Three of the four teams that advanced to the conference championship in 2022 returned this season.
The Chiefs and Bengals will see one another Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium in a rematch of last year’s AFC championship game. The 49ers are also back on the verge of the Super Bowl and will travel to Lincoln Financial Field to play the Eagles for the NFC title.
Cincinnati and Philadelphia both rolled in the divisional round. Joe Burrow and the Bengals beat the Bills in Buffalo, 27-10, after getting out to a 14-0 lead in the snow. Jalen Hurts’s Eagles ran all over the Giants in a 38-7 rout and held a 28-0 lead at halftime.
Kansas City and San Francisco both had much closer calls. The Chiefs beat the Jaguars, 27-20, with a hobbled Patrick Mahomes nursing an ankle injury throughout the second half. And the 49ers remained undefeated with Brock Purdy under center after they held off the Cowboys, 19-12.
With four teams left in the race for the Lombardi Trophy, here’s where the SI Sportsbook futures odds stand. There’s not a whole lot of separation in this group.
Super Bowl LVII Outright Winner Odds
Kansas City Chiefs +250
Philadelphia Eagles +250
Cincinnati Bengals +265
San Francisco 49ers +333
The Chiefs (+250) are co-favorites with the Eagles, but Mahomes’s ankle injury casts doubt on the AFC’s 1-seed. Though he finished Saturday’s game after X-rays came back negative, he was diagnosed with a high-ankle sprain. Kansas City is a 1.5-point favorite at home against Cincinnati and will host the conference title game for a record fifth straight season. Rookie running back Isiah Pacheco gained 95 yards on the ground and Travis Kelce, who caught 14 passes for 98 yards and two scores, accounted for the lion’s share of the production in the passing game.
Philadelphia (+250) lived up to its No. 1 seed billing against New York, accounting for 268 yards and three scores on the ground. Hurts, who missed two games late in the year with a shoulder injury, looked healthy on his nine carries and he wasn’t asked to do much as a passer in a game that was out of hand at the half. The defense, which led the league in sacks in the regular season, got to Daniel Jones five times and intercepted him once. The Eagles are two-point home favorites against the 49ers in their first conference title game since 2018.
The defending AFC champion Bengals (+265) have slightly longer odds to win it all than the Chiefs, who they’ve defeated three times in a row—Week 13, last year’s AFC title game and during the 2021 regular season. Cincinnati pulled off an impressive upset on the road in Buffalo after it beat the Ravens in the wild-card round. The running game was key in the victory over the Bills, as was the defense that has allowed the second-fewest points per game in the playoffs. The Bengals are the lowest remaining seed in the playoffs and head to Kansas City on a 10-game winning streak.
The 49ers, the hottest team in the NFL, have the longest odds to win it all. San Francisco has won 12 in a row and hasn’t lost since October after it survived the Cowboys’ futile final play Sunday at home. Kicker Robbie Gould connected on four field goals and Christian McCaffrey found the end zone once, which was enough to get past Dallas. Kyle Shanahan’s offense was not as explosive as it was against the Seahawks in the wild-card matchup, but the defense came through to advance to a third conference championship game in four years.
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