Super Bowl Sweats: Five final wagers for the big-game betting card

By Case Keefer (contact)

Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021 | 2 a.m.

The Sunday Sweats lives to bet again.

Conference championship weekend was slated to be the final appearance of the column this year, but it wouldn’t feel right not to press it into Super Bowl action. Not after completing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ moneyline rollover parlay to get the Super Bowl to a profit of $736.87 assuming starting with $100, and hitting a longshot with Dustin Poirier to beat Conor McGregor to boot.

That bulked up the column bankroll too high to quit at the six Super Bowl props placed earlier in the week. Let’s add five more, roughly fitting within the five categories utilized in Sunday Sweats all season and try to get wind up ahead by more than 20 units on the season.

Read the wild-card version of the Sunday Sweats column below. For accounting purposes, all plays outside of the pick’em will be linked and counted in the record. The records are attached to each individual category and totaled at the bottom of the page with the monetary figure calculated by the assumption of a bettor placing $100 on each play.

Tasty Total (15-8, $563.65): First quarter over 10 points -120

The narrative I’ve grown most sick of this Super Bowl week? There’s a lot of competition, but it must be the slow starts. There’s not a sufficient enough sample to conclude that Super Bowls never produce points early. And, in case you hadn’t heard, Tom Brady now plays for an entirely new team with new teammates (save Rob Gronkowski) so his past first-quarter woes in the game also mean little. The vast majority of past Super Bowls didn’t have two offenses this strong. This number is low assuming the current over/under 56 points is correct — and if anything, I think it may also be short.

Two-team Teaser (9-10, -$256.90): Double result — Tampa Bay wins first half & loses game +425

I wasn’t sure of the best way to approximate this category but landed on the double-result market as close enough. I think there’s some value here and have seen the same combination at as low as +350 at other sports books. Tampa Bay is more likely to get the ball first — Bruce Arians has sometimes chosen to receive while Andy Reid always defers — which makes it more likely to score first and hold an early lead. How often have we seen Kansas City come back though? The game script I’ve built in my head is the Chiefs pulling out a late victory after trailing for most of the game. This gives a nice price on that vision coming to fruition.

Money line parlay (8-11, $967.26): Score in the first 6.5 minutes “yes”, Missed extra point “no” and under 1.5 shortest touchdown +285

The SuperBook conveniently has a “parlayable props” section in its app and on its betting sheets. These are three standouts from the group. They’re all chalky but not quite chalky enough and putting them together gives a nice payout.

Player prop (14-21, -$635.80): Byron Pringle under 10.5 receiving yards

The Chiefs have been cognizant about keeping all their receivers involved throughout the season — except Pringle. They barely use the former Kansas State star when Sammy Watkins is available and all signs point toward Watkins returning for the Super Bowl. This number dropped from 12.5 in the span of a few hours on Friday, but still sits too high. Pringle is unlikely to have any yards in the game.

Non-football play (11-9, $337.62): Vegas Golden Knights goals +0.5 (+120) vs. Mike Evans receptions

This category is going straight to cross-sport props, which have been excellent this year — from an entertainment standpoint. Sports books across the board came up with exceptional combinations especially from a local perspective with everything from UFC, Raiders’ performance next season and, in this case, the Golden Knights. I’m not sure how much I would recommend actually betting any of these, but if you must, take a whole team over an individual player. There’s a bigger margin for error. It also helps here that the Golden Knights are playing a team they should be able to score easily on Sunday in the Los Angeles Kings while Evans’ range of possible outcomes stretches far and wide.

Sunday Sweats overall record: 60-59, $1,712.70

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.