It took 1 game for FiveThirtyEight to double Vikings' Super Bowl odds
Dominating the Packers to start the season apparently carries quite a bit of weight in FiveThirtyEight's NFL predictions because after one game the Vikings have doubled their odds to win the Super Bowl.
Entering the season, FiveThirtyEight gave the Vikings a 3% chance to win the Super Bowl, which seems high considering it's never happened in 61 years as a franchise. But Sunday's 23-7 victory over Green Bay has doubled those odds to 6%.
It doesn't seem like much, but it's actually the fourth-highest chance in the NFL behind the Bills (16%), Buccaneers (13%) and Chiefs (11%). Coming in fifth is Minnesota's Week 2 opponent, the Eagles at 5%.
The Vikings play in Philly on Monday night.
In the betting world, the Vikings also improved their Super Bowl odds, going from +3500 to +2500. That's an improvement from having the 14th-best odds entering Week 1 to now holding the 12th-best odds, tied with the Bengals and Colts.
Despite getting thoroughly beaten by Minnesota, the Packers have +1300 odds, which is fourth best to win the Super Bowl.
If you're wondering how FiveThirtyEight creates its odds, here's an explainer:
How this works: This forecast is based on 50,000 simulations of the season and updates after every game. Our traditional model uses Elo ratings (a measure of strength based on head-to-head results and quality of opponent) to calculate teams’ chances of winning their regular-season games and advancing to and through the playoffs. Our quarterback-adjusted Elo model incorporates news reports to project likely starters for every upcoming game and uses our quarterback Elo ratings to adjust win probabilities for those games. A team’s current quarterback adjustment is based on its likely starter in its next game and how much better or worse that QB is than the team’s top starter. Full methodology »
Meanwhile, across town at Target Field where the Twins were swept by the Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota's chances of making the MLB playoffs are down to 7.3%, according to FanGraphs.
Related: Aaron Rodgers to Justin Jefferson: 'Best player in the game today'
Related: 5 things that stood out in the Vikings' win over the Packers
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.