The Lions Were Super Bowl Favorites. Now They Need a Christmas Miracle.
Detroit entered the 2025 season at +1200 to win the Super Bowl. Today, on Christmas, those odds sit at +12000. That’s a tenfold collapse in less than four months.
The Lions play the Vikings this afternoon in a game they must win to keep their playoff hopes alive. Even then, they need the Packers to lose their final two games. Their playoff probability sits at roughly 6%. For a team that was supposed to challenge for a championship, this is a cautionary tale about betting on preseason favorites.
Where It Went Wrong
Detroit’s 8-7 record doesn’t tell the full story. The Lions have alternated wins and losses for most of the season, never building momentum. They’ve lost three of their last four, including a crushing defeat to Pittsburgh in Week 16 where they had first-and-goal from the 1-yard line with under 25 seconds left and failed to score.
The betting market has noticed. Detroit is 1-5 ATS in their last six games. The public kept backing them as a “good team going through a rough patch,” and the market kept making them pay.
This is classic perception lag. The Lions’ reputation as a contender persisted long after their performance stopped justifying it. Bettors who anchored to preseason expectations kept laying points on a team that couldn’t cover.
The Christmas Day Situation
Detroit opened as a 5.5-point road favorite against Minnesota. That line has climbed to -6 or -7 at some books after J.J. McCarthy was ruled out with a hand injury. Max Brosmer, who threw four interceptions in his only start, will quarterback the Vikings.
On paper, this looks like a spot to back Detroit. The Lions are desperate, the Vikings are eliminated, and Brosmer is inexperienced. The public reasoning writes itself.
But consider the contrarian data points:
The Vikings have won three straight. Their defense hasn’t allowed a touchdown in two of those games. Minnesota beat Detroit 27-24 back in Week 9. And the Lions’ offensive line is decimated by injuries, with multiple starters listed as questionable.
Meanwhile, Detroit is 1-5 ATS in their last six. Road favorites in must-win situations often underperform because the spread already prices in their desperation. The market knows the Lions need this game. The line reflects that need.
The Broader Lesson
The Lions’ season illustrates a core contrarian principle: preseason favorites carry inflated expectations all year. When the public believes a team is “elite,” that belief persists through losing streaks, close losses, and mounting evidence to the contrary.
Detroit’s Super Bowl odds have dropped from +1200 to +12000. That’s a 90% decrease in implied probability. But the ATS record suggests the betting market was slow to adjust. The public kept backing the Lions while the sharps moved on.
According to VegasInsider, Detroit’s odds represent the 15th-biggest change among all NFL teams this year. That kind of movement doesn’t happen to teams that were properly priced in September. It happens to teams the market overvalued.
What Today’s Game Tells Us
If Detroit wins and covers, it doesn’t vindicate the preseason hype. It means they showed up in a game they had to have. That’s survival, not validation.
If Detroit loses or fails to cover, it confirms what the public betting trends have suggested for weeks: the Lions were never the team the market believed them to be. The preseason price was wrong, and anyone who faded them in November and December found value.
Either way, the lesson is the same. Preseason favorites carry a tax. The public pays it all year. And when the collapse comes, it comes fast.
Merry Christmas to the contrarians who saw it coming.