Pressure on the Los Angeles Rams to win in 2026 has only ramped up following the team’s trade for Myles Garrett. The Rams have a lot of work to do to buck a troubling trend of preseason Super Bowl favorites falling short of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
FanDuel Sportsbook has Los Angeles at +550 to win the big game this February, followed by the defending champion Seahawks and the Bills at +1000 odds. They were near the top of most sportsbooks even before the blockbuster trade for Garrett, yet their
odds have only soared since.
Being an overwhelming preseason favorite often doesn’t mean a thing, as the randomness of the NFL playoffs often works against teams. According to Yahoo Sports senior writer Frank Schwab, since 1995, only four preseason Super Bowl favorites have won it all in February.
Within the last decade, though, three of those preseason favorites have won a championship, per Covers.com:
There were three teams tied for the highest preseason odds entering 2025, and none of those squads advanced to their respective conference championship games. Baltimore was the lone team of the grouping to miss postseason action entirely.
It’s still astonishing that the Rams only had the third-highest Super Bowl odds in 2021, and that was despite the Matthew Stafford trade. At that time, the Chiefs and Buccaneers were the two recent champions, so they were likely to be ahead of an L.A. team, for which pundits were unsure how Stafford would fare on a new team.
Covers.com added that the preseason favorite has won the championship nine times since 1977, while losing in the Super Bowl 12 times and the conference championship game six times.
There is certainly MUCH to unpack with those statistics. If it’s any consolation to Rams fans, only five of those teams have missed the playoffs, including once in the last decade.
It’s understandable for everyone, including fans, to believe in L.A.’s potential, given they field one of the NFL’s most complete rosters. However, they’re working against an unfavorable betting trend ahead of the 2026 season, which proves why the league never crowns the Super Bowl champion in June.
