Underdog Pick'em Plays. Top Picks for Super Bowl 58.

Welcome back to the weekly Underdog Pick’em Plays article on Fantasy Life.

If you’re new, every week I try to put together a winning five-way pick'em ticket using Underdog’s selection of Higher/Lower offerings. I also include some extra suggestions at the end and a list of “play to levels” using our Fantasy Life projections.

This is it, the Super Bowl. Our last game of the season and the last chance to nail the elusive 5-0 week.

If you’ve been following along with us throughout the season, it’s been a solid one. I’m personally up +68 units in our FREE Underdog pick’em tracker (where we post extra picks throughout the week) and would love to finish strong with another winning week. 

I’m not going to lie. This week building a five-way card I really liked was tough. The lines have been moving a lot on Underdog since they opened which makes it tricky trying to identify the best lines and props to target when writing this article. 

At the same time, I like the way my card turned out. If you’re trying to hit a 5-leg same-game pick’em you’ve got to try to be realistic in the chances for all five of your legs to hit at once and see what LOWERs and HIGHERs might work best with each other – and have worked best in the past. I think, at the very least, I’ve done a pretty good job of that this week. 

Regardless of how you’re building your pick’em entries, it’s always good to be mindful of payouts and exposure before entering. And remember, if you’re not playing all five picks together you can always pick your favorites and shorten down your entry to three or even two legs. 

My entire five-way pick’em card for Super Bowl 58 is below. 

As a reminder, you can sign up for Underdog Fantasy below with promo code LIFE and get a 100% deposit match of up to $100:

Brandon Aiyuk HIGHER than 61.5 receiving yards 

• Play to 63.5
• Fantasy Life Projection: 68.8 

I’m going to start this week with a HIGHER on a WR in Brandon Aiyuk who figures to be a pivotal player for the 49ers this weekend. The Chiefs played man coverage at the 7th highest rate this season and also love to blitz (7th highest blitz rate in 2023-24). That’s going to create a lot of opportunities for a player like Aiyuk who excelled against opponents that tended to lean on that sort of scheme. Aiyuk posted big games with over 100 yards against teams like Tampa Bay (3rd highest blitz rate) and Pittsburgh (6th highest blitz rate) earlier in the season as well. 

While he did hit this HIGHER last week (thanks to a somewhat fluky downfield catch) his total for the Super Bowl remains lower than it was against the Lions, making it look like a nice buy-low opportunity, as well. Taking out the Rams game (where the starters barely played) Aiyuk has now gone to the HIGHER on this number in four of his last six games, a solid hit rate that also correlates with the 49ers defensive issues that have popped up late in the season.

Brock Purdy HIGHER 246.5 passing yards 

• Play to 249.5
• Fantasy Life Projection: 252.9

I won’t go into too much detail with this one since the play is fairly obvious. If we like Aiyuks’ HIGHER, obviously there is a good chance that his yardage will help Brock Purdy hit his HIGHER as well.

The correlation means that we have to take a slightly reduced payout but as you will see below there is another play that will keep our payouts at 20x this week.

January 20, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy (13) throws a pass against the Green Bay Packers during the fourth quarter in a 2024 NFC divisional round game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Purdy’s efficiency in the playoffs has actually gone down (sub-65 % completion rate the last two weeks) but his attempts per game have gone up in the playoffs (35 vs 28 in the regular season). It’s a small sample but the 49ers defense is allowing more big plays, getting less pressure and it’s caused the 49ers offense to be in more uptempo, passing-friendly situations later in the games. I doubt that will change much vs the Chiefs, either, considering how well Kansas City has started games this postseason. 

For the season, Purdy and Aiyuk have tended to correlate fairly strongly as well. Both hit their HIGHERs last week and both also went over their numbers in a couple of late-season games against Baltimore and Seattle.

Deebo Samuel LOWER than 79.5 rush + rec yards

• Play to 77.5
• Fantasy Life Projection: 73.0

Here’s where we get a little funky. If we like Purdy’s HIGHER we are thinking the majority of his receivers will have solid days. However, that doesn’t mean we need to peg every single one of the 49ers WRs to go for 100+ yards.

If we look at the correlation between Deebo Samuel and Aiyuk we can see that when one tends to dominate the yardage, the other will often come in with a muted day. In fact, three of the last four times that the above-mentioned Aiyuk has gone for 100+ receiving yards, Samuel has ended his day with less than 75 combined rush + rec yards.  

