The Super Bowl is set as the Patriots and Eagles won on Championship Sunday. Before the conference championship games were played I had the Patriots seven points better than the Eagles on neutral field. While the Eagles were putting the finishing touches on their rout of the Vikings, point spreads started to emerge for the Super Bowl. I first saw lines of Patriots -6.5 on Twitter but then the -6, -5.5 and -5 started to pop up. Less than 24 hours after the dust settled, it looks like Patriots -5 is the number for now with a total of 48 or 48.5.

The question is if the line move towards the Eagles is justified after Sunday’s results. I think you can argue that it is warranted because of how comfortable Nick Foles looked on Sunday. However, there is still a lot of uncertainty for Foles in my opinion. How will he respond to the two-week layoff after playing the game of his life? How much did playing both playoff games at home factor into his success?

Because this game would’ve been Patriots -7 a week ago, the only way I could look at this game is to take the Patriots. Since I’m not sure I would want to lay five points, the money line comes into play here. Usually you can find value taking a favorite on the money line in the Super Bowl because so many casual bettors take the underdog on the money line for a bigger payout. Right now I’m seeing one online site that has the Patriots as a -210 favorite on the money line and the Eagles are +177. Usually a five-point favorite in the NFL is in the -240 to -250 range, while the underdog is around +200. So if you like the Patriots then taking the discounted money line might be the way to go. If you like the Eagles then grabbing the points is better than betting a low money line.

Tips for betting props

Of course the side and total isn’t the only way to get involved in the Super Bowl. The prop betting options are vast and they pay out the same as picking the spread or over/under. This is usually the way to find the best value.  Continue reading →

Here are the three charts for this week:

Underdogs went 4-0 against the spread in 2-2 straight up last week. Based off my numbers it looks like there is line value on the Eagles and Jaguars this week. Will do some deeper handicapping and will tweet out any thoughts I have about the four games.

Three charts this week. One is a chart with the six AFC teams in the playoffs and I included the home field advantage for the division winners. I did the same thing with the six NFC teams. The third chart is the current line for the four Wild Card games and my line for each game.

As you can see from the AFC chart, the two wild card teams are very far apart from the four division winners. The Chargers and Ravens are both better than the Titans and Bills, and the AFC games would’ve been far more competitive if those teams made the postseason.

The biggest takeaway from the NFC power ratings is that the No. 1 seed is rated last out of the six teams. I originally didn’t downgrade the Carson Wentz injury much because I thought highly of Nick Foles but he hasn’t been impressive since starting. Philadelphia could easily be home underdogs in the division round.

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