2021 AFC Championship Betting - NFL Odds

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2021 AFC Championship Betting

Ding dong, the king is dead. Most pundits are heaping dirt onto the New England Patriots’ incredible run in the AFC after the departure of Tom Brady this offseason. The Patriots are no longer the favorites to win the AFC East according to the NFL futures odds, and whoever lines up under center will have enormous shoes to fill.

Kansas City and Baltimore are the co-favorites to win the AFC, and no other team has odds of less than 10-1 to win the conference. The Chiefs and Ravens are led by the last two NFL MVPs, and they were the top two teams in the AFC last season.

AFC Championship Futures Odds

Kansas City Chiefs +240

Baltimore Ravens +245

New England Patriots +1050

Buffalo Bills +1220

Indianapolis Colts +1225

Cleveland Browns +1306

Pittsburgh Steelers +1600

Tennessee Titans +1760

Los Angeles Chargers +2100

Denver Broncos +3400

Houston Texans +4250

Las Vegas Raiders +4650

New York Jets +5500

Cincinnati Bengals +7000

Miami Dolphins +8000

Jacksonville Jaguars +17000

Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson are the two most dynamic quarterbacks in the NFL today, and their teams are loaded with talent on both sides of the ball. Kansas City had one of the league’s best offenses even though Mahomes missed multiple games because of injury, while Jackson had a record-setting year by smashing Michael Vick’s record for rushing yards by a quarterback. There is a clear gap between these two teams and everyone else in the AFC.

There are six teams bunched together in the next tier of contenders, but they all have flaws. Indianapolis is seen as the team most likely to upend the two favorites, yet no one is sure how Philip Rivers will perform since he will turn 39 in December. The Bills have an excellent defense and a smart coach, but Josh Allen looms large, and anyone that believed in Cleveland last season is hesitant to put faith in the Browns after a 6-10 campaign in 2019.

Denver is the team with the most potential outside of the main contenders. The Broncos have the makings of a very good defense, and the receiving corps stands to be much better with the addition of Jerry Jeudy and K.J. Hamler. Melvin Gordon III gives the squad a playmaking running back, and Drew Lock looked sharp over the last month of his rookie season.

AFC Winners (2000)

The AFC has been all about runs of dominance in its history. First, it was Don Shula's Dolphins, who won three straight conference championships in the early-1970s. Then, the Steel Curtain that went on to win four AFC Championships and four Super Bowls during the latter half of that decade. Buffalo was more impressive than Pittsburgh with a record four straight AFC titles, but the Bills famously failed to win a single Super Bowl in the early 1990s.

New England is the first team to rule the conference for two decades. The Patriots’ run of success under Bill Belichick and Tom Brady was mind boggling. They appeared in eight straight AFC Championship Games and this franchise made it to that stage 13 times from 2001 to 2018. Despite that run, the Pats haven’t been to the most conference title games. That distinction belongs to the Steelers, who dropped to 8-8 all-time in the AFC Championship by losing to the Pats in 2016.

AFC Championship Results by Team

More than half of the 50 AFC Championships that have been awarded since the merger between the AFL and NFL have been won by either New England, Pittsburgh, or Denver. The Patriots became the first team in league history to win 10 conference championships in the middle of their three-peat from 2016 to 2018, and they have gone on to win six Super Bowl titles.

Four AFC teams have never won a conference championship. Jacksonville, Houston, Cleveland, and the New York Jets have yet to make it to the Super Bowl, and the Texans haven’t even been to an AFC Championship Game in their 18-year history.

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