Any informed discussion about what National Football League team is going to end the 2026 season in a hail of confetti and accept the Vince Lombardi Trophy has to begin with the Los Angeles Rams.

Here is a team that was nearly equal in odds to the defending Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks for most of the off-season. Now Los Angeles is a league best 5 to 1 while the defending champions are 10 to 1. The Rams rise in rankings was first pinned to the acquisition of the considered best defensive lineman in the game, Myles Garrett. To add riches to the rich, the Rams then regained the services of a defensive lineman headed for Canton when Aaron Donald ended his two-year retirement and signed for the 2026 season with his old team.

In my four decades of running Qoxhi Picks we have correctly identified the Super Bowl winner seven times. That stat is enhanced by the fact that only once did we take a team with odds less than 12 to 1, that being the 1994 San Francisco 49ers who blew out the San Diego Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX. The other six Super Bowl winners had odds of 14 to 1 or better making our seven wins a long-term profitable proposition.

The Rams, at 5 to 1, are priced out of our consideration. I look for the sweet spot in the odds, which I consider between 12 and 24 to 1. These are usually teams that are good enough to win and with odds that pay well enough to justify a season long wager.

Last year, the Seahawks and New England Patriots were both longshots of more than 60 to 1 when the season began. Seattle opened the season with 66 to 1 odds and the Patriots were 70 to 1 to win Super Bowl LX. Those odds actually went up after the first game of last season when both the Seahawks and Patriots lost their home openers to the 49ers and Las Vegas Raiders respectively. Only two teams in NFL history went on to win a Super Bowl after losing at home on opening day before Seattle pulled it off last February.

Okay, 2025 was a year for long shots in the Super Bowl. Will that snap back with the prohibitive favored Rams winning it all this season? Perhaps, but if they do, it won’t also mean a winning preseason wager for us on this year’s Super Bowl winner

Last year, our preseason selection to win it all was the Houston Texans. They finished the season with one of the best defenses in the league while allowing the second fewest points and fewest yards per game. Defense wins championships. Still, it didn’t turn the trick for Houston because their offensive line remained a work in progress most of the season. Behind a suspect front five quarterback C.J. Stroud spent another season falling short of the excellence he showed in his rookie campaign after being the second overall draft choice of the Texans in 2023.

This year, the Texans are again right where we want the odds on a long-term Super Bowl choice at 18 to 1. If the Texans win it all, we were one year early on their selection because they are not our choice this year.

The Texans offensive line is still looking to rise up to Super Bowl standards while the front five in Denver appears to be at a perfect stage of their collective careers to give Bo Nix time to throw and runners gaping holes.

It is a veteran group that has played as a unit for multiple seasons for head coach Sean Payton. Ten-year veteran left tackle Garett Bolles is a first team All-Pro as is right guard Quinn Meinerz, who is beginning his sixth NFL campaign. The other three veterans on the Broncos front five are Ben Powers, Luke Wattenberg and Mike McGlinchey. Not a wink link among them.

Nix is entering his third NFL season and has guided Denver into the playoffs in his first two seasons. They may have gone on to the Super Bowl last season had he not missed the AFC Championship Game after being injured during the Broncos win over the Buffalo Bills the previous week.

On defense, the Broncos ranked second to the Texans in yards allowed last season and third behind the Seahawks and Texans in points allowed. Last year, the Broncos also won a number of close games which can be a problem. Two years ago, the Kansas City Chiefs slipped by with a series of close wins and then dropped to only six regular season victories in their 2025 campaign. Historically, teams that escape with a lot of close wins have that pendulum of luck swing against them soon enough.

But with a stout defense, a quarterback in his prime and one of the game’s best head coaches mentoring the Broncos this appears from our advantage point to be a great combination of emerging talent and the right Super Bowl odds, 20 to 1.

The Broncos have really only one long standing trend to overcome. Payton guided the New Orleans Saints to a Super Bowl win to complete the 2009 season. Good news? Well, no NFL head coach has ever won a Super Bowl with one franchise and gone on to win another with a different one.

I think that fact gets adjusted on February 14th at SoFi Stadium in Super Bowl LXI.

Qoxhi Picks: Denver Broncos in Super Bowl LXI at 20 to 1