Super Bowl 58 Bets

I’ve read at least 40 articles by either writers I like and respect or just stuff that’s come across my social feeds and looked interesting enough.

The angles have all been covered. We know what we’re dealing with:

• The 49ers defense is a little leaky, both teams can be run on

• Pat Mahomes is an electric factory

• Purdy looks like Lee Harvey Oswald

• The 49ers offense is #1 in EPA/Everything

• The KC defense is one of the best in the league, clearly the best that Pat has ever had as a starter.

• Andy Reid is technically coming off a bye

It’s all been covered, and covered, and then covered again. I think that’s the allure of the props this week, once you’ve picked your side and staked it accordingly the only thing left to do is make more bets that follow the narrative you have backing up your team.

So, today I’m going to go a few different directions and lay out what I think are some decent props based on which direction you think this game actually goes.

Disclaimer: I did not bet on every single prop listed in this one, just found some prices for some angles that I think match up nicely with the narrative you want.

I didn’t have time to dig through all the menus and available bets for everything, and I’m sure there are better angles than the ones I’ve found. If your brain gets humming and you think you stumbled on even better ways to approach these, let me know.

Choose Your Own (Sports Betting) Adventure

It’s 6:30 ET, and Reba just finished up. You can still see the contrails from the flyover. Neither coach cried this year, but Andy Reid has a twinkle in his eye and is clearly remembering his late-night In-and-out (the one by Palace Station). The coin toss is tails (never fails) and the winning team defers to the 2nd half. Everyone settles in for 4 hours of football/commercials/sweating SGPs.

….

if you think the 49ers offense is just too good and good offenses always win over good defenses, turn to Page 18.

if you think the Kansas City defense has been crescendoing all year, building to this week, and will be shutting down the inexperienced QB on Sunday, turn to Page 27

If you have no bleeping idea what is going on because you were born after 1999, click here and catch up a bit.

Page 18: The 49ers are a Truck

In this version, the offense that showed up against the Cowboys, Eagles, and Jags manifests, even versus a tough defense.

Not always a fast start, but Purdy was very efficient in those games throwing for a combined 11 TDs and no picks. Drew liked this version a lot during the Wednesday show and truthfully, with two weeks to prep and an absolute GLUT of weapons at his disposal, maybe Kyle Shanahan will come up with a game plan so devious that this team can create great matchups, confuse the KC coverage unit. Imagine a world where we see Aiyuk leaking out somehow carrying a linebacker in coverage on his way to a TD while Sneed and McDuffie are lost in the shuffle.

Of course, not everyone is confident in the man who orchestrated a couple of Super Bowl losses and had been hitting the sauce pretty hard this week in Vegas.

Turn to page 42 if you think Shanny screws the pooch

If you can buy the 49ers as a good offense but still believe in Pat as a late-game magic man, turn to Page 34

Page 27: KC Defense is Stingy AF

Chris Jones is an animal, Sneed is a legit CB1 and (with the help of some fumble luck and cold weather), they shut down a couple of very good offenses already during these playoffs.

With a ton of guys that were home-grown and developed by Spagnuolo, this defense is CLEARLY the best version we’ve seen during the Mahomes era and allowed the 2nd fewest points per game this season. If you get the matchups you want with L’Jarius Sneed and Trent McDuffie and Chris Jones puts on a show for possible offseason suitors, maybe we see a game closer to the Pats-Rams Super Bowl rather than the first iteration of this rematch.

SF has been strong against the blitz, but Spags has had a couple of weeks to watch the film, scheme up disguises, and look at how he could bring guys from different positions to confuse the 49ers offense and pass protect. This is the youngest defense in the league, and his schemes are apparently not easy to learn. Maybe this is why we’ve seen this unit continue to get stronger throughout the year.

“Defenses Win Championships” is a bit antiquated considering how the rules have changed over the past couple of decades, but top-end units can still win out in the end sometimes.

If you are buying this but think I undersold what a mismatch Spags can create against a QB that doesn’t appear to shave yet, turn to Page 42

Turn to Page 58 to see the final score

Page 34: Patrick Mahomes is Good at Football Too

What about a world where Reid and Shanahan are BOTH vindicated as great offensive game planners and the stars shine? This is a world where every square SGP gets home, all the prop overs hit in the 3rd quarter and PrizePicks has to take out a loan to pay the winners.

We’ve seen the Mahomes led offense do it plenty, it was a little rough throughout the year as the WR corps has been young/bad/hurt, but with Rice emerging a bit and Kelce existing, I don’t see why we can’t get a high-end game from this offense with two weeks to prep. The game is indoors!

It’s been a while since these two teams met first under these circumstances, but he did it then and that was a defense that was very much respected.

Maybe we get a third consecutive 49ers game where the team has to turn up in the 2nd half and pull out some of the good plays to get this one done. While I’m not expecting this to be the case again (this defense is slightly tougher than Detroit’s), if I have to lose money on the game, a shootout is at least fun.

Turn to page 58 to see if I actually picked a narrative

Page 42: Shanny’s Brain Stops Working

While this ending is seemingly unlikely, I do have to think about it considering Kyle’s struggles two weeks ago, Purdy’s the week before, and the seemingly stubborn reluctance to hit the easy button for both John Harbaugh and Kyle Shanahan in the title games.

Maybe it’s a case of trying to play 4-D chess when checkers will do, and the 49ers think that “they know that we know that they know that we know that we should run the ball” and they lean into the passing game way too much anyway.

This had to be included after what the Ravens pulled even if it seems less than likely.

Turn to page 58 to get some closure.

Page 58: Kansas City 23, San Francisco 20

All of this may have appeared to be me just hedging my bets and covering my bases, but I did promise my picks. While you’ll have to wait for the props until tomorrow, I do have a general narrative that I’ve started to gravitate toward after talking, reading, and taking in content for the past two weeks.

While my numbers are pretty close to the market on the side, I will side with the better QB, the better Coaching Staff, the experience on this big stage, and honestly as silly as it sounds the better kicker. A good case to be made for taking an alt price here (KC moneyline at a minimum, maybe even KC -2.5 +128) but I’ll just stick to the standard line for the official pick.

As for the total, I have heard some good cases for the other side of this game to be high-scoring, but I do tend to put a lot of trust into what the Kansas City defense can do against a YAC-heavy team in the red zone.

I’d expect some frustration near the end zone for the 49ers and as I laid out on the pod, some longer, dink-and-dunk drives from the Chiefs. There hasn’t been much movement in this market yet, maybe indicating a good number, but I’ll take this under as well.

Official final picks of the season: Kansas City +2.5, Under 47.5

Thanks for reading, have a killer weekend, win all your bets, and don’t forget to check your email on Saturday morning. I’ll have all the prop bets I played as well as my best (semi-researched) guesses for Gatorade color, halftime props, etc.