Steve Davis: Vegas Not Buying Ravens
Vegas has the latest odds after the Super Bowl for next year's Super Bowl. Seattle is a 9-2 shot to repeat. Then San Fran at 15-2, with Denver the third choice at 8-1. After that, there is New England, Green Bay and New Orleans.
It is not a surprise that Vegas would think more highly of those teams than the Ravens, nor is it a surprise that Philly, KC and Indy have better odds, or even, in the next batch Cincy and Carolina.
Then it gets interesting, if not a tad insulting. Vegas has Atlanta, coming off a terrible year, and Detroit, which hasn't won a playoff game since Eisenhower was President, both at better odds than the Ravens.
The Ravens are at 40-1, are you ready for this, tied with the Redskins and Texans. That's right, 2 teams that had 3 and 2 wins respectively and fired their coaches.
Don't be mad at Vegas, everybody. Vegas knows what it is doing. When we all were blind homers picking the Ravens to win 11 or 12 games last year, Vegas had them at 8.5.
Now this doesn't mean I am down on the Ravens. To me, what it says, is that Vegas believes, as the roster is presently constructed, the Ravens won't be very good. That means, if you think Vegas knows what it is talking about, that Ozzie better not tweak the roster, he better be ready to change the roster, making some significant and dynamic moves.
