Sportsbook.com
Names NFL Favorites
No NFL team has ever reached
the Super Bowl by winning three straight road
games in the playoffs. Odds makers at Sportsbook.com
don't favor either Pittsburgh or Carolina to
accomplish the feat this year, installing Denver
and Seattle as slight favorites in the Conference
Finals.
"It's
hard to see any team winning three straight
road games in three straight weeks with the
amount of pressure and what's at stake,"
said Peter Childs, odds maker, Sportsbook.com.
"It's never happened before, but with Shaun
Alexander maybe at less than 100 per cent for
Seattle and Pittsburgh playing so well, you
never know."
While
no team has ever won three straight on the road,
visitors this week will be heartened by the
fact that at least one road team has won a Conference
Final game each of the last eight post-seasons,
with both road teams winning in 1997 when Denver
beat Pittsburgh and Green Bay topped San Francisco.
In fact, Carolina beat Philadelphia on the road
just two years ago to make it to the Super Bowl,
and that team remains pretty much intact today.
Despite
that fact Pittsburgh comes to Denver as a 3.5
point underdog in the AFC title game after defeating
the favored Cincinnati Bengals on Wild Card
weekend then pulling off the biggest upset of
the playoffs, dominating the Indianapolis Colts,
a team once thought by many to be on route to
a perfect season. Carolina, likewise, is a 4
point underdog in the NFC Final despite pulling
off two straight upsets, both in cold weather
cities, beating the New York Giants in the Wild
Card game and the Chicago Bears yesterday.
In
addition to odds on this week's games, Sportsbook.com
has now installed Denver as the favorite to
win the Super Bowl, with odds set at 9-5, followed
by Seattle at 13-5, Pittsburgh at 3-1 and Carolina
at 4-1. Of the four teams, Pittsburgh entered
the season with the best odds of winning the
Super Bowl. The Steelers were 25-1 favorites.
The Seahawks had the worst odds among the four
semi-finalists at 35-1.
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