Updated Odds to Win the 2018 AFC Championship

When the season started, there were 16 teams in the NFL’s American Football Conference with at least a mathematical chance to contend for the postseason. Now that we’re at the start of the postseason, though, that list has been pared down to six. The four division winners were the New England Patriots (East), Pittsburgh Steelers (North), Kansas City Chiefs (West) and the Jacksonville Jaguars (South) with the Tennessee Titans and the Buffalo Bills taking the two wild card slots. The Patriots and the Steelers have earned a bye week and will host winners from the wild card rounds next week in the divisional rounds. As you consider your NFL betting for the playoffs, let’s look at the AFC Championship odds for each of these six teams to make it to Super Bowl LII.

Updated Odds to Win the 2018 AFC Championship

Some #TBT on @gmfb. Revisiting past playoff games from the AFC teams playing this weekend! pic.twitter.com/QswZ5Pa0Go

— NFL Network (@nflnetwork) January 5, 2018

New England Patriots

AFC Championship Odds: -135 And why wouldn’t they be the favorites? They started the season 2-2 but finished atop the AFC and in a tie with Philadelphia for the best record in the league. Those defensive woes crop up now and then, as the Patriots have a hard time with coverage in their secondary. However, their offense, led by the seemingly ageless Tom Brady, digs them out of holes time and time again. A wealth of running backs — Dion Lewis, Rex Burkhead, and James White — and wideouts such as Brandin Cooks, Chris Hogan and Danny Amendola (and don’t forget tight end Rob Gronkowski) give Brady a number of different targets. If you want to beat the Patriots, you have to figure out how to harass Brady before he can get set up — and few quarterbacks release the ball as quickly as he does. You also have to be ready to put up a lot of points.

Pittsburgh Steelers

AFC Championship Odds: +260 The Steelers had the Patriots right where they wanted them in their regular-season matchup — until the Patriots scored a late touchdown. Then, though, the Steelers had a couple of plays to move the ball down in easy field-goal range. They threw one pass that they thought was a touchdown, but the replay officials overturned it as an incompletion. Then they threw a backbreaking interception when a field goal would have forced overtime. The Patriots have bested the Steelers time and time again in crunch time, and even though the Steelers also have a powerful offense, their own woes in pass coverage mean that another collapse is just as likely in the AFC title game — which would be in New England if the two met.

Kansas City Chiefs

AFC Championship Odds: +900 This number would have been a lot lower if we had run the odds after Week One, when the Chiefs rolled through New England in a rout. The Chiefs got off to a 5-0 start — and then lost seven of eight — before finishing on a 4-0 run. During that drought, the offense basically disappeared, but the talented trio of quarterback Alex Smith, tailback Kareem Hunt and wideout Tyreek Hill have returned to give the Chiefs a terrific attack once again. However, their defense has not looked quite as solid since that first third of the season. Which Chiefs will show up in the playoffs?

Jacksonville Jaguars

AFC Championship Odds: +900 This team may be the biggest enigma of the six postseason teams. When quarterback Blake Bortles is on, he leads an offense that is difficult to stop, and he has the talented Leonard Fournette carrying the ball for him. However, the interception machine known as Blake Bortles showed up in a big way in the last two weeks, as he threw four interceptions just in those two contests — both Jaguar losses. He has to have better ball security for the Jaguars even to win their postseason opener.

Tennessee Titans

AFC Championship Odds: +4000 If the Titans get through Kansas City, then things would get interesting…unless their next game would be at New England. Marcus Mariota is an impressive quarterback who has struggled through a tough season, with a nagging hamstring injury and a propensity to throw interceptions. That may result from a lack of comfort in the pocket stemming from that injury, but no matter what the cause, he’s not doing the same job that he did last year. The Titans’ defense is decent, but without DeMarco Murray to carry the ball, the offense won’t have enough balance to make it very far.

Buffalo Bills

AFC Championship Odds: +4000 Did you know that the City of Jacksonville has banned the sale of folding tables to people without Florida state IDs? The table collapsing craze that has gone viral in Buffalo may well be heading south to the Sunshine State. The Bills are in the postseason for the first time since 1999, even though their coach benched their starting quarterback in a disastrous experiment in the middle of the season. This is a team that won at Kansas City and has an opportunistic defense. Can they take advantage of a Jacksonville team that seems to be caught in a mini-swoon? Can Tre’Davious White get a pick-six from Bortles? Of the four home teams in the wild card round, the Jaguars may be the most nervous. But even if the Bills pull off that upset, there’s no way they get through the next two rounds to play for the Lombardi Trophy. Their offense is too predictable.