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Falcons Super Bowl hangover? Not this season. Atlanta should be an even better team than last year’s NFC champs. The only bad news is they’ll no longer be under the radar despite five other NFL teams having shorter odds of winning Super Bowl 52. The Falcons odds of winning the Super Bowl were set at 15/1.
The Falcons are the favorites to win the NFC South at 2/1, slightly better than Carolina at +220. They are favorites priced at -130 to win OVER 9.5 compared to EVEN on the UNDER.
The good news for Atlanta is that they continued adding pieces to their front seven, according to Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com.
While Atlanta's speedy young defense jelled in time for its postseason run, it's also worth noting that the Falcons weren't a very good defense for most of the season. They finished the season 27th in DVOA and 29th against the run, a problem teams weren't able to exploit because the dominant Atlanta offense kept getting out to leads.
It also helps that the Falcons used their first-round pick on UCLA edge rusher Takkarist McKinley, who should be part of a deep rotation at defensive end.
“We've got such a kick-ass opportunity ahead of us,” Falcons head coach Dan Quinn told USA TODAY Sports on Thursday after his team’s first training camp practice. “We didn't want to lose sight of that by looking back.”
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- Don Shapiro, Gambling911.com
