NFL Week 8: Aliens are more realistic than your team winning a championship

Last weekend, the Seattle Seahawks held Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs to three points. The Dallas Cowboys beat the Philadelphia Eagles by 17. And the previously undefeated San Francisco 49ers lost to the Atlanta Falcons.

Just another NFL weekend, where everything you thought you knew about football was proven wrong by a man wearing a headset and holding a laminated menu.

Which brings us to a more serious question: Are we alone in the universe?

The U.S. government has spent decades avoiding a straight answer. Football fans have spent decades asking similar questions of their team's owners. The question is, who will break first?

According to Kalshi's market on official U.S. confirmation of extraterrestrial life, traders are pricing the chance of an announcement before January 1, 2027 at 4.9%.

(For the latest odds, visit Kalshi's NFL hub.)

^{For informational purposes only. Not trading advice. See full disclaimer below. Kalshi is not affiliated with the NFL.}

Meanwhile, in the NFL championship market, at least 21 NFL teams are sitting below that number.

That's right. The federal government has a better chance of introducing us to intelligent beings from another galaxy than the New York Jets have of winning it all.

Although, to be fair, even the most hardened Jets fans came to terms with this reality a while ago.

The alien market offers a few interesting possibilities:

For our purposes, we're using 4.9% as the dividing line.

Yes, there's a technical distinction. The government has until New Year's Day to announce the existence of aliens, while NFL teams have until February 14 to win the championship. The league gets six additional weeks to settle things, but like a questionable roughing the passer call on Patrick Mahomes, the gap is close enough to make the call.

Let's see who's in better shape.

Despite losing to Atlanta last week, the 49ers remain atop the championship market. Traders give San Francisco a 14% chance of winning it all, just shy of the 16% probability of the government confirming aliens before 2028.

For Kyle Shanahan, this presents an interesting choice: win the championship or establish diplomatic relations with another civilization. One would imagine the latter requires fewer fourth-quarter adjustments.

Buffalo has a 12% championship probability and a 24% chance of winning the AFC. That second number is identical to the probability of alien disclosure before January 20, 2029.

For a franchise that once lost four consecutive championships, the possibility of life elsewhere is particularly encouraging. Perhaps there's a planet where the Bills won one.

The Chiefs were held to three points by Seattle last Sunday, a performance that suggests the Seahawks might already possess technology unavailable to the rest of the league.

Still, traders have Kansas City at 9%. Patrick Mahomes remains dangerous, even if last weekend's offense looked like it had been abducted.

Chicago is 5-2. Seattle just dismantled Kansas City and climbed two percentage points in the championship market.

Both franchises are looking good. If an unidentified flying object lands at midfield during their Monday night game, the Seahawks will probably find a way to sack it.

The Jaguars are 4-2. The Rams are 3-4.

The Rams are priced at 7% to win the NFL championship, a point ahead of the Jaguars and Jacksonville Jesus, who are looking to the skies for a second-coming rather than an alien invasion.

Cincinnati's 35-13 victory over Baltimore last week pushed the Bengals up two points in the championship market.

The Ravens, meanwhile, are left to contemplate how a team can give up five consecutive touchdown drives after halftime.

Both remain above the alien line, though barely. One more bad Sunday and they may start wondering what else is out there.

The Broncos are 5-2, with traders giving them roughly the same championship probability as an announcement from Washington that we are not alone.

Denver's defense deserves credit. But when your season is being compared to a classified Pentagon file, nobody should feel entirely comfortable.

Minnesota is 6-0, the NFL's last unbeaten team, yet its displayed championship price is only 5%.

Six wins. Zero losses. Essentially tied with extraterrestrial disclosure.

At this point, Vikings fans might reasonably conclude that the market knows something about January similar to what the government knows about Area 51.

Here's where things get uncomfortable.

The Lions beat Green Bay last week and are 4-2. They're also below the alien line.

Detroit has never won a championship. At some point, a previously undiscovered civilization might be the only audience left that hasn't heard that fact.

