“Jeopardy!” champion James Holzhauer, who makes his living as a professional gambler, says to stay away from the Cleveland Browns hype.
“They’re probably the single worst bet to win the Super Bowl right now,” Holzhauer told Peter King’s “Football Morning in America.”
Holzhauer, who won $2.46 million in a 33-episode run, said last year’s Super Bowls teams, the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams, are the smart but boring picks to win the championship.
King also talked to Holzhauer about his “Jeopardy!” fame, love of grape soda and other football betting strategies (which include picking the teams that land the bye during the playoffs).
Here’s Holzhauer’s quick take on next year’s Super Bowl contenders:
“If I had to pick a team or two to make it to the Super Bowl, win the Super Bowl, the boring answer is the Patriots and the Rams. Everyone knows these guys are the best teams out there. But if you’re looking to invest in a futures ticket, I would say that the big thing to avoid is look away from the teams that have all the hype surrounding them. I can’t believe we live in a world where the Cleveland Browns are the most-hyped team in the preseason. But I would say they’re probably the single worst bet to win the Super Bowl right now.”
The sports books are in agreement. VegasInsider.com lists the Browns, along with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys, at 20-1 odds to win the next Super Bowl, putting them ahead of most of the league, but still far from the best odds. The Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs have the best odds at 6-1.
But the Browns, who finished 7-8-1 in 2018, have been the hot storyline this offseason. Second-year quarterback Baker Mayfield is expected to flourish in an offense stocked with weapons, including recently acquired wide receivers Odell Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry.
But the Browns are coming off an 11th-straight losing season and haven’t made the playoffs since 2002.
Not everyone, including the Trib’s Mark Madden, is buying the hype. Madden wrote: “The Cleveland Browns, meantime, are bolstered by hype worthy of the Backstreet Boys in the ’90s. It is gratuitous. It is loud. It is nonstop, and it is annoying.”
