Hi everyone, and welcome back to my weekly sports betting mailbag with MLive. We have officially reached the post-Super Bowl time of year. In the past, I would say off-season, but with the NFL Combine and NFL Draft on the horizon, I now refer to it as the NFL’s “other season.” Now, lets dive into our first mailbag question.

Hi Ben,

What a season it was to be a Lions fan. Some say, don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

But when you give up 27 straight points and mismanage the clock in the NFC Championship game, the last thing I want to do is smile.

FanDuel and DraftKings both have the Lions at +1200 to win next year’s Super Bowl. Is there value here?

-Trevor from Bloomfield Hills

It’s several weeks later and I’m still trying to figure out how the Lions lost that game, but ultimately those big games come down to a few plays and a couple of mistakes — and the Jahymr Gibbs fumble was the turning point when the momentum completely shifted in the NFC Championship Game.

I would wait at least through free agency and the 2024 NFL draft before placing a futures bet on the Lions, because I want to see if they can fortify their defense, and I also like to see a team’s schedule. In a segment on ESPN’s Get Up, NFL analyst was very bullish on Jared Goff and the Detroit Lions for 2024.

If Detroit has difficult opponents to begin the season, for example, and you still believe in them over the longer term of the season, it may be prudent to bet them after they struggle a bit early on and get a better number. Or if they have an easy schedule to start, you’ll know you might want to bet them now because it could be the best number you see.

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