Author: nfltalk

Photograph: Joe Camporeale/USA Today Sports

The Eagles have turned the quarterback sneak into the least sneaky play in the playbook. There was no mystery about what Philadelphia were planning when Jalen Hurts lined up with nine teammates between the hashes on the San Francisco one-yard line in the NFC Championship game, half of the group in four-point stances.

Nor did the call change after the 49ers stopped Hurts for no gain. One play later, from an identical formation, Philly’s quarterback took the snap and plunged forward to his left, forcing his way into the end zone with some help from tight end Dallas Goedert and running back Boston Scott behind him, shoving him over the line.

It is a strategy they have used all season, to punishing effect. Eagles center Jason Kelce channels Anchorman with his line that “92% of the time, it works every time,” but the real numbers aren’t far off. During the regular season, the Eagles converted 29 of their 33 quarterback sneaks into first downs or touchdowns.

No team has ever used the play so prolifically. When the NFL’s Football Operations team dug into the data three years ago, they found that Tom Brady led the league with 157 sneaks since 2001 – 85 more than second-placed Drew Brees. To frame that statistic in a different way: even the league’s “Master of the QB sneak” averaged fewer than 10 a season.

“I like the way they’re doing it,” said Brady when he was asked about the Eagles’ approach in December. “They’re kind of making it like a rugby scrum a little bit, putting a lot of bodies in there, which is kind of a new take on it.”

Related: Super Bowl LVII: the fruitless quest to find a flaw in Patrick Mahomes’s game

More than a scrum, the closer parallel in rugby union may be a maul, when a ball-carrier is held by an opponent but has not yet gone to ground. Teammates bind together around them, overlapping arms and grabbing each other’s shirts to create an overwhelming mass of bodies that keeps…

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The Super Bowl matchup is set, with the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs set to battle in Glendale, Arizona on Sunday, February 12. Not only is it going to be the biggest sporting event in the world in all of 2023, it’s also going to be the biggest sports betting event on your calendars this year.

Sportsbooks offer hundreds of ways to take a stance on the game, from the player props we see on every NFL game like over/under passing yards and anytime touchdown scorer, to more interesting over/unders like 2.5 players to throw a pass and 1.5 yards for shortest touchdown, to even more specific props like whether there will be a score in a specific window at the beginning or end of a game, will the game be tied after 0-0, and so on.

You can also get action on the coin toss and Super Bowl MVP, and some books will even post lines for the length of the national anthem, what happens during the halftime show and the color of the Gatorade splashed on the winning coach, among other props that will be determined when the game clock isn’t running. If multitasking is your thing, you can also play cross-sport props that essentially create a choice between something related to the Super Bowl and something else going on in sports that day (i.e., will Ja Morant or the Eagles score more points).

We’re covering all those angles and more in our Super Bowl props guide. Here, you’ll be able to find lines on all game-related props provided by Caesars Sportsbook and relevant content from SportsLine, sharing model and expert picks along the way. We’ll also cover some of the more exotic props on the anthem and halftime that you may not find at your sportsbook but can add a bit of fun to your party.

Be sure to check back regularly as we continue to update this post with prop lines as they become available as well as new SportsLine props content up until kickoff. All odds are subject to change.

Chiefs vs….

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Photograph: Jay Biggerstaff/USA Today Sports

The Philadelphia Eagles will try to do the impossible on Sunday: expose a flaw in the seemingly flawless.

Even the greatest usually have some shortcomings in their game that the opposition can expose. Tom Brady was slow. Brett Favre was reckless – in more ways than one. Drew Brees was small. John Elway was accurate, but not always precise.

And then there’s Patrick Mahomes. Five years into his career, there are no imperfections left in his game. As far as quarterbacking goes, he’s conquered it.

On Sunday, he’ll play for a second title with the Kansas City Chiefs. By then, he’ll almost certainly have claimed his second league MVP award – and he could have added a couple more during the years he narrowly missed out. He has never played a road playoff game, and has guided the Chiefs to five straight AFC championship games. As raw output goes, he’s off to a quicker start to his career than Dan Marino, Peyton Manning and Brady.

Most standout athletes turn into myths after they’ve retired– Jordan, Senna, Graff. But at 27, Mahomes has already reached the LeBron zone – one it took James a decade to construct. His excellence – his all-time greatness – is so clear, so obvious, so damn early that it’s in danger of being overlooked.

Related: Are the Eagles so talented that anyone could coach them to the Super Bowl?

What else is there left to say? He has bent the boundaries of what is plausible. He is the most creative, atypical quarterback in league history. He broke the paradigm, proving that tippy-tappy footwork in the pocket was not the only way of doing things – better to combine that footwork with a slinky release and agility that can evade the pass-rush.

Underarm throws, no-look passes, sidearm flicks, crossbody heaves, the impossible feels inevitable with Mahomes at the wheel of the offense.

As he has matured, he has sanded off any rough edges. He used to be reckless. He used to struggle with certain…

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San Francisco quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is becoming a free agent on March 16, and it seems very unlikely he returns to the 49ers next season. The organization seems to have accepted his potential departure, but legendary 49ers quarterback Joe Montana made it clear he thinks Garoppolo is still be the best option for the team’s offense.

Trey Lance, Brock Purdy and Garoppolo all started games in 2022, a season in which San Francisco finished with a 13-4 regular-season record and reached the NFC Championship game. But in a recent episode of the “Open Mike” podcast, Montana said without hesitation that out of the three of them, Garoppolo would be his top choice.

“I start Jimmy,” Montana said. “He has won a lot of games. I can’t say the same for Trey. You don’t know that from him. I don’t think it’s hard — I think you just start Jimmy.” 

Montana, who was inducted ino the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2000, is regarded as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. However, San Francisco might not be taking the four-time Super Bowl champion’s advice. His comment comes just a few days after 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said during his team’s end-of-year press conference that Lance and Purdy are the top two options at quarterback going into training camp. Shanahan also said that he doesn’t “see any scenario” in which Garoppolo returns.

Lance was the initial starter in 2022 but suffered an ankle injury that ended his season early. Then Garoppolo broke his foot against the Miami Dolphins in December and missed the rest of the regular season, which led to Purdy taking over.

“He still won a lot of games before he got hurt, right?” Montana…

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