Now that we know the NFL’s final four, what’s your choice for Super Bowl LIII? A meeting of the top two candidates for 2018 Most Valuable Player? Or how about the possible final hurrahs of two all-time great QBs? Perhaps you’d like a rematch of the insane 105-point game which had football fans of all stripes proclaiming The Death Of Defense? Or even a chess match between the consensus greatest head coach ever and the near-consensus shiny new genius?
Whichever narrative wins out, NFLbets is looking at Super Bowl matchups in terms of what else but turning wagers into profit. The potential payback on a parlay involving your two picks straight up is quite good, even if you’re running with the favorites.
The few possible Super Bowl LIII matchups and their odds shake out as follows.
The All-star Bowl
New Orleans Saints (-175 ML vs Rams) vs Kansas City Chiefs (-155 ML vs Patriots): +160
This version of LIII would be touted as a Drew Brees vs. Patrick Mahomes battle, always an insipid storyline because, well, *they don’t actually face off on the f^#@^#ing field*. Here, the prospective hype is even more egregious because,l as the Chiefs and Saints got six (Mahomes, WR Tyreek Hill, TE Travis Kelce, OT Eric Fisher, FB Anothony Sherman, LB Dee Ford) and five (Brees, WR MIchael Thomas, OT Terron Armstead, C Max Under, DE Cameron Jordan), respectively, elected to the Pro Bowl.
Note for those predicting (and betting) these two teams to advance: This is the sole Super Bowl LIII parlay pick that cannot be hedged against for profit.
The Old Guard Bowl
New Orleans Saints (-175) vs New England Patriots (+135): +300
Okay, this is crazy: Tom Brady and Drew Brees have played a combined 474 regular-season games for their current teams; Bill Belichick and Season Payton have coach 596 for theirs – yet Belichick/Brady and Payton/Brees teams have met just three times. (For the record, the Patriots are 2-1 SU/ATS.) Again, a Saints-Patriots Super Bowl is hardly about quarterbacks and head coaches alone, but these two combinations have become so inextricably linked with success that they’re likely to become synonymous with the franchises for years to come.
Also consider two relatively weak pass defenses allowing the old guys to enjoy one last spin – NFLbets thinks it’s no controversy to state that these two teams as constituted won’t see another Super Bowl again – and you might have even more of a scoreboard-spinner than Saints-Chiefs or…
The Points Aplenty Bowl
Los Angeles Rams (+155) vs Kansas City Chiefs (-155): +320
What would be more appropriate to cap the 2018 season with a rematch of the teams that gave us the insane 54-51 game midway through the season? We can’t imagine a Rams-Chiefs Super Bowl LIII would see 105 points scored again – particularly since Jared Goff seems to have used up his allotted passing statistics for the year in the week 11 game – but the battle of Andy Reid vs The Clock might be just as much fun here.
Additionally, this would give the NFL a great opportunity to consolidate St. Louis football fans – if any still exist – around the Chiefs. Seriously, what self-respecting former Rams fan could back the Los Angeles Screwjobs?
The Full Circle Bowl
Los Angeles Rams (+155) vs New England Patriots (+135)
From either a marketing or a poetic justice standpoint, this is the only possible choice. If the NFL’s powers-that-be really want to solidify their hold on the Los Angeles/Southern California market and ensure that Stan Kreonke’s Pleasure Palace in Inglewood actually does some business, what better way to do so than to have these Rams vanquish (perhaps for the final time this time) the league’s heavy?
Additionally, flashback to 2002 when the upstart New England Patriots, known mostly for, well, not much except for squeaking into and subsequently losing convincingly in a couple of prior Super Bowls, were installed as 14-point underdogs to the high-flying St. Louis Rams, only to go on to form a dynasty like the NFL’s never seen.
Talk about your perfect symmetry: How poetic, how wonderful, how just would it be for the dynamic and fun (well, not Ndamokung Suh; nothing amusing about that guy) Rams to bookend the history of these Patriots with a 3-point victory in Super Bowl LIII? We even got portents last week: Not only did Super Bowl XXXV hero Adam Vinatieri miss a couple of easy FGs in the Indianapolis Colts’ loss, Rams players were reportedly stealing the Cowboys’ defensive signs on Saturday.
But of course things never turn out this neatly in sports. Do they…?
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