Super Bowl LVII First Look

The stage is set! Super Bowl LVII betting has already commenced over at BetRivers Sportsbook with the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles set to collide in the 57^th installment of the big game. Can NFL bettors ask for anything more than a sick pairing of Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts in the Super Bowl?! Well, I can – hopefully No. 15’s high ankle sprain is fully healed once the game kicks off on Super Bowl Sunday. It would also be nice if the referees take a back seat and let the players decide the game. Nobody’s ponying up tens of thousands of dollars to see the zebras in the final game of the season! Though there’s still plenty of time until kick-off, there’s much to break down from the betting lines to the matchup with the opportunity to hoist the Lombardi Trophy on the line. Let’s dig in and take our first look at the Super Bowl LVII matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.

Bet on Super Bowl LVII at BetRivers Sportsbook

Point Spread

The Philadelphia Eagles initially hit the board as slight 1-point favorites at BetRivers. With 65 percent of the bets and 70 percent of the money going Philadelphia’s way once the betting lines were made public, linemakers have since bumped Nick Sirianni’s troops up to 2-point neutral field chalk. That means Fletcher Cox and his mates will have been favored to win a game for the 19^th time through 20 tries with the only dog appearance coming in week 16 when the team went into Big D to battle the Cowboys with Gardner Minshew calling the offense’s shots due to Hurts hurting his shoulder the week prior in Chicago. As for Kansas City, this marks only the third time it will have received points from linemakers to date. It split the prior two appearances in the regular season against Tampa Bay (W) and Buffalo (L). This also means that Mahomes is playing for the underdog side in a Super Bowl for the first time in now three appearances.

O/U

While it’s been all one-way traffic initially in terms of the point spread, there’s some opposing views related to the total per early Super Bowl LVII wagering reports. The number to beat initially hit the board at 49.5 which came as quite the surprise to this author as potent each offense proved to be to this point of the season. BetRivers hasn’t budged on its opener with 56 percent of the bets expecting points to be held in check. However, 68 percent of the money expects Mahomes and Hurts to put on a show! Even so, the total is stuck at 49.5. The Kansas City Chiefs played to low scorers in nine of 17 regular season games and then cashed two more under tickets in the postseason by holding the Jaguars and Bengals to 20 points apiece. Philadelphia cashed over tickets at a 10-7 clip over the course of its 18-week regular season schedule, but then combined for low scorers in both playoff matchups due to holding the Giants and 49ers to a grand total of 14 points.

The Game Within The Game

This matchup pits two quarterbacks that were in the thick of the MVP race for the entirety of the NFL betting season. Mahomes seemingly gets better with age! He just capped off his regular season campaign by throwing for the most yardage of his five-year starting career (5,250) in a year many expected his output to fall off with Tyreek Hill taking his talents to South Beach in the offseason. His 41 touchdown passes also served as the second highest amount thrown since taking over the QB1 gig back in 2018. As such, it can be deduced that Kansas City will utilize its top-ranked passing attack knowing full well it was the offense’s aerial attack that allowed the team to butter its bread and punch another ticket to a Super Bowl. However, the opponent will enter the matchup owners of the best pass defense in the game with the Eagles serving up a league-best 179.8 yards per game in the regular season and fewer than 100.0 yards per game in the playoffs.

How Mahomes gets the ball into Travis Kelce and his mates’ hands will go a long way in deciding the victor of this matchup and whether or not it proves to be a high or low scorer. Should it excel, it would allow for both Isiah Pacheco and Jerick McKinnon to make hay on the ground as well.

If not for a shoulder injury suffered in week 16 at Chicago, it’s highly likely Jalen Hurts would be the current frontrunner to take home the first MVP Award of his three-year career. The Eagles QB1 will make his first Super Bowl appearance off his finest showing over the course of a regular season after throwing for just over 3,700 yards and a 22:6 TD/INT ratio. But it wasn’t just his arm that made No. 1 one of the more feared quarterbacks to run up against in 2022-23. He also added another 760 yards and 13 touchdowns on the ground to make him the premiere dual-threat QB in the league with Lamar Jackson succumbing to injury in week 13. His rushing prowess is something Steve Spagnuolo will definitely game plan for, so it’ll be interesting to see how readily able Philadelphia is at running into the strength of a Chiefs defense that only allowed 107.2 rushing yards per game (No. 8) over the course of the regular season.

If the Eagles are able to hit the ground running with Hurts, Miles Sanders, and Kenneth Gainwell, it would open the flood gates and allow for the Eagles to fly with A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Dallas Goedert likely to take advantage of the Chiefs Achilles heel defensively which comes in stopping the pass (No. 18).

Bet the Super Bowl Odds at BetRivers Sportsbook