Further, while Samuel ended last week with a season-high 8 catches (for 89 yards), he only gained 7 yards on the ground, and over his last five full games has only gone for over 12 rush yards once. Given his shoulder issue and the fact the 49ers have Christian McCaffrey, who they figure to use extensively to try and control this game in the middle of the field, it’s not hard to see a world where Samuel’s 2-4 carries all happen in the red zone, an area that caps his yardage. 

Outside of the fact our projections also like this LOWER play, using Samuel’s LOWER not only increases our payout (back to 20x) but also gives also provides us a scenario where Samuel goes for 60-70 receiving yards and helps Purdy’s HIGHER, while still staying to the LOWER side on this total thanks to a muted rushing day.

Isiah Pacheco HIGHER than 69.5 rushing yards 

• Play to 71.5
• Fantasy Life Projection: 75.1

I don’t think we need to get overly cute with our Chiefs plays. Isaiah Pacheco should be in for a solid workload this week and he’ll be facing a 49ers rush defense that has cratered as the season has progressed.

From Week 12 on they were just 22nd in EPA per rush and 24th in success rate. Aaron Jones bullied them for 6.0 yards per carry in the Divisional Round and David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs averaged 5.11 yards per carry last week against them.

Jan 21, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; Kansas City Chiefs running back Isiah Pacheco (10) rushes the ball against the Buffalo Bills in the first half of the 2024 AFC divisional round game at Highmark Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Konezny-USA TODAY Sports

Pacheco’s usage certainly shouldn’t be a concern either. Even if his snap rate comes down a bit due to Jerick McKinnon getting activated for this game (not a lock yet) he’s still going to have a stranglehold on the carries (85% carry rate last week). Further, like some of the more recent opponents, the Chiefs seem unlikely to give up on the run if they are behind.

Arizona and Cleveland’s backs still had stellar rushing days, despite their teams trailing for much of the day, and Pacheco (12 carries - 70 yards against Jacksonville, 15 carries - 97 yards against Buffalo) has shown he’s capable of solid yardage on low volume.

Harrison Butker HIGHER than 1.5 Field Goals 

• Play to 259.5
• Fantasy Life Projection: 247.2 

There were a lot of directions I could have gone with this last pick. Certainly going LOWER on Mahomes’ passing yards correlates nicely with our Pacheco HIGHER and even adding in a George Kittle HIGHER (which takes the payouts down to 15x) is attractive for correlation purposes also, especially given how low his yardage prop is this week. 

However, instead, I’m going to lean towards the Chiefs' special teams which have been excellent again this post-season. Harrison Butker is 7/7 on FG attempts in the playoffs thus far and since 2020 is 24/27 on FG tries in the postseason. He’s one of the premier kickers in the league, if not the best kicker, and will certainly have his coach's confidence if the Chiefs stall out and are left with a decision to go for it or attempt a longer FG. This is important because last week we saw the Lions – who had moved the ball efficiently all game – twice give up the chance to go for longer FG attempts (one of which would have put them up three scores). 

Andy Reid isn’t likely to pass on a chance to allow Butker to put up points (unless the score/clock dictates it) and with the 49ers defense suddenly giving up more and more big plays, the opportunities for Butker to get us to the HIGHER this week figure to be there.

You can combine all five picks for an entry that gets you 12.48x your buy-in and tail it by clicking below!

Other Super Bowl Pick'em Plays

Lines can and do move dramatically on Underdog Pick’em throughout the week, so if any of the above end up out of our “play to” range here are some extra Super Bowl pick’em plays I would consider using/targeting as pivots: 

• Jauan Jennings LOWER 2.5 targets (play to 2.5)
  • Projected for 2.2 on Fantasy Life
  • It’s hard to see a Super Bowl game plan that has Jauan Jennings as more than just an afterthought 
     
• Brock Purdy LOWER 68.3% pass completion (play to 67.5%)
  • Projected 66% range on Fantasy Life
  • Chiefs defense is stout against the pass and only allowed a 60% completion rate against in the regular season
     
• Patrick Mahomes LOWER 261.5 passing yards
  • Projected under 260 this week on Fantasy Life
  • Chiefs have proven they don’t need explosive plays through the air to win
  • The 49ers can also chew up lots of clock if this game stays close