It’s never too early to start thinking about football!  With the NFL Draft coming up this weekend, we thought it would be a good time to start looking at who is favored to win the AFC Championship in 2008.  The Patriots are back as the odds-on favorite to win their half of the NFL with the Chargers and Colts coming just behind them.  Those three teams come as no surprise.  They were the best teams last season and they return the majority of their core players.  The rest of the list is strikingly similar to last year’s predictions by Vegas, with teams like the Dolphins, Raiders, and Chiefs at the bottom of the list.  The only team that appears to have impressed lines makers are the Cleveland Browns, who didn’t see a huge jump after their impressive 2007 season, but did go from 20 to 1 to 16 to 1, which is the biggest increase by any team in the AFC, so they are at least headed in the right direction.  The two teams that I really like on this list are the Indianapolis Colts and the Jacksonville Jaguars.  I honestly think they have just as good of a chance to win the AFC as the Pats or Chargers, but with better odds.  The Jags are particularly attractive at 17 to 2 (or bet $100 to win $850).  They are the team that always seems to be on the cusp of breaking through to the Super Bowl and 2008 might just be their year!  Here’s a look at the rest of the odds in the AFC for the 2008/2009 NFL season as posted at BetUS.com:

Odds To win the AFC Championship:
New England Patriots:  3/2
San Diego Chargers:  9/2
Indianapolis Colts:  5/1
Jacksonville Jaguars:  17/2
Pittsburgh Steelers:  12/1
Cleveland Browns:  16/1
Tennessee Titans:  20/1
Denver Broncos:  22/1
Cincinnati Bengals:  22/1
Baltimore Ravens:  25/1
Houston Texans:  30/1
Buffalo Bills:  45/1
New York Jets:  60/1
Miami Dolphins:  66/1
Kansas City Chiefs:  66/1
Oakland Raiders:  100/1

More NFL Futures Odds at BetUS.com

Popularity: 12% [?]

Game Time:  Saturday, April 5th - 8:45 PM ET
Pick:  North Carolina -3 vs Kansas
If you’ve watched these teams play, you’ve seen how good they both really are.  The reason North Carolina gets the edge is consistency.  Kansas is a hot-cold team as we all saw against Davidson, and though they managed to pull out the victory based purely on superior talent, they won’t have that luxury against UNC.  The Jayhawks almost certainly have more players that will end up in the NBA, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the better college basketball team.  I guess you could say that I see North Carolina as more of an elite team and Kansas more of five individuals on the court with a few elite players.  Look, I realize that I’m on the bandwagon here as over 70% of the betting world has picked the Tar Heels to cover the three point spread.  However, one thing I’ve noticed throughout the years is that the public struggles mightily during regular season games in all sports, but in the big prime time events they fair significantly better, particularly when the spread is so low.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Game time:  Saturday, April 5th - 6:05 PM ET
Pick:  UCLA +2 vs Memphis
Memphis looks to be the better team in this match up on paper.  Their problem is that, of course, basketball is not played on paper, it’s played on the hardwood.  I still have a problem with Memphis accumulating their stats for the season in Conference USA.  My contention is that UCLA would earn at least as good of stats as Memphis if they were to play in Conference USA while I do not think Memphis could match UCLA’s numbers in the PAC 10.  What I’m really saying here is that I see UCLA as the better team.  I can tell you right now that Memphis has impressed me throughout this tournament.  It’s not that I didn’t think they could make it to the Final Four, it’s just that I did not expect them to dominate teams like Texas and Michigan State like they did.  UCLA has done pretty much what everyone thought they would do.  They play some of the best defense in the nation and they’ve dominated the teams you’d expect them to.  It probably sounds like a broken record at this point since it’s been said so many times, but the difference in this game will come from the Bruins’ defense.  You basically have to pick a side.  You’ve got a Memphis team that has been virtually unstoppable on offense, against the UCLA team that has held three of their last four NCAA tournament opponents under 60 points.  Match that stat with the fact that UCLA has been able to play with high-octane offenses throughout the season and you’ve got a real winning combination.

Popularity: 13% [?]