If you took a look at the Seattle Seahawks Week 1 performance against the Green Bay Packers, the headline of this article makes absolutely no sense. The defending Super Bowl champions looked as dominant as ever in discarding a very talented Packers team.
While a lot can change between now and the start of playoffs early in 2015, Seattle has to be considered odds-on favorites to earn a second consecutive Lombardi Trophy.
Interestingly enough, a compilation of “experts” around the football world suggests that Seattle isn’t the favorite to win the Super Bowl.
Business Insider took the time to check in on who 82 of the top experts from four of the top sites predicted would hoist the Lombardi come February.
Using the picks of 82 experts at ESPN.com, SI.com, CBSSports.com, and NFL.com, the Denver Broncos are the team picked most often to the win the Super Bowl. Only six other teams were picked by the experts.
And Seattle didn’t even finish in the top three.
Here is what they found out about expert predictions.
Denver Broncos, 26.8%
New Orleans Saints, 19.5%
San Francisco 49ers, 17.1%
Seattle Seahawks, 13.4%
Needless to say, this is probably a case of experts drawing the conclusion that it’s hard to repeat as Super Bowl champs in the NFL. And that’s absolutely true. Only seven teams have repeated as champions in the Super Bowl era. In addition to this, the last two Super Bowl champs prior to Seattle’s victory this past February missed the playoffs completely the following season.
The one difference here is that while the New York Giants and Baltimore Ravens got hot (and lucky) at the right time, Seattle was among the best (if not the best) team throughout the entire 2013 season. That’s something we simply cannot ignore.
Another potential factor in experts straying away from Seattle as repeat champs is that they may not want to be seen as making the easy selection heading into the season.
Here are some other interesting conclusions that were drawn by this study.
* 26.8 percent of experts predict San Francisco will win the NFC with the New Orleans Saints coming in second at 25.6 percent. Seattle held the fourth-highest percentage in the conference.
* Only the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots were picked by more than 15 percent of the experts to come out of the AFC.
* 17.1 percent of the experts picked San Francisco and Denver to play in the Super Bowl.
* Only six teams received more than four percent of the vote to hoist the Lombardi.
In any event, it’s just interesting to see where experts stand heading into the first Sunday of the regular season. If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t put too much stock into this.
Photo: USA Today