There’s a great reason money favors Eagles before Super Bowl LIX

The Kansas City Chiefs enter Super Bowl LIX with a certain sense of inevitability. They're the two-time defending champions, for starters, and while they spent large stretches of the 2024 regular season looking far from the best team in the NFL, they just keep on winning regardless — and are once again rounding into form at exactly the right time. At this point, we'll believe that a team featuring Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes will actually lose a playoff game when it the clock hits zero.

So it should come as no surprise that K.C. sits as slight favorites over the Philadelphia Eagles ahead of their titanic rematch in New Orleans on Sunday, with the latest FanDuel odds showing the Chiefs as -1.5 favorites and -120 to win on the moneyline. What is a bit of a surprise, however, is the direction that those odds appear to be moving. The Chiefs may be favored, but some very big money is more than happy to take the other side right now.

With a saturated market like the Super Bowl, often times these heavy bettors can be a better indicator of a given matchup than the overall spread. Which begs the question: What gives here? Why is so much money starting to flow to the Eagles, with "sportsbooks noting the interest in Philadelphia in the week leading up to the big game in New Orleans" according to Sports Illustrated? The answer might be painfully simple.

Why big money seems to be backing Eagles over Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX

It's not just that this Philly team boasts quite possibly the most loaded depth chart in the entire league. It's also where that talent is most heavily concentrated: namely, on each line of scrimmage.

While the Chiefs were able to survive the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship Game, their situation at guard remains a glaring issue — especially with Joe Thuney forced to kick out to left tackle in an effort to protect Mahomes' blind side. Both Trey Smith and Mike Caliendo were among the team's lowest-graded players against Buffalo, which is not exactly what you want to hear ahead of a matchup with Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis and the rest of a ferocious Eagles interior. No quarterback deals with pressure better than Mahomes, but as we saw in the team's previous Super Bowl loss to the Tampa Bay Bucs, the quickest way to short-circuit this offense is by getting in his face early and often.

On the other side of the ball, meanwhile, the Eagles seem as well-positioned as possible to stymie what might be Kansas City's greatest strength. Of course, just about no one in the league can slow down Chris Jones when he's at the peak of his powers, but Mekhi Becton, Landon Dickerson and Cam Jurgens are about as good as you can hope for, not to mention tackles Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata when Jones lines up as an end. Buffalo controlled much of the second half of the AFC title game with a steady diet of James Cook on the ground, which raises serious questions about Kansas City's ability to contain Saquon Barkley and the league's best rushing attack.

Granted, we've been making sound arguments about why this might finally be the game the Chiefs lose, only for Mahomes and Reid and Steve Spagnuolo to pull a rabbit out of the hat. It's entirely possible that they work their magic yet again and none of the above matters. But the fact remains that Philly, on paper at least, seems positioned to exploit some of Kansas City's weak points, and bettors are taking notice.