FOXBORO -- The Patriots must not have impressed Bovada with their play in the preseason.
For the first time since Bovada released its Super Bowl odds back in February, Bill Belichick's club is not the favorite to hoist the Lombardi Trophy in Houston at the end of this season. Their odds of winning a fifth title are now 7/1, whereas back in early July their odds sat at 6/1.
The Packers have surpassed the Patriots as favorites to win it all, with their odds jumping from 17/2 in July to now 6/1. The Seahawks have the third-best odds (9/1) followed by the Cardinals, Panthers and Steelers at 10/1.
Bovada did not initially alter New England's odds of winning the Super Bowl immediately following the news that Tom Brady would accept his four-game suspension for Deflategate.
"Even though Tom Brady will be suspended for the first four games of the season it has not really affected the Patriots Super Bowl odds for a variety of reasons," Bovada manager Kevin Bradley said in a statement at the time. "First, they have a fairly easy first four matchups with the exception of playing on the road in Arizona, which would have been a tough game even if Brady was playing. Also, considering how weak their division is they are still -200 favorites to win it as there is no obvious threat. Lastly, when we went through this situation last year we raised the Patriots odds with the suspension news to around 10-1 and saw a ton of money on them even though people assumed Brady was not going to be playing the first four games, so we will not make that same mistake again."
Moving Patriots odds from 6/1 to 7/1 is far from a dramatic shift, but it's something, and it may be an ever-so-subtle indication of how Bovada feels Brady's team will perform without him.