Rams are clear Super Bowl favorites after busy offseason. Recent history says that means very little
The Los Angeles Rams seem unbeatable this upcoming season.
The Rams were the second-best team in the NFL last season, and not far behind the Seattle Seahawks. Then they traded for two defensive stars, cornerback Trent McDuffie and Myles Garrett. The Rams made McDuffie the highest paid cornerback in NFL history and Garrett just set the NFL's single-season sack record. Either addition would be the highlight of the offseason for most teams. The Rams got both.
There is no other logical choice as this season's Super Bowl favorite. Oddsmakers agree. They have made the Rams a significant favorite to win Super Bowl LXI. At a sportsbook like BetMGM, the Rams are 5-to-1 to win the Super Bowl and every other team is at least double that, at 10-to-1 or longer. It's hard to argue against that big of a gap. The Rams are absolutely loaded.
And yet, being the preseason favorite means almost nothing when it comes to actually winning the Super Bowl.
Preseason Super Bowl favorites don't often win
This fact is shocking: Starting with the 1995 season, only four preseason Super Bowl favorites have won the championship.
The four teams that won the title after being favorites, according to Covers.com, were the 2006 Colts, 2016 Patriots, 2018 Patriots and 2023 Chiefs. Four of the last 31 preseason favorites (12.9%) winning it all is a surprisingly low hit rate.
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Last season, the Seahawks won despite being 60-to-1 odds before the season. That's rare, but five of the last six champions had at least 10-to-1 odds to win it all. If anyone but the Rams win this season, it will be six of the last seven.
There's no great reason to pick against the Rams to win the Super Bowl. They bring back Matthew Stafford, the league's reigning MVP, with elite receivers in Puka Nacua and Davante Adams. Los Angeles will have a defense that wasn't bad last season and then added Garrett, the best player in the NFL, and an elite cornerback in McDuffie as well as Jaylen Watson, a free-agent cornerback who also comes from the Chiefs. Watson got a three-year, $51 million deal. He and McDuffie fix the Rams' biggest weakness.
The roster is impressive. L.A. is the unquestioned favorite. The Rams should win the Super Bowl, which will be a pseudo home game at SoFi Stadium. But it doesn't often work out that cleanly.
What could get in the Rams' way?
The most obvious answer to why favorites don't win as often as you'd think is injuries. It doesn't take much for a team's fortunes to turn quickly with one key injury or a few injuries at the same position.
The Rams could slip quickly if there's an injury to Stafford, or even Nacua or Adams considering there's not much depth behind them. Losing Garrett would be tough to overcome too, like the Green Bay Packers losing Micah Parsons last season after a big trade for him.
There are other potential issues out of the Rams' control. News that offensive tackle Alaric Jackson was arrested for suspicion of felony domestic violence could affect the Rams on the field. Nacua spent time in a holistic rehabilitation facility this past offseason. There are reasons outside of injury that could throw off a powerhouse Rams team.
And just because a team is the best in the NFL doesn't mean it won't lose in the playoffs. The Rams might be leading the NFL pack but there are plenty of other teams capable of winning a Super Bowl. Seattle, in the Rams' own division, has every reason to believe it can repeat. The margins in the NFL are slim and in a one-and-done postseason format, any team can lose. If the 2007 Patriots could lose before winning a Super Bowl, so can the 2026 Rams.
The Rams became the story of the NFL offseason with the Garrett trade. They will enter the season with a Super Bowl or bust expectation. The Rams have done everything they can to win a championship. But as we've seen, that doesn't guarantee anything.
