With two weeks between Championship Sunday and Super Bowl Sunday there is plenty of time to handicap the betting markets. The Super Bowl is the biggest sporting spectacle on the planet and as a result it takes in billions of dollars at the betting window. There are reasons for that. The extended time before kickoff allows sportsbooks to come up with all kinds of proposition bets available from before the game starts until after it ends. You can wager the over/under on the duration of the national anthem to what color liquid the winning coach gets doused with. One popular prop bet is on the game’s MVP, and considering quarterbacks have won the award 31 times in the previous 55 Super Bowls it’s not surprising to see Los Angeles’ Matthew Stafford and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow at the top of the odds board.
Super Bowl LVI – Cincinnati Bengals vs. Los Angeles Rams
Date and Time: Sunday, February 13, 2022, 6:30 p.m. ET
Location: SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA
Opening NFL Odds: Los Angeles -4, O/U 49
Bengals vs. Rams TV Coverage: NBC
Super Bowl LVI MVP Odds
Matthew Stafford +105
Joe Burrow +225
Cooper Kupp +350
Ja'Marr Chase +1000
Aaron Donald +1800
Odell Beckham Jr. +2000
Joe Mixon +2500
Tee Higgins +3000
Cam Akers +3000
Evan McPherson +3500
Jalen Ramsey +5000
Sony Michel +5000
Von Miller +5000
Tyler Boyd +5500
Tyler Higbee +6000
Van Jefferson +6000
Trey Hendrickson +7500
Kendall Blanton +10000
Matt Gay +10000
Drew Sample +15000
Eli Apple +15000
Eric Weddle +15000
Sam Hubbard +15000
Samaje Perine +15000
Vonn Bell +15000
B.J. Hill +20000
It’s common to see the starting quarterback with the favored team have the shortest odds. And guess what? There’s Stafford leading the way. With the Rams opening as a 4-point favorite, Stafford hit the board at +105 to become yet another QB to win the honor. The Rams acquired Stafford for this reason. Sure, they got to the Super Bowl a few years ago with Jared Goff, but they failed to score a touchdown in the loss to New England and Goff was never the same. Stafford took the Lions to the playoffs three times but never won a game. Playing for a team focused on reaching the Super Bowl invigorated the former No. 1 overall pick.
Stafford had a good season leading the Rams to the NFC West title. He threw for nearly 4,900 yards and finished behind only Tom Brady with 41 touchdown passes. He struggled a bit over the second half of the season with a majority of his league-high tying 17 interceptions coming in the final eight games. He’s been awesome in the postseason completing 72 percent of his throws with six TDs and one pick. He’s averaging 313.7 passing yards over three games.
It’s hard to say the Bengals would be in this position without Burrow. Joe Cool led the underdog bunch to road wins over the top two seeds in the AFC, coming back from an 18-point deficit to beat Kansas City in the AFC Championship. Burrow can put up big numbers with a trio of talented receivers led by Ja’Marr Chase, who is also the fourth favorite on the odds list. Burrow combined to throw for nearly 1,000 yards in consecutive games during the regular season and has passed for 842 yards this postseason.
For someone other than a quarterback to win the award, they will have to have a huge game. There have been a few defenders win the award over the years, the last being Denver’s Von Miller in Super Bowl 50 when he collected 2.5 sacks, two forced fumbles and six tackles. Miller now plays for the Rams with a chance to become the sixth player with multiple Super Bowl MVP awards.
What makes a Ram defender an intriguing bet is the number of sacks allowed by the Bengals. Burrow was sacked a league-high 51 times during the regular season and has been taken down 12 times this postseason. Sacks are a stat defensive players can earn adding to their candidacy. Three-time DPOY Aaron Donald is the favorite among defensive players and shouldn’t be ruled out. But with teams that can move the football and score, it’s unlikely we see a defender walk away with the hardware.
The best value bets are pass catchers. The last four offensive MVPs that weren’t QBs were wide receivers with Julian Edelman in Super Bowl LIII the most recent. And both clubs are stacked at the position. Cooper Kupp led the NFL by a lot in receptions and receiving yards and his 16 TD catches were two more than Mike Evans. Kupp is the third favorite with odds of +350. And don’t exclude what Odell Beckham Jr. has done since being acquired. He had his first 100-yard receiving game since the 2019 campaign in the NFC Championship.
In order to cash a winning ticket on this bet you first have to get the winning team right. Only once in Super Bowl history has the MVP come from the losing team, and that was way back in 1971 when Dallas linebacker Chuck Howley earned the honor with a pair of interceptions and a fumble recovery.
We’ve never seen a kicker win MVP, but Cincinnati’s Evan McPherson is fairly high up the odds board at +3500. He’s been perfect this postseason making four field goals in each of the three games with walkoffs over Tennessee and Kansas City. However, his chances are slim unless he does something extraordinary. New England’s Adam Vinatieri kicked a game-winning 48-yard field goal to beat St. Louis in Super Bowl XXXVI and wasn’t named MVP.
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