Major League Baseball teams play 162 regular-season games, while NBA and NHL clubs play 82. Thus, a regular-season result between two championship contenders doesn’t carry much if any weight in those leagues. There are too many games for one to make a difference in futures odds, plus NBA and NHL teams play every other team in the league at least twice.

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

One might think it’s different in the NFL, which has just 16 regular-season games. Every team plays 10 different opponents once and then the other three foes in the same division twice. So, one victory should carry a ton of weight, especially against a non-division club.

Yet as we look at the odds to win Super Bowl LIII, the Los Angeles Rams are +325 favorites. Hard to argue against that considering the Rams were the last team to lose in 2018, but they are ahead of the team that beat them: The red-hot New Orleans Saints (+400). If the Rams and Saints finish with the same regular-season record, New Orleans would get to host a potential playoff game between the two. That’s big.