The Case for the OVER to hit in the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is notorious for its variety of betting options. Many are “sucker bets”, completely priced out of the realm a rational person wouldn’t consider more than a lotto ticket. However, the game includes some traditional bets as well, like the UNDER/OVER, where astute bettors may find some value. Given the sheer volume of bets, this flagship bet has during the Super Bowl, whether UNDER or OVER, the number tends to be close to reality based on the wisdom of the crowd effect. Nonetheless, here today we are going to cater to those betting on the OVER and provide a case for it to hit.

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Super Bowl LVI Totals Basics

The Super Bowl LVI under/over number opened at 49, but quickly dipped below that *key number to 48.5. 48.5 is a number not likely to move much (until possibly right before the opening kick), as it sits precisely at the 2 team’s “assumed total”. That is, given each team’s offensive/defensive points per game averages netted against each other:

*The key number, of betting OVER 48.5 (or say, UNDER 49.5) is the foundational reasoning when giving a strategy that supports the OVER hitting. In other words, given how many games hit exactly at 49, you want to be on the “right” side of it/included in your range of positive outcomes.As you can see above, this number is sitting exactly where the two teams have averaged out on both sides of the ball this season.

Recent Super Bowl Trends

Longtime readers of mine know I respect you too much to tell you the under has hit 3x in a row, therefore blah, blah. If you’re a reader of mine, you know these historical trends are nonsense. However, there is value in seeing the overall history of what we are working with here/having a baseline to start our work. With that said, here are the basic betting results from the last 10 years:

Now that we have a picture of the macro (above), let's take a look at the micro, and see how each team has performed in regards to O/U the last 10 games:It's also interesting to note this is only the 5th time this century that neither Super Bowl team rosters a top 5 QB (by Football Outsiders DYAR) with Ram’s QB Matt Stafford coming in at #6 and Bengal’s Joe Burrow at #13. One would think this could lead you to fade the OVER, yet when you look at the last 21 seasons, it's resulted in a mixed bag (3-2 OVER).

Not much to glean from this information as both teams are sitting around 50/50 in UNDER/OVERS. You find the same split, even when focusing on relevant game totals (between 46.5 - 50.5):

We see only a 6-5 OVER record here, not enough of a trend to be significant.

The Case for the OVER

Looking at trends, history, and traditional ways handicappers find value there doesn’t seem to be much insight here. However, when taking a deeper dive and looking at some “less obvious” angles, the case for the OVER gets a bit stronger.

For starters, when you mesh BOTH the UNDER/OVER results, with the FAVORITE/DOG historical Super Bowl betting results, there is a bit of an interesting play. See the chart below that catalogs these results:

Additionally, for those searching for a reason to play the OVER, you can find some confidence in how PFF views this play: Yes, there is a tidbit of “inverse reasoning” here, but of the 54 games on record, you see no relationship between the Favorite/Dog WHEN the UNDER hits, yet you do see a small trend WHEN the OVER hits, leaning toward the Favorite hitting. Hence, there is some fairness in the thought, “if you're making a case for the OVER”, you’re more than likely assuming the favorite will beat the spread (Rams -4.5), which we are. Our model has the Rams winning by a touchdown here (note: there may be some parlay potential here now too).

As you can see, with their models, compared to the odds PFF sees MUCH more value in the over vs the under hitting.

Overall, I believe the best case for the OVER hitting in the Super Bowl is the belief that the Rams will win, and do so by putting a lot of points on the board. The Rams #5 Offensive ranking by PFF, and Bengals #15 defensive ranking offers additional support to this prediction. 

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Ryan Newman is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Ryan, check out his archive.