The Patriots have won six championships. Unfortunately for their fans, the market appears more interested in the present than Tom Brady's old résumé.

Dallas beat Philadelphia 38-21 on Monday night, an impressive performance that pushed the Cowboys' record to 3-4.

Traders remain unimpressed.

At 3%, Dallas is less likely to win the championship than the government is to confirm extraterrestrial life before the end of the year.

Somewhere, Jerry Jones is preparing to announce that the Cowboys have had a very productive meeting with representatives from another galaxy. He plans to sign them to a bloated contract with a no-trade clause.

Green Bay is 5-3 after beating Carolina on Thursday night.

Five wins and a 3% championship probability. The Packers may need to start winning games against better opponents, or at least stop giving the ball away three times while doing it.

Atlanta handed San Francisco its first loss, then returned to the championship market and discovered that traders were only marginally more impressed.

The Falcons have a 2% chance of winning the championship. The team they just beat has a 14% chance.

There's probably a lesson here about consistency, but Atlanta fans would prefer not to hear it.

Houston fell to 2-5 after losing to the Giants in overtime.

The Texans have never reached a championship. Apparently, the market thinks the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence is a more immediate possibility than changing that.

The Giants beat Houston and are now 4-2-1.

That record usually suggests a reasonably competent football team. Their championship probability suggests the market has seen enough of the Giants to reserve judgment.

Pittsburgh is 5-2 and just beat New Orleans in Paris.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that traders assign the Steelers the same championship probability as Houston, a team with five losses.

Perhaps the Steelers should stay in France. The food is better and nobody there seems particularly concerned about their championship prospects.

Thirteen NFL teams are currently priced below 1% to win the championship.

For perspective, traders assign a 1% chance that the U.S. government confirms the existence of aliens before November 1.

That's this weekend.

The New York Jets (less than 1%) are 2-5 and just lost to the Dolphins. Their last championship victory came in January 1969, six months before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

Since then, humans have landed spacecraft on Mars, discovered thousands of planets beyond our solar system and invented the internet.

The Jets have been somewhat less productive.

The Cleveland Browns (less than 1%) are an especially interesting case. They're 5-2, which generally qualifies as a good start. Nevertheless, traders give them less than a 1% chance of winning the championship.

Imagine winning five of your first seven games and being told that the government is more likely to unveil aliens before Sunday.

The Browns don't have to imagine.

The Los Angeles Chargers (less than 1%) are 0-6. Even people who have never watched football can probably understand this one.

The Las Vegas Raiders (less than 1%) are 3-4. Their championship hopes have apparently entered witness protection.

The Miami Dolphins (less than 1%) beat the Jets last week, an accomplishment that looks considerably less impressive when you remember who they beat.

The Tennessee Titans (less than 1%) are 1-6. It's probably best not to involve NASA in this discussion. Those people have enough problems.

The Arizona Cardinals (less than 1%), Indianapolis Colts (less than 1%) and New Orleans Saints (less than 1%) join the group. Three franchises with little reason to begin making February travel arrangements.

The Carolina Panthers (less than 1%) lost to Green Bay on Thursday, while the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (less than 1%) remain stuck there despite scoring 43 points against Carolina the previous week.

Then we have the Philadelphia Eagles (less than 1%) and Washington Commanders (less than 1%).

Philadelphia lost by 17 to Dallas, which brings us to a rather alarming conclusion: the Eagles just got blown out by a team whose championship chances are themselves lower than the probability of an alien announcement.

Washington is 1-4-1. At least the Commanders have demonstrated that football games can end without anyone winning. They may have to build on that concept.

For those lucky enough to support a team above the 4.9% line, the alien market provides a few additional comparisons.

Consider what this means for San Francisco. Traders see its championship chances as roughly equal to the likelihood that the United States government announces the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence sometime in the next fourteen months.

And San Francisco leads the board.

There are still several months of football left. Teams will recover from injuries, quarterbacks will get hot and somebody nobody currently expects will probably make a postseason run.

As for the aliens, who knows?

They may be watching us already.

If so, somebody should explain the Jets.

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