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The 2018 NFL season gets underway officially on Thursday night, but Bovada is already thinking about the future, all the way to Super Bowl 53. The Las Vegas-based sportsbook released its latest Super Bowl odds on Thursday, and the odds have improved—just a little—for the New York Giants.
The Giants opened the offseason with 50/1 odds to win it all, dipping briefly to 75/1 following this spring’s NFL Draft. But now their odds are 40/1, on par with the Carolina Panthers and Tennessee Titans.
The odds are better for the Giants when it comes to the NFC Championship game. Bovada has them at 16/1 odds to be conference champions this year. And they have 5/1 odds of being NFC East champions.
The reigning Super Bowl champions, the Philadelphia Eagles, have 17/2 odds of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy for two years in a row, and are the favorites to win both the NFC Championship (11/2) and the NFC East (2/3). The New England Patriots, meanwhile, are the overall favorites to win Super Bowl 53, with 11/2 odds.
The Giants haven’t reached the postseason since the 2016 season, when they were felled in the Wild Card round, and it’s been since 2011 that the Giants have been atop the NFC East. That was also the last time the Giants won the Super Bowl.
Thus, it’s not hard to understand Bovada’s reasoning throughout the offseason and why the money hasn’t yet tipped in the Giants’ favor. It’s also not helping that the NFC as a whole appears to be the stronger conference heading into the 2018 season, helping to depress the Giants’ odds of overall success.