The Bills are on a roll. Their Week 1 victory over the Texans was followed up with a high-scoring Thursday Night Football win against the Lions at the brand-new Highmark Stadium.
Yes, Buffalo has conceded 62 points in the opening two games. However, at this stage of the season, many would argue that it is all about getting wins on the board. Defensive improvements can be worked on.
Buffalo is doing the thing that makes prediction markets nervous, which is winning in a way that looks repeatable. A team that scores in bunches and controls games early tends to pull its title number up fast. By mid-September, the majority of the crowd has decided the Bills are a top-tier price. The question our video keeps circling is whether that price is right.
Current AFC Championship Odds
Here's how the AFC's top-10 teams shape up as we head into the weekend's slate of games, following Buffalo's win.
| Team | % Chance of Winning AFC (Kalshi) |
|---|---|
| Buffalo Bills | 22% |
| Baltimore Ravens | 16% |
| Kansas City Chiefs | 14% |
| Cincinnati Bengals | 9% |
| Houston Texans | 8% |
| Jacksonville Jaguars | 8% |
| New England Patriots | 8% |
| Denver Broncos | 7% |
| Los Angeles Chargers | 7% |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | 3% |
The Bills have truly broken from the pack. Yes, they have played one additional game and therefore recorded one additional win, but there's is no denying their AFC Championship credentials this season.
Where does Thursday leave the Lions?
Detroit is the more interesting trade, and not because the Lions are secretly great. A slow start against a hard schedule reads as decline to a market that just watched them win a lot last year, so the panic gets baked in before the sample is large enough to mean much.
In reality, it is not time for panic in the Detroit camp. Jared Goff has quietly kept producing through it. He put up 327 yards and four touchdowns in a recent outing, which is not the stat line of a quarterback whose offense has fallen apart.
The pattern worth watching is the gap between how a team looks and how it trades. Buffalo looks like a favorite and is priced like one, which leaves little room to be right in a way that pays.
On the other hand, Detroit looks a little shaky and is priced like it, which is exactly the setup where a market overcorrects on three weeks of noise. If the Lions are merely fine rather than finished, the value sits on the side almost nobody wants to hold in September. The Lions at 5% to win the NFC is worth keeping an eye on.