Super Bowl 2015: Latest Vegas Odds After Saturday's Divisional Bracket Results

With both favorites advancing from Saturday's divisional round games, there's a nice window of opportunity for bettors before Sunday's action to take advantage of some tilted odds.  Mathematically speaking, the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots do have better Super Bowl odds than every other team, since they have one less game to win.

However, if you have a particularly strong conviction in one of the four teams playing on Sunday, those shortened odds simply offer a chance for you to exploit the line shifts.  Alternatively, even if you've had a longstanding bet on the Seahawks or Patriots, there's good value now to hedge your bet to one of the other top contenders.

Using the latest Super Bowl odds from Odds Shark, let's diagnose three of the best and worst remaining championship bets from the six teams left standing.

Team	Odds
Seattle Seahawks	5-3
New England Patriots	7-3
Denver Broncos	41-7
Green Bay Packers	25-4
Dallas Cowboys	33-2
Indianapolis Colts	135-4

Sleeper Pick: Dallas Cowboys (33-2 or +1650)

The Cowboys have been the divisional round's trendiest upset pick.  Though Dallas is a deserved underdog at Lambeau Field on Sunday (and would be even bigger dog at CenturyLink Field next week), the Cowboys also offer solid value given these odds.

The implied probability here is that the Cowboys have a roughly 6 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl.  However, that number obviously shoots up if Dallas advances to the conference championship, an outcome some metrics such as FiveThirtyEight's Elo ratings see as more likely than the general public would perceive.

DeMarco Murray should find running room against a Green Bay defense that ranks 24th against the run based on Football Outsiders' opponent-adjusted DVOA metrics.  The game will thus likely boil down to whether Tony Romo can consistently convert on favorable down-and-distance situations.  His reputation as a clutch-situation "choker" has always been vastly overstated, and his road numbers this year only further highlight the likelihood that he succeeds on Sunday:

The Cowboys were the only team to win in Seattle this season, and in reality, the final margin doesn't accurately highlight how much Dallas controlled the game.  The Cowboys would still likely be the longest shot of the conference championship teams, but the current odds undersell their chances of winning it all if they do beat the Packers.

Riskiest Bet: New England Patriots (7-3 or +233)

The Patriots are close second favorites behind Seattle, a trend that has established itself throughout the second half of the season.  However, despite narrowly avoiding an upset at the hands of playoff nemesis Baltimore, New England is far from being out of the woods.

For one, some signs suggest that Saturday's 35-31 escape was not a fluke.  The Patriots are certainly a flawed team in the trenches, as the Ravens were consistently able to set the edge to run the ball for 4.9 yards per carry while also forcing New England to abandon much of its vertical passing game in order to work around its shoddy pass protection.

The latter facet probably won't improve much, given that starting center Bryan Stork suffered what some medical experts believe is an MCL sprain that could keep him out of next week's contest.  The Patriots were able to adjust on the fly, protecting substitute Josh Kline and the rest of the soft interior through a steady diet of three-step dropback concepts.  Still, there's no denying that it will be difficult to game-plan an entire week behind the patchwork O-line:

Most importantly, the other teams don't have shoddy secondaries like the Ravens, who couldn't cover even the basic tenants of the route tree.  The Patriots possess high-end talent and arguably the best coaching of the teams left, and they'll be deserving favorites next week.  However, there are enough holes on the roster that make these short odds an unpalatable proposition.

Best Bet: Denver Broncos (41-7 or +585)

New England's loss could be Denver's gain, if the Broncos can hold off the Colts.  The mainstream media will play up the cold weather elements in the Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning storyline while also noting that the Broncos have not won at Foxborough during the Manning era.

Source: Statmilk

Nevertheless, that would ignore the fact that Denver has fundamentally morphed into a different type of squad.  According to Pro-Football-Reference, the Broncos averaged 4.4 yards per rush and scored eight rushing touchdowns since C.J. Anderson took over as the starting back in Week 12.  Those numbers rank 11th and second in the league, respectively, over that span.

Source: Statmilk

Most importantly, the Broncos match up better with the Patriots than the 43-21 shellacking they took back in Week 9 would imply.  Like Baltimore, Denver has the ability to pressure Brady with edge-rushers DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller.  Unlike the Ravens, however, the Broncos can play press coverage to complement that rush, stymieing the quick-hitters and seam routes that kept the Pats offense afloat on Saturday.

The Broncos also shouldn't fret a potential Super Bowl rematch against Seattle, as they appeared to finally crack the code of the Seahawks' hybrid man-lurk schemes during their fourth-quarter comeback.  

Denver has the ingredients to topple both No. 1 seeds, but the odds don't suggest it is likely to do so.  Savvy bettors can exploit this gap between perception and reality, as this bet could pay off if the Broncos survive Sunday's contest against the Indianapolis Colts and see their odds shorten.