Every year, a team emerges as a trendy preseason Super Bowl pick. Do those squads usually succeed? Let's evaluate 20 recent candidates.

Green Bay Packers.

The league's youngest team was propelled forward by a remarkable stretch from Jordan Love, who led the league in QBR over the final seven weeks of the season. The Packers won six of their final eight to sneak into the postseason as the 7-seed, where they promptly embarrassed the Cowboys in Dallas, going up 27-0 before eventually winning by 16 points. They gave San Francisco a run for their money in the divisional round, too, as it took a late field goal miss by Anders Carlson and a touchdown run by Christian McCaffrey with 1:41 to go to give the 49ers a 24-21 victory.

The Packers' breakout, at least in terms of wins, just wasn't quite as impressive as most of the others we'll get to on this list. They had a 7.5-win projection heading into the season and went 9-8, albeit with many of those wins weighted later in the season. I'm optimistic about Green Bay this season and see it as a Super Bowl contender, but it would be getting much more in the way of Super Bowl hype if it had finished 11-6 instead.

Continue Reading @ ESPN 

ESPN wrote:

Do you get anxious/nervous when media pundits start yapping about Packers and Super Bowl? I mean, I enjoy the respect, but it's kind of like no no we like that chip on our shoulder! We like being under the radar! lol

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

It's cute they think we are SB bound after one year of rebuilding. I've already stated that next year will be our SB winning season. This year, we make the NFC ship game and lose.

Originally Posted by: bboystyle 

Sometimes teams win the Championship the year before you think they will, and then disappoint the year you thought they would be at their best.

I believe the Packers won the Superbowl as the 6th seed and then went, what 12-0? To start the next season and then disappointed in the playoffs.

Also I remember being surprised that one of the Ohio State coaches admitted basically the said thing, maybe it was Urban Meyers, at the start of the season he was thinking the next year they might have a great shot at the Championship, but then they won that year and struggled more in the year they were supposed to be at their best.


So it could potentially be this year, even if we think we're a year off.

Originally Posted by: beast