There’s No Limit to the Bets You Can Make on Patrick Mahomes
There’s No Limit to the Bets You Can Make on Patrick Mahomes
The 49ers had the better team this season, and threw everything they had at Mahomes and the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII. It didn't matter.
All week long leading up to the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs seemed to be favored everywhere in Vegas except the betting lines.
As Ethan Strauss noted, almost everybody collected in ESPN’s expert poll picked K.C. to win. The same was true among The Athletic’s staff picks. The San Francisco 49ers may have been 2.5-point consensus favorites in the odds, but the experts didn’t care. And their reasoning, in most cases, was simple: I can’t bet against Patrick Mahomes.
In the end, all of those experts — and their underlying rationale — were right. In Super Bowl LVIII, Mahomes proved yet again that there is no betting against him, even if it flies in the face of other significant factors.
There was no question the Niners had the better resume all season long. Their points per game margin during the regular season (+11.4) was basically a touchdown better than Kansas City’s (+4.5). Their Expected Points Added were superior. Brock Purdy had out-QBR-ed Mahomes this year. And the matchup specifics even favored S.F., with its Christian McCaffrey-led running game being the biggest mismatch of the contest on paper versus the Chiefs’ run D.
Even in the Super Bowl itself, the Niners led by 10 in the second quarter, outgained the Chiefs well into the third, and held an 87.7% win probability (according to ESPN) at one point during overtime. In theory, there were a lot of reasons why betting against the Chiefs would have seemed logical.
But does Mahomes Magic follow the rules of logic?
He is officially the game’s ultimate cheat code, the winning factor that can overcome nearly any seemingly rational argument against K.C.’s chances. With 210 second-half passing yards and a 128.1 passer rating in overtime, Mahomes was at his best when the moment was most important.
He almost always is.
And the 49ers should have known he would be. They were fortunate to hold the Chiefs to a field goal at the end of regulation, and they probably blundered both in choosing to receive the OT kick first (giving Mahomes info on what he needed!) and in kicking to take a mere 3-point lead after the first drive of the extra period, leaving the door open for Mahomes to make more magic.
True, those powers had been in uncharacteristically short supply for most of the regular season — hence, the statistical arguments in San Francisco’s favor. And against just about anybody else, the Niners would have done enough to win. Purdy had a solid day with practically no mistakes; his passer rating in the fourth quarter and overtime was 119.7. McCaffrey’s 160 scrimmage yards — symmetrically split into 80 rushing and 80 receiving — were the 12th-most ever in a Super Bowl.
Against Kansas City, though? It wasn’t enough, because at the end, we all flat-out assumed Mahomes was going to lead a winning TD drive and secure the league’s first back-to-back titles since the 2003-04 New England Patriots. Something would have had to go wrong for that not to happen.
It didn’t.
That’s why nobody felt comfortable betting against Mahomes on Sunday. Even when all of the evidence says it’s safe, he makes it dangerous. And it’ll be even tougher to bet against him in the future, too, after what we just witnessed.
Filed under: NFL, Super Bowl