Super Bowl 2021 Odds as Tom Brady to Be Underdog for Only Second Time
Nineteen years after leading the New England Patriots to their first Super Bowl win in their history, Tom Brady will again enter the final act of the NFL season as an underdog.
The veteran quarterback guided the Tampa Bay Buccaneers back to the Super Bowl for the first time in 18 years on Sunday night as the Bucs defeated the Packers 31-26 in Green Bay in the NFC Championship Game to set up a meeting with the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV next month.
By winning in Green Bay, the Bucs became the first team in NFL history to earn the right to play the Super Bowl in their home stadium but, bar significant line movement, they will take the field at Raymond James Stadium in two weeks as the underdogs.
The Chiefs opened as consensus three-point favorites over Tampa Bay and the line has since moved to 3.5-point with a number of sportsbooks, including DraftKings.
That leaves Brady as an underdog going into the Super Bowl for the first time since he first played in the NFL title game in 2002, when the Patriots were 14-point underdogs against the Los Angeles Rams but shocked "The Greatest Show on Turf" to win the first of six Super Bowl rings with Brady under centre.
In each of their eight following appearances in the Super Bowl, Brady and the Patriots were favorites. Worryingly for the Bucs, favorite teams are 35-14 straight up in Super Bowl history.
The Chiefs, who are looking to become the first team since New England in the 2003 and 2004 seasons to win back-to-back Super Bowls, were 3.5-point favorites when the two teams met in Tampa in Week 12 of the regular season with Kansas City winning 27-24.
The over/under line in terms of total points scored, meanwhile, opened at 57 with William Hill, making it the second-highest in Super Bowl history behind only Super Bowl LI when it stood at 58 points.
The Bucs were 50-1 outsiders to win Super Bowl LV back in March, but the odds were slashed to 15-1 after they emerged the front runner in the race to sign Brady when the veteran quarterback revealed he would leave the Patriots after two decades.
Money started pouring in on the Bucs and the trend continued when they eventually landed Brady in free agency.
The Chiefs, meanwhile, started the season as 6-1 favorite to win back-to-back Super Bowls.
Bookmakers will be hoping for the latter outcome, as Tampa Bay represents by far the biggest liability from a financial standpoint, as per figures from BetMGM and DraftKings.
According to data from BetMGM, 11.8 percent of tickets—the number of total bets—and 34.1 percent of the handle the total amount of money staked—ahead of Super Bowl LV has gone on the Chiefs, while the Bucs have commanded 9.1 percent of the tickets and 11.2 percent of the handle respectively.
