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press releases
January
23rd, 2006
National Football League
- 2006 Superbowl Wagering
Super Bowl XL is set, and as
threatened from the beginning of the playoffs,
the AFC champions have been made the favorites.
It's just not the team most people expected.
The Pittsburgh Steelers punched
their ticket to Detroit Sunday afternoon with
a convincing 34-17 win at Invesco Field over
the Denver Broncos, cashing in as 3 ½-point
road underdogs. Now the cleated shoe is on the
other foot. Pittsburgh has been pegged as a
3 1/2-point favorite at Ford Field against the
Seattle Seahawks, who thumped Carolina 34-14
as 3-point faves to advance to their first-ever
Super Bowl.
The Steelers, noted for their
running game, used the same air attack against
Denver that led to victory over the Indianapolis
Colts. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was 21-for-29
for 275 yards and a pair of touchdown strikes;
he now has seven majors and just one interception
in the playoffs. The Steelers still carried
the ball 33 times, and although Denver held
them to 90 yards rushing, Pittsburgh controlled
the clock all day long. The Broncos, meanwhile,
committed four turnovers to hand the game to
the Steelers.
The NFC Championship was an even
greater display of balanced offense and defense.
League MVP Shaun Alexander came up with an MVP-like
game in his return from last week's concussion:
132 yards and a pair of TDs. Matt Hasselbeck
was a tidy 20-for-28 for 219 yards and two majors,
and the Panthers also coughed up the ball four
times. In all, Carolina made just 11 first downs
and had possession for only 18:09.
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Why, then, are the Steelers laying
3 ½ points on neutral turf? Well, the
Seahawks had the easier path to Detroit, with
what turned out to be the fourth-easiest regular-season
schedule in the NFL (their opponents had a combined
winning percentage of .457). And they "only"
had to beat Wild Cards Washington and Carolina
to make it to the Super Bowl, while the Steelers
won three times on the road versus the divisional
champion Bengals, Colts and Broncos. The win
over Indy made a particular impression on the
betting public; Seahawks fans, on the other
hand, can point to East Coast bias if they want
a culprit.
Kick-off is at 6:18 p.m. Eastern
time with ABC hosting the television broadcast.
The Steelers are the official home team for
Super Bowl XL.
To check out Nine.com's NFL odds,
click
here.
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