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David Purdum, ESPN Staff Writer
Patrick Mahomes hasn’t been this big of an underdog in a long time.
The line on the AFC Championship Game moved toward the favored Baltimore Ravens in recent days and was sitting as high as -4.5 on Sunday morning, up a point from the consensus opening spread.
Mahomes is poised to be an underdog for only the 12th time in his career. The Kansas City Chiefs have not been an underdog of three or more points in Mahomes’ past 73 starts, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
The last time the Chiefs were as big as a 4.5-point underdog was the third start of Mahomes’ career — Week 3 of the 2018 season against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Mahomes has thrived in the underdog role. The Chiefs are 8-3 outright as underdogs with Mahomes under center and 9-1-1 against the spread in those games. Yet many of the biggest bets reported last week by sportsbooks have been on the Ravens.
Caesars Sportsbook took a $100,000 bet on Baltimore to win the Super Bowl at +195 odds, and BetMGM reported taking a $175,000 money-line bet on the Ravens to beat the Chiefs at -200 odds. The overall action on the AFC Championship Game point spread, however, was relatively balanced entering Sunday.
Ed Salmons, a veteran Las Vegas oddsmaker with the SuperBook, pointed to Kansas City All-Pro guard Joe Thuney being out and the expected returns of Ravens starting cornerback Marlon Humphrey and tight end Mark Andrews as factors he believes were driving the line movement.
“We have lots and lots of Ravens parlays,” Salmons added.
The point spread on the NFC Championship Game also moved toward the favorite in recent days, with the San Francisco 49ers going from -7 to -7.5 at some sportsbook late last week, despite heavy support from the betting public on the underdog Detroit Lions.
As of Sunday morning at DraftKings, there had been more than twice as many point spread bets on Detroit as there had been on the 49ers.