Super Bowl 2024 Mega Preview: Picks, Predictions, Props, Point Spread, Betting Odds & More

Picks, predictions, and betting odds (point spread, over/under, and props) for Super Bowl LVIII: Kansas City Chiefs vs. San Francisco 49ers.

February 8, 2024 - by Jason Lisk

Two of the best TEs will compete in the Super Bowl (Bob Kupbens/Icon Sportswire)

This article consolidates our Super Bowl 2024 picks, predictions, and betting analysis for the big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

We also cover Super Bowl LVIII props, player projections, betting odds and news, with frequent updates as kickoff nears on Sunday.

(If you want to see a curated list of our favorite betting picks for the Super Bowl and other sports, view our Staff Picks page.)

The 2024 Super Bowl will take place at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Sunday, February 11. Kickoff time is 6:30pm ET.

Super Bowl 2024 Picks and Predictions Menu

Our game picks for the 2024 Super Bowl were posted on Wednesday, February 7, based on betting odds at the time of posting. You can access them at the links below.

The game winner, moneyline pick, and against the spread pick are free to all, but further picks and analysis (over/under pick, props we like, team and player stat projections, etc.) require a premium subscription that includes BetIQ site access.

Free Super Bowl LVIII Picks

If the links above aren’t working, it means you are not logged in with a subscription that includes BetIQ site access. You can see your options here.

 

Best Sportsbook Offers for Chiefs vs. 49ers

This time of year, sportsbooks tend to roll out the red carpet to attract new customers for online sports betting, which is now available and legal in many states.

If you’re ready to sign up for your first online sports betting account for the Big Game (or you want to add an additional account to take advantage of bonus offers), here are the best deals from our two favorite U.S. sportsbooks:

 

Our Approach To Super Bowl Picks

The Super Bowl is a unique game when it comes to betting. As our subscribers know, our algorithmic models make predictions for every NFL matchup. However, using historical data to unearth an as-yet-undiscovered (and more importantly, a meaningful) handicapping angle on one of the world’s most scrutinized sporting events is often a tall order indeed.

As a result, our models often consider the most popular Super Bowl betting lines to be pretty accurate (or “efficient” in betting terms), and don’t have a very strong lean on the most popular bets like the full-game point spread and over/under.

That’s not a bad thing. Though there can be exceptions in some years, if you think sportsbook lines for the Super Bowl are way off reality, it’s probably (but not always) you that’s the one who’s missing something.

But this is the Super Bowl, and you probably want some action on it. So in this post we’ll go beyond our model predictions to lay out our logic for popular full-game picks, including an against the spread pick and an over/under pick (i.e. the total points scored by both teams).

In addition, the amazing variety of bets and odds offered by bookmakers on Super Bowl LVIII also opens up opportunities to find expected value on more esoteric pick types that our models don’t directly cover. That includes player props, derivative bets, and other Super Bowl prop bets.

We’ll be doing a lot of hands-on research into the Chiefs vs. 49ers matchup, and we’ll point out some of these lesser-known bets that we like best.

 

Wednesday, February 7th

Game Winner and Moneyline Pick For Super Bowl 58

As of this writing on Wednesday, February 7, our models have a lean toward Kansas City as a moneyline value pick for Super Bowl LVIII. (If you’re new to betting, a moneyline bet is when you bet that a team will win the game outright, regardless of the point spread.)

To be clear, our models do NOT see KC as the favorite to win this game as of Wednesday. But you can get plus-money odds to bet them to win outright as an underdog, and based on the Wednesday odds, the Chiefs are a more attractive moneyline bet than San Francisco.

Our overall ensemble forecast, which factors in all our different math models, is showing 54.3% odds for San Francisco to win the game, with the 49ers as a slight favorite to win in the betting markets. That means the Chiefs’ implied odds to win (45.7%) are at the break-even at the current consensus moneyline of +119 for Kansas City (45.7%).

If you can get moneyline odds of +120 or higher for the Chiefs, that would qualify as a playable +EV pick according to our models.

Friday, February 9th Update: The moneyline is holding fairly steady, with only slight fluctuations across books. Our consensus line is +117 for Kansas City and -129 for San Francisco currently. (You can see the most up-to-date lines on our odds page and lots of info on our Super Bowl matchup page.)

