Super Bowl LVII is now in the rearview mirror, as the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-35. The game did have what some would say was a ticky-tack holding call that sealed the win for the Chiefs, but it was still one heck of a game. Kansas City won outright as a one-point underdog, and the game went over the total of 51. And it went over my a country mile at 73 points.
If we eliminate the two pushes and one pick ’em game in the first 56 Super Bowls, favorites are now 28-26 (52%) against the spread. The Eagles were unable to beat the spread despite holding a 10-point lead at the half. Favorites are now 37-19 straight up in Super Bowls. The over/under is split with 28 games going over and 28 staying under. That omits Super Bowl I, which didn’t have any over/under odds.
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Patrick Mahomes, who was awarded the Super Bowl MVP award for the second time in his career, broke two trends in this game. First, he was the first quarterback to lead the NFL in passing yards and win the Super Bowl in the same season.
The list of prominent field generals who had previously failed to accomplish this impressive feat include the likes of Dan Marino (Super Bowl XIX), Kurt Warner (Super Bowl XXXVI), Rich Gannon (Super Bowl XXXVII). Tom Brady twice (Super Bowls XLII and LII) and Peyton Manning (Super Bowl XLVIII).
Mahomes is also the first NFL MVP to also win a Super Bowl since Warner in 1999. Since then, eight NFL MVPs who appeared in the Super Bowl were winless (0-8). That includes Warner (Super Bowl XXXVI), Gannon (Super Bowl XXXVII), Shaun Alexander (Super Bowl XL), Brady (Super Bowls XLII and LII), Manning (Super Bowls XLIV and XLVIII), Cam Newton (Super Bowl 50) and Matt Ryan (Super Bowl LI). Again, Mahomes broke this trend with his Super Bowl LVII win.
Quarterbacks have now won the Super Bowl MVP 31 times, or 54% of the time.
While it hadn’t happened since Warner did it in 1999, Mahomes is the 11th player to have won both the MVP award and the Super Bowl in the same season. Coincidentally, the teams that had the league MVP and also went to the Super Bowl from 1966-1999 had a perfect 10-0 record in the big game. Those teams went 8-0-2 against the spread, so the trend used to favor teams that had MVP winners.
From a fantasy perspective, Mahomes’s 23.7 fantasy points ranks 18th among quarterbacks all time in the Super Bowl. However, the biggest fantasy winner based on total points scored in this game was easily Jalen Hurts.
Hurts almost broke Steve Young’s record for the most fantasy points scored by a quarterback in a Super Bowl. He threw for 304 yards with one touchdown while also rushing for 70 yards and another three scores. All told, he finished with 41.2 fantasy points or just 0.7 fewer points than Young scored in Super Bowl XXIX.
If Hurts didn’t lose a fumble in the game, he would have beaten Young’s mark.
No one else had a massive fantasy performance that would rank among the elite in Super Bowls, though Travis Kelce did score 20.1 points on his six catches for 81 yards and one touchdown. He has now scored the second-most PPR fantasy points among tight ends in Super Bowls, trailing only the great Rob Gronkowski.
For those of you who are already looking ahead to the 2023 NFL season, SI Sportsbook has posted the odds for the Super Bowl favorites. The Chiefs lead the way at +600, followed by the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers (+750), the Philadelphia Eagles (+800), and the Cincinnati Bengals (+900).
Michael Fabiano is an award-winning fantasy football analyst on Sports Illustrated and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) Hall of Fame. Click here to read all his articles here on SI Fantasy. You can follow Michael on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram for your late-breaking fantasy news and the best analysis in the business to help you win a fantasy championship!
