Philadelphia, PA
- The 57th Super Bowl kicks off in Arizona this weekend, and the Eagles are favored by the sportsbooks to take the title. For the duration of the regular season and postseason, this was not the case - while Kansas kicked off the season with 12.00 odds, and those odds have only narrowed since Philly was a mid-tier contender at 25.00 early on.
With the teams fixed in the Super Bowl itself, it's only now that Nick Sirianni’s men are blessed with the title of favorites. Out of the 56 deciders that have been played since the inaugural Super Bowl, the favorite has won 39 times. So what has made the sportsbooks switch their selection?
As the chart below will show, it’s not a gaping chasm of favoritism - 1.5 points spread can be beaten with little issue. Yet crypto bettors keen to take the best odds available at sites like Cloudbet will certainly take note of stats like the above, and the Eagles are more likely to get the backing as a result. The question, for anyone who has been following casually, or has been focused primarily on their own team, is why the sportsbooks have decided that the Eagles are the number one contender. It’s a good question, so let’s have a look at some answers.
One Team Has Cruised To The Finish; The Other Has Battled
While Chiefs fans have been glued to their TVs throughout their playoff run, most Eagles fans could have made progress on a good book or brushed up on learning a language in the second half of each of their games. While the Eagles were downing the Giants 38-7 and then posting a similarly comfortable 31-7 win over San Francisco, the Chiefs were 27-20 winners over Jacksonville and needed a last-second field goal to eliminate the Bengals in the AFC Championship, 23-20. This means, among other things, that the Eagles haven’t needed to reveal half as much of their hand as their opponents in this game and can approach it more confidently.
Mahomes Is Still At Least A Little Banged Up
Bettors keen to take advantage of Cloudbet’s highly efficient crypto betting platform will do well to keep in mind that Patrick Mahomes still isn’t fully recovered from an ankle sprain sustained against the Jaguars. That means he played a full game against the Bengals while injured. And yes, he won that game, even peeling off a first down on a long run late in the fourth quarter to keep a game-winning drive going. But the Eagles got here due in part to a fearsome pass rush, and they could make that ankle a problem if they can hit or hurry Mahomes. From Mahomes’ point of view, the ankle feels better than it did, but it still isn’t 100%
More Game-breaking Targets
If Philly can keep Travis Kelce covered (and it’s a big if), they could well throttle the Kansas offense, but their counterparts will have a harder time doing the same to them. Philly’s wide receivers AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith are a potent one-two punch that will be difficult to guard against. With decades of odds-making experience, Cloudbet knows as well as anyone that this advantage, combined with the consistent running game provided by Miles Sanders, will present the Chiefs and Andy Reid with constant questions, and that could be what decides the game.