Saturday, February 10th Update: With a day to go, the moneyline is holding mostly steady, but with slight movement across the market toward a lower price for Kansas City. At the main U.S. retail books, FanDuel is at -124/+106, DraftKings is at -120/+100 (best relative price on San Francisco), and both BetMGM and Caesars are at -130/+110 (best relative price on Kansas City).

Super Bowl Game Winner Analysis

The Chiefs are back in the Super Bowl for the second year in a row, while San Francisco returns for the first time since that Super Bowl loss to Kansas City following the 2019 season.

The 49ers were close to reaching this point last year, surging to the NFC Championship Game, before losing to Philadelphia in a game where QB Brock Purdy was knocked out early with injury.

Pick arguments for the 49ers

  • The San Francisco 49ers have been the better team over the course of the full season, as reflected by our power ratings across all games, where the 49ers (+8.8) rate two points better than the Chiefs (+6.8).
  • San Francisco has not been an underdog all year, but in the four games in which they were favored by fewer than 4 points, they went 4-0 straight up (SU) and against the spread (ATS), winning each game by at least 23 points (at Pittsburgh, vs. Dallas, at Jacksonville, at Philadelphia).
  • The worst stretch of offense for San Francisco, which came in October, coincided with injuries to WR Deebo Samuel and OL Trent Williams, plus QB Brock Purdy being in concussion protocol (but not missing a start). Those were the only games in which the team failed to score more than 17 points, and the 49ers power rating jumps to a dominant +10.8 (almost 11 points better than an average NFL team) if you exclude those three games.
  • San Francisco has a top rushing offense, ranking 3rd in rush yards, 4th in yards per carry, and 1st in rushing touchdowns, and the Chiefs’ relative weakness on defense is rush defense, where they rank 25th at 4.5 yards per carry allowed.

Pick arguments against for the Chiefs

  • Since the start of Week 12, the Chiefs have been the better team by our adjusted power ratings, at +7.5, versus +6.7 for San Francisco. Their 2nd best, 3rd best, and 6th best Game Scores all season have also come in the playoffs. (Game Score a metric we developed that adjusts game outcomes for factors including location and opponent quality.)
  • That timeline also corresponds with the 49ers losing All-Pro Safety Talanoa Hufanga to a season-ending injury, as the 49ers predictive rating (+6.7 since, versus +9.2 before) has been about 2.5 points worse than during the early season with him playing.
  • Of San Francisco’s seven worst games by Game Score, four of them have come in their last five games played, including the most recent two playoff matchups, where they allowed a combined 318 rushing yards.
  • Kansas City’s rating is even better (+7.6) if we exclude games they played this season without Mahomes, TE Travis Kelce, or RB Isiah Pacheco.
  • The Chiefs’ better performance down the stretch was not facilitated by good turnover luck; they have a -4 turnover margin since Thanksgiving. In fact, the playoff game against the Ravens was the first game since October, and the third game all year, that the Chiefs had a positive turnover differential in a game.
  • Kansas City’s 28 turnovers in the regular season are the most by a team to reach the Super Bowl since 2015 Denver, who won outright as an underdog. Teams to reach the Super Bowl with 28 or more turnovers are 5-1 ATS in the Super Bowl.
  • Kansas City’s offense has been better since they expanded rookie WR Rashee Rice’s role and stopped dividing targets among seven different wide receivers, several of whom made costly mistakes in big games or were unproductive.
  • Teams that have reached the Super Bowl coming out of the Wild Card Round have a history of success, as going back to 1995, they are 10-4 SU and 12-1-1 ATS in the Super Bowl.
  • Kansas City has been dominant as an underdog with Patrick Mahomes at QB, going 8-3 SU and 9-1-1 ATS when getting points. That includes the last two playoff wins at Buffalo and Baltimore, and last year’s Super Bowl win.

2024 Super Bowl Pick: Kansas City to Win (+119 moneyline odds or better)

Could San Francisco put together the kind of dominant performance that we saw earlier in the year and run away as the favorite, like they did against Dallas and Philadelphia? Sure. It rarely happens, though, against Kansas City.

The Chiefs have as many Super Bowl appearances under Mahomes as they do losses by more than 8 points in games he’s started (four of each).

The Chiefs’ recent return to form seems real, and they field an experienced playoff team that has logged a lot of games. They certainly weren’t sharp, and were quite mediocre on offense, for large chunks of the year. The receiving corps had major question marks entering the season, and those doubts continued as the weeks went on. Only rookie Rashee Rice really emerged as a potential impact player, and the team was slow to commit to giving him more snaps and reducing the roles of others.

