Wunderdog Sports (site sponsor) has published these:
Wunderdog Super Bowl XLII Props
OVER 7.5 punts -130
The Superbowl has featured 32 of 41 games played with more than 7.5 punts in a game or 78% of the time. Now, we know that many Superbowls in the early years that featured posted totals in the 30s it would be easy to attribute the high number of punts to those games with low totals. But we have done the research to prove otherwise. One would think with a total posted in the 50s (with high powered offenses) that the punters would not be on the field very much. There have been six Superbowls prior to this year with posted totals of 50 or more. The punts in each of those games were 9, 9, 9, 9, 2 and 12. That means even in games with a high offensive expectations, five of the six had 9+ punts. Since this was a rather small sample size, we then looked at games with a total of 48+. This added eight more games with high offensive expectations. Seven of those eight games also featured more than 7.5 punts! The lowest punt total in this group was 7, just missing. So in the 14 highest lined total s in Superbowl history 12 have topped this posted number of 7.5. To make sure these games went as expected, we looked at the total point output in these 14 games and it was 51.4 ppg, so the games were in fact high scoring. The average number of punts in these games was 9.5. What about the fact that New England has one of the best offenses ever? Surely they won't punt a lot, right? While New England was rolling early in the year, just two of their first eleven games exceeded the total. But, four of the last seven did. The Giants exceeded this total in 16 of their last 17 games, including all three playoff games. So, Super Bowl History points to OVER. Super Bowls with high totals points to OVER. The Giants play all season points to OVER. And the recent play of New England points OVER. Obviously, we like the value in OVER 7.5 punts here.
OVER 2.5 INTERCEPTIONS +162
The average number of interceptions per game in the NFL this year was 2.1. But, are playoff games and the Super Bowl the same as the regular season? No! There are two big differences: the best defenses and much more pressure. The Superbowl history shows that 22 of 41 games have had 3+ interceptions. That is a 53.7% expectation yet we see a moneyline here of +162! Smells like value on the surface. Let's look deeper. Ten of the last 16 Superbowls have featured 3+ so it wasn't just early on. This is probably set low because of the Brady factor. Brady however threw just four INTs in his first 10 games this year and seven in his last eight. We also have uncovered a very telling stat that ties the increasing probability of interceptions with the increase of game pressure. This regular season just 86 of 256 games featured 3+ interceptions or 33.6%. The playoffs, and Superbowl history show an entire different story. Here is the data for the playoffs over the past 10 years. You will see with each round, the percentage goes up with the added pressure, and peaks in the Superbowl. The 2007 regular season was 33.6%. The first round of playoffs was 38.9%. Conference semi-finals round was 47.2%. The Conference Finals round were 50% and the Superbowl 53.7%. So we have an opportunity here to get +162 on this prop with an estimated 45% - 54% expectation of winning, so we like the over 2.5 interceptions.
1st QUARTER UNDER 10.5 -130
25 of 41 Superbowls have played the first quarter under this total. You may think that in the early years of the Superbowl would be the time this would contribute most to the first quarter being low scoring. That is in part true, but nine of the last ten Super Bowls have played under this total! The average first quarter points scored in the first quarter in all Super Bowls is 8.5 and over the last 10 years it is 5.2 ppg. We believe as the magnitude of this game seems to grow year by year, the teams go through a feeling out process early, to get a feel of what they can do vs their opponent. Teams start conservatively, not wanting to make a huge error early in the game. But what about Super Bowls with high-scoring offenses like New England's? We looked and it turns out that four of the six Super Bowl games with a total posted at 50+ have gone under this total, including the last three. We also found that of the 16 Super Bowls with a total of 47 or more, ten (62.5%) have played UNDER this 1st quarter total. Many will look at this Pats offense and say they will score that themselves. The fact is the 1st quarter in New England games went UNDER this total in 12 of 18 games, and six of the last seven! The Giants played UNDER this number in 15 of 19, so combined they played 27 of 37 UNDER 10.5 or 73% of the time, including a game vs each other. We like the first quarter to go UNDER 10.5 points scored.
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