Patriots Super Bowl Champion Picks This Team As AFC Dark Horse

The NFL playoffs kick off this weekend starting with the wild-card round, and there are plenty of contenders to pick from for the Super Bowl.

The list of AFC contenders are headlined by the Chiefs, Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals. Kansas City is the No. 1 seed and have a first-round bye, and it is the favorite to come out of the conference, according to oddsmakers, as a +170 favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook. This means a $100 bet would pay out $270.

The NFL gave the Chiefs’ potential path a new wrinkle by naming Mercedes-Benz Stadium as the host of a potential AFC Championship Game should it feature Kansas City against Buffalo. New England Patriots Super Bowl champion and NESN Bets analyst LeGarrette Blount has a clear favorite in the conference, and he had a dark horse to offer, as well.

“I like the Chiefs to come out on top,” Blount told Claudia Bellofatto, host of NESN’s “Ultimate Betting Show on Wednesday. “(Patrick) Mahomes is the guy that breaks the deal on everyone else. I know Josh Allen is great. Burrow is great. (Justin) Herbert is great. All of those guys are really good football players, quarterbacks.

“But I just think Mahomes stands alone in that category in the sense of what he can do and what he brings to the table. Obviously, being in the Super Bowl and winning one time and losing one time, he has the most experience of all these guys. Obviously, Joe Burrow went last year. But if I had to choose anybody out of the AFC, it’d be the Kansas City Chiefs, and my dark horse is gonna be the Chargers.”

Los Angeles has +1000 odds to win the AFC and +2000 odds to win the Super Bowl. This means a $100 bet pays out $1,100 and $2,100, respectively.

The Chargers will begin their path to the Super Bowl on Saturday when they take on the Jacksonville Jaguars.