Now, with Rice getting the lion’s share of snaps along with TE Travis Kelce, and RB Isiah Pacheco having a featured role since his return from an early December injury, Kansas City is leaning on a focused core of playmakers.

Not to mention that the KC pass defense has been dominant, even without creating turnovers. The 49ers defense may have the better reputation, but the actual results down the stretch suggest that Kansas City has been better on that side of the ball.

In simple terms, plus-money odds as an underdog, the best QB of this generation, and a really good defense equals our lean toward Kansas City in Super Bowl LVIII.

Return to Main Menu

Wednesday, February 7th

Against The Spread Pick For Super Bowl 58

Our models are close to a dead heat when it comes to the two-point spread in this game.

We laid out the bigger arguments for and against both San Francisco and Kansas City in the previous section on our Game Winner and Moneyline pick, so read that out if you haven’t yet.

Since the point spread is so short, the analysis regarding the spread and outright winner are roughly the same. However, our models see more value on the moneyline than the spread, especially given that the point spread is under the key number of three.

Friday, February 9th Update: The spread is still at San Francisco -2 of Friday afternoon. (You can see the most up-to-date lines on our odds page and lots of info on our Super Bowl matchup page.)

Saturday, February 10th Update: With a day to go until the big game, the spread is mostly holding steady at -2, and usually at -110 on each side, at most books. However, FanDuel is at -1.5 (-112) on San Francisco and +1.5 (-108) on Kansas City this morning.

2024 Super Bowl Point Spread Pick: Kansas City +2

As with our game winner pick, we like the relative value on Kansas City. We’re confident that they’re at least a little better now than their overall season numbers imply, based on their recent form in the playoffs and how they have played with changes to the offensive target/touches distribution concentrating more on Travis Kelce, Rashee Rice, and Isiah Pacheco.

San Francisco, on the other hand, has played a little worse in the second half of the season, and the 49er defense has performed worse than the regular season in its two playoff matchups. Given that our full-season power ratings put this game exactly where the betting market has it as of Wednesday, we see slight value on Kansas City getting the points.

Betting The Moneyline Vs. The Point Spread At +2

One important question to explore in this case is how often having the point spread vs. moneyline matters, for a game with exactly a two-point spread.

Going back to 2002, using our NFL Custom Trends Tool, we can see that teams that were underdogs of exactly +2 performed pretty well overall, going 76-69-1 SU, and 80-62-4 ATS.

That’s a difference of just under 4% in win/cover rate, meaning you would expect to win about 4% more of the time by taking the extra two points with the spread. Of course, that advantage is offset by getting a bigger payout (for the same risk) by taking the moneyline.

The difference between having +2 points (at typical -110 payout odds, a 52.4% break-even rate) and +119 payout odds on the moneyline (which translates to a 45.7% break-even rate) is 6.7%, larger than the difference between spread and moneyline performance. That same logic is why our moneyline models see more value than our spread models do.

In fact, the moneyline would have to be about +106 (or the +2 line would have to be at +100 odds) to have roughly even value between the spread and moneyline. So of these two potential bets on KC, we would lean toward just taking some extra risk with the moneyline. But if you are more comfortable always taking the spread, the Chiefs are still our pick recommendation.

If you are going to play the spread, you should shop for your best price, as prices can differ from sportsbook to sportsbook. We’ve seen -2 (-102) on San Francisco at DraftKings, for example, and +2 (-110) at BetMGM and +2.5 (-115) at FanDuel for KC.

A Note for 49ers Fans…

If you disagree with our analysis and prefer the 49ers, that’s okay. We laid out our reasoning, weighing pros and cons. The 49ers offense is certainly the more explosive side this year, and has plenty of weapons.

If San Francisco can manage to work out its recent defensive issues during the long break before Super Bowl LVIII, it could certainly be a difference maker.

In addition, a bet on Kansas City is also a bet on the Chiefs’ momentum, which is far from a guarantee to continue. The 49ers have consistently shown more offensive firepower week in and week out over the course of the 2023 season.

Return to Main Menu

Wednesday, February 7th

Over/Under Pick For Super Bowl 58

Subscribe now to read the rest...

Plus get picks and tools for betting, NCAA bracket pools and golf pools.

Subscribe Now

Free access offers available

Already a premium subscriber? Sign in for access