Early Super Bowl Best Bet, Sunday Recaps
Sunday was a whirlwind of NFL betting action in and out of the Tuley’s Takes home office for yours truly, including the conference championship games and then tracking the opening line movement for Super Bowl LVII.
I spent the day at the Westgate SuperBook and Circa Sports as the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs earned their spots in the NFL title game with spread-covering victories (full recaps below). Circa opened the Chiefs as 2.5-point favorites while the Westgate went with pick-’em. Throughout the country, DraftKings opened the Eagles -1, showing the difference of opinions from the oddsmakers, but then the early bettors took over and clearly preferred the Eagles as it took less than half an hour for all books to have the Eagles up to -1.5 and then -2 and finally -2.5. My VSiN colleague Ben Fawkes had the earliest opening line recap I saw online on our VSiN.com website.
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As for my personal action, I lost my Best Bet on the 49ers +8.5/Bengals +7.5 teaser when the 49ers lost 31-7 to the Eagles. I salvaged the day with a Bengals +7.5/Over 42 teaser in the Chiefs’ 23-20 victory.
I ended the night with my weekly appearance on VSiN’s “The Greg Peterson Experience” (12:15 a.m. ET/9:15 p.m. PT Sunday nights and 15 minutes into the archived version) and went to the well again with my early Super Bowl Best Bet on Chiefs +8.5/Over 43.5.
Let’s get to our daily recaps of all of Sunday’s betting action (including the other major team sports) and look for Best Bet on Monday as well as that early Super Bowl teaser.
Sunday Recaps
NFL: Chiefs beat Bengals 23-20 on Harrison Butker’s 45-yard FG with :03 to play to win AFC Championship Game on Sunday night to advance to the SuperBowl. The Chiefs covered after closing as 1.5-point home favorites (stayed Under betting total of 48.5 points). Earlier, Eagles ran over 49ers and pulled away in 31-7 rout to win NFC Championship. They also covered after closing as popular 3-point home favorites (stayed Under betting total of 44.5 points after opening higher as majority of bettors also on winning side of total).
More NFL: Favorites (both at home) went 2-0 SU and ATS in Sunday’s conference championship round while Unders also swept 2-0. Overall in the playoffs, faves improved to 9-3 SU heading into Super Bowl but only 6-6 ATS. Home teams finished 9-3 SU and 6-6 ATS. Unders took 7-5 lead.
NBA: Favorites went 3-1 SU and ATS on Sunday with the lone upset by the Hornets (+6 in 122-117 win vs. Heat). The Grizzlies (-8 vs. Pacers), Cavaliers (-11.5 vs. Clippers) and Bucks (-10.5 vs. Pelicans) covered as home chalk. In fact, home teams swept 4-0 SU and ATS. Overs 3-1.
More NBA: On the season, faves lead 476-268 SU with 11 games closing pick-’em, but dogs still lead 377-348-19 ATS (52%). Home teams lead 453-302 SU and 390-348-18 ATS (52.8%). In totals wagering, Overs improved lead to 386-357-12 (52%).
CBB: No. 1 Purdue beat Michigan State 77-61 and covered as 8-point home favorite. No. 23 Providence beat Villanova 70-65 and covered as 1-point road favorite.
NHL: Faves swept 2-0 on short Sunday card as Maple Leafs (-140 in 5-1 win vs. Capitals) and Hurricanes (-120 in 4-1 win vs. Bruins) both won as chalk and also covered -1.5 puck line. Unders led 1-0-1 with push in TOR-WAS (6). On the season, faves 460-296 with 20 PKs. Home teams 404-359 with 4 neutral-site games. Unders take slimmest of leads at 365-364-33.
Early Super Bowl Best Bet
Chiefs +8.5/Over 43.5 teaser vs. Eagles: We respect everything the Eagles have down, but we’re siding with Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid with two weeks to prepare (even though they lost Super Bowl LV two years ago with two weeks to prepare). We’ll be going into more detail with the way we expect the game to play out, including tons of prop bets, in our columns over the next 13 days.
Monday CBB Best Bet
Baylor +3.5 at Texas: There’s just one NHL game on Monday and the NBA card looks chalky, so we’ll dip into college basketball for the first time this season as I’ve been spending more time catching up on NCAA teams. Top 25 chalk went 2-0 SU and ATS on Sunday, but if you’ve been following our nightly recaps we see ranked teams failing to cover all the time as there’s so much parity in college hoops. Besides, while Texas (17-4) is ranked No. 10 and Baylor (16-5) is ranked No. 17, I’m not so sure Baylor isn’t the better team as the Bears are on a six-game winning streak while Texas is 2-2 in its last four. In addition, just like most sports since the start of the pandemic, we’ve seen a reduction in the strength of home-field advantage as we feel the Longhorns are only favored here because they’re at home.
