Super Bowl Betting Preview and Game History

The NFC owns the upper hand in the recent Super Bowl rivalry with the AFC, winning four of the last five Super Bowls outright, going 6-1 against the spread over the last seven. The NFC's Seattle Seahawks, who won the Super Bowl last season in convincing fashion, will try to add to their home conference's recent run when they take on the AFC's New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX on Sunday, February 1 in Glendale, Arizona.

Some of the Super Bowl betting market had Big Game No. 49 as a pick 'em on the spread early in the week, with a total of 48.5. Previous Super Bowl short spreads came in Super Bowl VII, when the perfect Miami Dolphins, favored by one point, beat George Allen's Washington Redskins 14-7 at the Coliseum in Los Angeles, and in Super Bowl XVI, when the San Francisco 49ers, chasing their first Lombardi Trophy, favored by one point, beat Forrest Gregg's Cincinnati Bengals 26-21 at the Pontiac Silverdome.

Super Bowl outcomes have run in streaks, almost since the inception of the game. The NFL/NFC, in the form of Coach Lombardi's Green Bay Packers, won the first two Super Bowls, but the AFL/AFC, jump-started by the New York Jets' epic upset of the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III and with later help from the transplanted Pittsburgh Steelers, won 11 of the next 13.

The NFC then won 15 of the next 16 Super Bowls, including 13 in a row, many in blowout fashion, stretching from San Francisco's first Super Bowl championship in 1982 to Green Bay's third title in 1997. But John Elway's Denver Broncos then won back-to-back Super Bowl titles, and Tom Brady and the New England Patriots won three in four years, part of an 8-2 Super Bowl run for the AFC.

Lately the NFC has regained the edge, winning four of the last five Super Bowl championships, including Seattle's 43-8 massacre of Denver last February. Overall, the NFC leads the AFC in Super Bowl victories by a 26-22 margin, going 25-21 ATS (with two push results).