No football for two weeks - unless you count the Pro Bowl, and that is of course impossible to do because that is nothing like real football. It's a rough time to be an obsessed football bettor. The good news, though, is that the time off gives us plenty of opportunities to look at the Super Bowl from every possible angle in the hunt for any edge we can possibly find. One obvious place to spend time is looking at trends for both teams, so hopefully this long collection of 2017 Super Bowl betting trends will help you both fill the time off you have and find massive profits when the big game does roll around:
Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons have covered the spread in both of their playoff games this year - and quite easily in both cases. That reversed a trend, though - they had failed to cover a spread in their prior six playoff appearances. They were an impressive 7-1 ATS away from the comforts of home this year, so not sleeping in their own beds doesn't hurt. It actually seems to help them - they were just 3-5 ATS at home in the regular season. They were underdogs six times this year, and they covered in five of those games, winning four of the five outright. They have been favored in their last eight games, though, and haven't covered as an underdog since their sixth game. They were 2-2 both straight up and ATS against AFC opponents this year and are on a two-game losing streak. Those games all came against the AFC West, though. They are 6-2 ATS in their last eight against teams with winning records.
Atlanta carries their passing momentum forward well. They have been 5-1 ATS in their last six games following a game with at least 250 passing yards. Ryan had 392 yards last time out. They have also covered the spread the last four times in which they had at least 350 total yards, which they obviously did last game. They are also 4-1 ATS in their last five games in which they had at least 30 points in the prior game.
The "over" is 4-0 in their last four playoff games and a strong 15-5-1 in their last 21 games overall. They have gone over in each of their last five against teams with winning records. The over is 5-0-1 in their last six games following a straight up win.
New England Patriots
The Patriots have not been kind to Super Bowl bettors - they are just 1-4 ATS in their last five Super Bowl appearances. All those games have featured both Tom Brady at QB and Bill Belichick in the headset. They are, however, 5-1 ATS in their last six playoff games. Like Atlanta, they were 7-1 ATS on the road, so they will be fine with this setting. They were a much stronger 6-2 ATS at home, though, so they were the better betting team all year. They were favored by less than a touchdown five times this season, and they went 4-1 ATS. They were better than Atlanta at 3-1 ATS against the opposite conference, but they played the NFC West, so it wasn't exactly a tough group of games this year.
New England is a very strong 33-16-2 ATS in their last 51 games. Like Atlanta they are also very good at carrying momentum forward - they are 20-8-2 ATS in their last 30 games following a straight up win. Pittsburgh had 368 total yards against New England last week. The Patriots are 7-0 ATS in their last seven games following games in which they allowed at least 350 total yards. They are 6-0 ATS in their last six following games in which Brady had at least 250 passing yards. He had 384 yards last time out.
The Patriots have gone over the total in six of their last seven playoff games and in 45 of their last 67 against teams with winning records. The over is 47-23 in their last 70 games following an ATS win.
Head-to-head
These teams only rarely meet, so there is little real value to be gained from looking at head-to-head records. For the record, though, the Patriots are 4-0 ATS in the last four, while the underdog has gone 4-1 ATS in the last five.
Super Bowl history
The Patriots have made eight prior Super Bowl appearances. They are just 2-5-1 ATS in those games and 1-4 ATS as favorites. The over is 4-4 in those eight prior appearances. In their most recent appearance two years ago they won the game and covered the pick'em spread. That game went over the 47.5 point total.
The Falcons are making just their second Super Bowl appearance. In the other outing they did not cover the spread as 7.5-point underdogs, and the game went over the 52.5 point total.
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