Super Bowl Underdogs Picks and Predictions: Best Bets Against the Spread

Sports betting was the NFL’s dirty little secret for decades, driving a massive underground, uber-engaged audience to gamble on the gridiron.

When coaches or players were asked to comment on the point spread, those answers often danced around the NFL odds. However, in today’s “brave new world” of NFL betting, with sportsbooks as the league’s biggest partners, it’s hard to turn a blind eye to what the oddsmakers think.

Those opinions aren’t lost on Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who knew very well what the spreads said about his team’s run to Super Bowl LVIII.

“We've been underdogs the last few games, but we never feel like underdogs,” Mahomes gladly told reporters following the AFC Championship win.

Kansas City certainly isn’t being bet like an underdog in the Super Bowl odds: The Chiefs opened as big as 3-point pups versus the San Francisco 49ers and dropped as low as +1 with a surge of early action on the underdog — a rarity for Big Game betting patterns (and one I touch on in my Chiefs vs. 49ers prediction).

Mahomes is right, as Kansas City never feels like an underdog, even when it’s getting the points. That has something to do with the team’s 11-3-1 ATS (10-5 SU) record since Mahomes took over as the Chiefs’ QB1 in 2018.

That propensity to fight back against the point spread projections is a big reason why my Super Bowl predictions for Super Bowl 58 are gladly taking the points with Kansas City for the second straight year.

Last week: 1-0 ATS

Season: 27-30-2 ATS

NFL Super Bowl picks and predictions

• Chiefs +2.5

Click on each pick to jump to the full analysis.

Kansas City Chiefs (+2.5) vs San Francisco 49ers pick

The Super Bowl is the most overanalyzed sporting event in the world, so by the time you’re reading this column, you may have full-on “paralysis by analysis”.

There’s no shortage of stats, analytics, trends, and numbers to back up just about any potential NFL picks, so I’ll keep my reasons for taking the points with the Kansas City Chiefs clean and concise.

Kansas City will make San Francisco feel very uncomfortable in several different areas during Super Bowl LVIII — like “watching ‘Saltburn’ with your parents” levels of discomfort.

First off, defending Patrick Mahomes (which honestly makes every team uncomfortable).

The Chiefs QB is a beast against zone coverage, something the San Francisco 49ers run a lot. The Niners were almost exclusively zone for the first half of the season but started mixing in more man coverage toward the end of the schedule.

Defensive coordinator Steve Wilks will have two weeks to scheme up something, but dialing up more man-to-man goes against the Niners’ grain. It also makes them more susceptible to Kansas City’s running game, either on handoffs or Mahomes taking off with the football.

That’s the second spot in which the 49ers will feel about as comfortable as D.J. Khaled on an episode of “Hot Ones”: stopping the run.

This San Francisco defense has quietly been susceptible to the run all year. The 49ers often found themselves playing with bigger leads, which meant opponents had to abandon the run, but they still gave up 4.3 yards per carry (21st) and ranked 26th in EPA allowed per handoff.

The levees broke in the postseason, with Green Bay rushing for 136 yards (4.9 per run) in the Divisional Round and Detroit marching for 182 yards on the ground (6.1 per run) in the NFC Championship.

Kansas City faced a similar situation against Philadelphia in last year’s Super Bowl. The Eagles ranked among the defensive elite all season but had a weakness against the run (23rd in EPA allowed per handoff). The Chiefs poked that soft spot over and over, running 26 times for 158 yards (6.1 yards per run) in the Super Bowl LVII victory.

If the Niners can’t figure out how to trip up Mahomes or slow the KC rushing attack, that leads to the third and final way San Francisco will feel uncomfortable on Super Bowl Sunday: putting the game in Brock Purdy’s hands.

The worst-case scenario for San Fran is a quick start for Kansas City. Sure, the 49ers were able to battle back from a 17-point hole against the Lions in the NFC title game, but this ain’t Detroit’s defense making the trip to Vegas.

The Chiefs' stop unit has been special since the start of the season and continues to keep Kansas City in games, even when the offense was misfiring. Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo is at his best in the postseason — especially when given two weeks for dream-up nightmares for the Niners young QB.

Spags, who was the architect of the N.Y. Giants defense that took down Tom Brady’s 18-0 Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, has already gotten the best of top-tier QBs in Tua Tagovailoa, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson. The Chiefs boast a -0.072 EPA allowed per play over those postseason games and have been very stingy versus the pass.

This is by far the best defense Purdy and head coach/OC Kyle Shanahan have faced since losing 33-19 to Baltimore in Week 16, a game in which the 49ers fell behind big early into the second half. Purdy completed only 18 of 32 throws and was picked off four times.

As I mentioned in my Super Bowl LVIII preview and pick (which was KC ML), as solid as Purdy’s been this year, there’s no denying he’s a system quarterback. Unlike his QB counterpart for the Chiefs, “Mr. Irrelevant” can’t single-handedly win you the game.... but he sure as hell can lose it for you.

I’ll be more comfortable than the 49ers on Super Sunday, putting my money on Kansas City: the underdog that never feels like an underdog.

PICK: Chiefs +2.5 (-115 at FanDuel)

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