The biggest and best day on the sports betting calendar is just over a week away, and with so many different proposition bets offered on Super Bowl Sunday, it’s never too soon to look and see which bets are best.
Quarterback Passing Yards
Other than the 19 passes that Carson Wentz threw in Week 18 at the Denver Broncos, no one with the Kansas City Chiefs other than Patrick Mahomes threw any passes this season. This isn’t the Detroit Lions or some of the wilder offenses that feature flea-flicker passes and halfback options. This offense belongs to Mahomes, and why have someone other than your best player throw a pass?
This was the worst regular season of Mahomes’ career, but that is relative to a quarterback who has two 5,000-yard seasons and two NFL MVP awards. He still averaged 245 passing yards per game, which was top 10 in the NFL and more than Lamar Jackson averaged through the air.
The current line for passing yards for Mahomes in the Super Bowl is 249.5, down from 252.5 when the line first opened. This is right in line with his season averages, even as it’s well-below his Super Bowl average of 267 passing yards. However, in Super Bowl LXII two years ago against the Philadelphia Eagles, he only threw for 182 yards.
In that game, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts threw for 304 yards, and if the Eagles had managed to pull out the win at the end, Hurts would have been the game’s MVP. Instead, he has the distinction of having one of the best Super Bowls in a losing effort.
The over/under on passing yards for Hurts in Super Bowl LIX is 210.5, which is up a yard from the 209.5 that was set when the line opened last Sunday.
Like Mahomes, this year passing the ball for Hurts was the worst of his career. A year ago, he threw for a career-high 3,858 yards. This past season, he topped out at 2,903 yards. One big reason for that, of course, was the addition of Saquon Barkley. A year ago, Philadelphia’s leading rusher was D’Andre Swift with 1,049 yards. This year, Barkley ran for 2,005 yards.
Quarterback Rushing Yards
Mahomes will tell you that he is not a running quarterback. He only runs when he has to. But if you saw the AFC Championship Game, Mahomes ran for a pair of touchdowns and finished the game with more rushing yards than Josh Allen.
His current rushing yards line is 29.5, and he only went over that number three times in the regular season. But last year in the Super Bowl, Mahomes ran for 66 yards, and the year before that, when he was playing on a sprained ankle, he rushed for 44 yards.
In the four Super Bowls that Mahomes has played, 29 yards was his fewest yards rushing, which came in his first win against the San Francisco 49ers.
Hurts is by far the more mobile of the two quarterbacks, and in the Super Bowl two years ago, he ran for 70 yards on 15 carries. In the Divisional Round this year against the Los Angeles Rams, Hurts also ran for 70 yards. His rushing line in this Super Bowl is set at 38.5.
Hurts is nursing a knee injury, but it’s worth noting that during the regular season, he went over 38 yards rushing in eight of his 15 games played.
Quarterback Touchdowns
In four previous Super Bowls, Mahomes has thrown for seven touchdown passes and run for an eighth. And that includes the loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in which the Chiefs didn’t score a touchdown. In the first Super Bowl meeting with the Eagles, Mahomes threw for three touchdowns, including two in the fourth quarter. Last year against the 49ers, he threw for two touchdowns, including the game-winner in overtime.
At two or more passing touchdowns in New Orleans, Mahomes pays -187. But if you move that line to three or more touchdown passes, you get +208. When it comes to rushing for a touchdown, Mahomes is +300.
On the other sideline, Hurts is one of the favorites to rush for a touchdown. As a touchdown scorer, he pays -105, and as the game’s first scorer, he pays +650.
As a touchdown passer, Hurts is at +142 with a line of two or more touchdowns. At three or more touchdowns, his payout jumps to +587. He didn’t throw more than two touchdowns in any single game this season, and even as the Eagles scored 55 points in the NFC Championship Game, Hurts threw just one touchdown.
With over 25 years of experience as a distinguished sports writer for renowned platforms such as Fox Sports and ESPN, Kyle Garlett is a sports betting specialist who has been at the forefront of documenting the global surge in sports betting and online gaming. Based in Denver, Colorado, Kyle hosts an NFL betting YouTube show and podcast. Kyle also has two sports books published by HarperCollins.
Kyle graduated the Azusa Pacific University in 1996 with a B.A. Degree in Communication and Journalism.
