seattle defense.