POST ANALYSIS – SUPER BOWL 55, HOW TO BET ON THE NEXT SUPER BOWL.
Super Bowl 55, Sports Betting
Super Bowl Sunday — the biggest day of the year for sports bettors and sportsbooks alike — was a contrary bettor’s delight. Not only did Tom Brady and the underdog Tampa Bay Buccaneers cash in with an outright win over Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, but Super Bowl LV never threatened to go over the total of 56.5 points, with just 40 points scored. In fact, of all the sports betting surprises that came out of Super Bowl 2021, the astounding lack of scoring from the high-flying Chiefs, who were held to zero touchdowns and just three field goals, may have been the biggest eyebrow-raiser of them all.
So, before we put a cap on what will be a memorable 2020-2021 NFL season that many observers thought wouldn’t happen due to the COVID-19 pandemic, let’s discuss a Super Bowl recap from a betting perspective, crowning the winners and lamenting the losers.
Super Bowl Analysis
The biggest winners on Super Bowl Sunday were those who believed in the Buccaneers way back in early 2020. The Bucs were anywhere from 60-to 40-to-1 to win the Super Bowl before Tom Brady broke hearts all over New England and left the Patriots after 20 seasons to join Tampa Bay. The betting odds dropped to around 25-to-1 at most sportsbooks once TB12 officially signed his new contract. By the start of the 2020 season, Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl odds were as low as 10-to-1.
Of course, during their impressive run through the NFL Playoffs, the Bucs not only won four games in a row, but three of them were on the road and they were also underdogs in the final three games, as they beat Drew Brees and the Saints, Aaron Rodgers and the Packers and, finally, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.
For Super Bowl odds, the Chiefs opened as 3.5-point favorites and NFL public betting data showed the early money was once again betting against the Chiefs. KC, which won Super Bowl LIV over San Francisco the year before, was trying to become the first repeat champions since the New England Patriots, with Tom Brady at QB, won it back-to-back in 2003 and 2004. But more and more predictions for Super Bowl LV began to shift during the two-weeks between NFL Championship Sunday and the Super Bowl 2021 kickoff with the prevailing number at most Las Vegas sportsbooks and in other markets ended up with the Chiefs as a 3-point favorite.
The Super Bowl LV over/under opened at 57 points, which would have tied for the second-highest in Super Bowl history, but it was bet down to as low as 55.5 before kickoff. The money that lowered the total was rewarded with a low-scoring game.
As for the game itself, Tom Brady won the MVP at +250 betting odds and received much of the accolades, but it was the Tampa Bay defense that was most responsible for the upset. The loss marked the first time in QB Patrick Mahomes’ career with the Chiefs that the team lost by more than one score and the first time they had been held without a touchdown. KC entered Super Bowl Sunday averaging 29 points per game and a league-leading 415 total yards per game, but the Chiefs scored just nine points on three field goals. Mahomes was harassed and flustered all night, throwing for just 270 yards, two interceptions and zero touchdowns while getting sacked three times.
How unlikely was it for the Chief’s offense to sputter so badly? Well, at most sportsbooks you could have got 60-to-1 betting odds that KC would not score a touchdown in the Super Bowl. The odds were 15-to-1 that Mahomes would not throw for a touchdown and KC scoring exactly 9 points in the game was posted at 150-to-1.
With defense dominating, the Bucs offense didn’t have to do anything special. The Chiefs struggled all season defending tight ends so it was no surprise to see Tom Brady lean heavily on an old friend and former New England teammate Rob Gronkowski, whose name was all over the Super Bowl play by play as he soared over his Super Bowl Prop Bet totals with six catches for 67 yards and two touchdowns. “Gronk” also made his fans happy when he cashed in at 14-to-1 to be the player to score the first TD of the game.
Another player that followed TB12 to Tampa Bay, running back Leonard Fournette, also had a big game for the Bucs and really could have and should have won the MVP. The Jacksonville Jaguar outcast was a double threat for Tampa Bay and also helped his prop bet followers cash in big by rushing for 89 yards and a touchdown on 16 carries while catching four Tom Brady passes for another 46 yards.
In the final Super Bowl 2021 stats, the Chiefs ended up winning the total yardage battle (350-340), but the Bucs did not turn the ball over, compared to the two costly Mahomes’ interceptions for the Chiefs. Tampa Bay also prevailed in the all-important rushing yards (145-107) and time-of-possession (31:23-28:37) battles. Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl scores by quarter until the scoreless fourth quarter, and they also played a much cleaner game overall with just four penalties, while KC was flagged an alarming 11 times for 120 yards.
As for the proposition bets, where you can wager on everything from the Super Bowl 2021 halftime show to the Super Bowl ads (no, sorry, you couldn’t bet on the Super Bowl streaker at most reputable sportsbooks), the coin toss is always one of the more popular attractions and this year it landed on “heads,” proving the result is truly a 50-50 proposition. In the history of the Super Bowl, the commemorative coin has now landed on heads 29 times with 27 tails. Also, for the seventh straight Super Bowl, the team winning the coin toss, which Kansas City did this year and deferred, lost the game.
Looking ahead to next year’s Super Bowl, despite the loss this year, Kansas City is the 5-to-1 favorite to win the 2021-2022 title, followed by Green Bay and Buffalo at 10-to-1 and the now defending champion Bucs at 12-to-1.
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