The New England Patriots face the New York Giants on Sunday, February 5, in Super Bowl XLVI. New England comes into the game as the number 1 seed in the AFC and are favored by 3 points over the 4th seeded Giants out of the NFC.
The graph below shows the futures odds for each team to win Super XLVI prior to each week during the season.
Super Bowl XLVI futures odds
2011 Summary
The 2011 season saw only two different teams, the Patriots and Packers, considered to be the favorite to win the Super Bowl at one point during the season. Compare this with 2010 when nine different teams were the favorite at some point during the season.
Two days after Green Bay won Super Bowl XLV they opened as co-favorites with New England to win Super Bowl XLVI at +700. Before the season kicked off, though, New England was set as the favorite at +500 while Green Bay was +650. The Patriots remained the favorite prior to weeks 2 and 3 but after the Patriots week 3 loss to Buffalo, Green Bay and New England were again co-favorites at +400. Green Bay emerged as the favorite prior to week 5 and remained the favorite up until their upset loss to the Giants in the divisional round of the playoffs.
New England's Super Bowl odds remained steady throughout the season. Other than the initial opening of +700, their highest odds were +650 following their week 9 loss to the Giants. Despite not losing since that game their odds never dipped below +400 until the divisional round of the playoffs. After the Packers lost New England was reinstated as the favorite heading into the conference championship at +115.
The Giants, meanwhile, had an up and down season and were never considered a favorite to get to the big game. They were +2200 a day before the season started but lost to Washington in week 1 and were moved to +4000. They won six of their next eight that concluded with the win on the road at the Patriots in week 9, and their odds were +2000 – their lowest odds of the regular season. After losing by 25 points on Monday night in New Orleans in week 12, their Super Bowl odds were at its highest at +6600. They won three of their last four to get into the playoffs where they were +2200 before their wild card win against the Falcons.
Lines courtesy of Intertops.com
