Joe Burrow at Paycor Stadium - Source: Unsplash
Three Underdogs That Could Upset the Odds in the NFL in 2026
Back in 2022, the Los Angeles Rams famously lifted the Lombardi Trophy on home turf at SoFi Stadium, with Cooper Kupp's last-gasp touchdown securing a 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals at Super Bowl LVI. Fast forward to the 2026 season, and next February's Big Game returns to SoFi, and once again, it's the Rams who are the betting favorites to reign supreme in their home stadium.
You can already picture it: Matthew Stafford walking into his stadium on Super Bowl Sunday, knowing he doesn't have to go anywhere. The game comes to him. The Rams restructured their roster around an MVP quarterback this offseason and then added Myles Garrett — fresh off breaking the NFL single-season sack record — and Trent McDuffie to a defense already built to strangle opponents. A Stafford-Nacua-Adams offence that led the league in scoring, now protected by the most terrifying pass rusher in football. The latest betting odds reflect all of that.
The Rams were already the favorite even before Garrett entered the building. Now, the latest Super Bowl LXI odds from 5Gringos online sportsbook position them as a mightily short +550 frontrunner. But here's what that dominance actually creates: a market so fixated on the Rams that three teams are being underpriced at the exact moment they've made the moves most likely to matter in January.
Cincinnati Bengals: +2200
The Cincinnati Bengals shocked the world when they reached that 2022 Super Bowl against the Rams, only to see a maiden Lombardi Trophy slip through their fingers in the fourth quarter. In the four years since then, Joe Burrow has absorbed the consequences of a defense that wasn't just bad, but historically, embarrassingly inept.
Offensive coordinators around the league didn't scheme against Cincinnati's front seven so much as exploit it on autopilot. Burrow went down in Week 2 of 2025, returned in Week 13 to a 3-8 team, dragged them to 6-11 with a 5-3 stretch run, and still the defense finished the year ranked 31st in the NFL.
That was the Bengals in 2025. A broken machine. Offensively elite, defensively catastrophic, emotionally fraying around the edges of a franchise that kept drafting receivers and hoping the defense figured itself out. It didn't.
So, this spring, the front office finally admitted what needed admitting and made the most uncharacteristic move in franchise history, trading away their tenth overall pick for Dexter Lawrence. Not a rotational piece. A top-10 defensive player in the NFL, acquired from the Giants and immediately extended. Sexy Dexy commands attention from the center and the guard simultaneously, creating the chess problem offensive coordinators suddenly have to solve.
The edge threat they've paired with him is Boye Mafe — eighth in pass-rush win rate among edge rushers in 2025, a Super Bowl champion who left Seattle to come to Cincinnati with something to prove. Jonathan Allen arrived with 45.5 career sacks across nearly a decade; Bryan Cook and Tacario Davis reinforced the secondary.
Burrow is 29. Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins are locked in. The defense that was letting this offence down for three consecutive playoff misses now has, at minimum, the bones of something legitimate. If it becomes even average, the offence carries them into January. It's that simple.
Houston Texans: +2500
Institutional accountability is an uncomfortable thing. The Texans allowed the fewest yards per game in the NFL in 2025 — 277.2 — ranked second in fewest points allowed, and won 10 consecutive games to close the regular season after losing their first three and absorbing a C.J. Stroud concussion at 3-5.
They were the most resilient team in the AFC. Then Stroud threw four interceptions in the divisional round, and everything collapsed. The defense hadn't failed. The structural protection around their quarterback had, catastrophically, and an organization that had watched it happen spent the entire offseason doing something about it.
Wyatt Teller, a three-time Pro Bowl guard. Offensive tackle Braden Smith. Georgia Tech guard Keylan Rutledge, acquired via a trade-up in the draft. Three offensive linemen in one offseason, each signed to address the specific exposure that January highlighted. Will Anderson Jr. — who led all qualified pass rushers in pressure rate at 21.0 percent with 12 sacks — locked down on a long-term extension. Danielle Hunter returned with 15 sacks and the seventh-best pressure rate in football. The defensive identity that carried this franchise in 2025 is intact.
DeMeco Ryans says Stroud is "dialled in" and in a "really good space." Whether you believe that depends on whether you think a 24-year-old quarterback who delivered ten consecutive regular-season wins learned something from January, or whether January revealed something permanent.
Stroud's fifth-year option for 2027 has been picked up. The front office believes. At +2500 — with arguably the NFL's most dominant defensive duo and an offensive line that has finally been rebuilt — it's worth believing with them.
Green Bay Packers: +2500
What Micah Parsons' ACL tear on a non-contact play in Week 15 did to Green Bay wasn't just end a football season. It left their entire postseason hopes in ruin. The Packers sat 9-3-1 with Parsons at 12.5 sacks in 14 games, Jordan Love quarterbacking a disciplined offence at a career-high 101.2 passer rating — 66.3 percent completions, 23 touchdowns, six interceptions — and a legitimate NFC championship argument being assembled in real time. Then came five consecutive losses, a Wild Card collapse to the Bears, and a winter of replaying a non-contact play that changed everything.
The response was structural. Jonathan Gannon was hired as defensive coordinator — the architect of the Eagles' defense that led the NFL with 70 sacks in 2022 and ranked first in pass defense — and Brian Gutekunst is expected to address cornerback aggressively in the draft to build around Parsons' return. Matt LaFleur has described Love's growth as a leader as "exceptional year-on-year." If there's any truth to that and if Parsons is back for Week 1, expect their +2500 odds to be slashed dramatically.