The NFL gave the opener a story it didn't have to manufacture: the Super Bowl LX rematch, at Lumen Field, on the night Seattle hangs the banner from its 29-13 win over New England in February. It's a Wednesday kickoff this year — Thursday belongs to the Melbourne game — which somehow makes banner night feel even more like its own event.
The markets haven't crowned the champs for a repeat. Seattle trades at 6.5% to win it all — 3rd on the board — with 13% to win the NFC and a market-implied 10.0 wins. Strong numbers, but all of them sit behind the division-rival Rams, and the champion price is less than half of Los Angeles' 17.5%. Traders think the Seahawks are very good and think their division is a minefield, and both things can be true.
New England's offseason numbers are quietly bullish for a team that just lost a Super Bowl: 9.5 implied wins and 8.5% to win the AFC, tied with Kansas City for 4th in the conference market. Drake Maye is a top-5 name on both the MVP board (8%) and the fantasy QB board (10.5%) — the market's way of saying February wasn't a fluke run.
The market subplot: Seattle's receiver Jaxson Smith-Njigba carries a 5.6% MVP price — almost unheard of for a wideout — while Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker watches banner night from Kansas City, where he signed in March. A champion raising the flag without its Super Bowl MVP is its own kind of storyline. If you want one game that establishes how seriously to take both conference races, it's this one, 4 days before anyone else plays a snap that matters.