National Football League

AFC Championship Game odds: How to bet Bengals-Chiefs

Updated Mar. 15, 2023 2:21 p.m. ET

The Cincinnati Bengals (14-4) will play at the Kansas City Chiefs (15-3) in the AFC Championship Game for the second consecutive season on Sunday.

The Bengals beat the Chiefs 27-24 in overtime in last season's AFC title game to advance to Super Bowl LVI.

All eyes will be on the ankle of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The 2018 NFL MVP suffered a high-ankle sprain and sat out part of the second quarter but returned to finish the divisional-round game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Cincinnati leads the all-time series 19-14, winning the past three matchups. The Bengals won 27-24 at home in the most recent matchup on Dec. 4.

Cincinnati is in search of its first Super Bowl title. In addition to losing Super Bowl LVI, the Bengals lost Super Bowls XVI and XXIII, both to the San Francisco 49ers.

Kansas City is seeking its third Super Bowl title. The Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV after the 2019 season and Super Bowl IV after the 1969 season to go along with AFL championships after the 1962, 1966 and 1969 seasons. Kansas City lost Super Bowl LV to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after the 2020 season.

Here's everything you need from a betting perspective on the Bengals-Chiefs game, from the point spread, moneyline, total Over/Under, insights and expert picks (odds via FOX Bet).

Patrick Mahomes ankle injury update

Dr. Matt Provencher updated Patrick Mahomes' ankle injury he suffered in Kansas City's game against Jacksonville.

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Cincinnati Bengals (14-4) at Kansas City Chiefs (15-3), 6:30 p.m. ET Sunday, CBS

Point spread: Chiefs -1.5 (Chiefs favored to win by more than 1.5 points, otherwise Bengals cover)
Moneyline: Chiefs -143 favorites to win (bet $10 to win $16.99 total); Bengals +110 underdogs to win (bet $10 to win $21 total)
Total scoring Over/Under: 48.5 points scored by both teams combined

Pick via FOX Sports NFL Analyst Geoff Schwartz:

If you came to find a Chiefs homer discussing this game, well, you’ve come to the right place. Everyone is going to pick the Bengals, and for good reason. They’ve beaten the Chiefs three straight times in close games where Kansas City was leading by at least seven points and had a 75% fourth-quarter win expectancy.

The Bengals have continued to beat the Chiefs because they do not make mistakes. There is a quality to being a team that doesn’t beat itself. Of course the big question on everyone's minds is if the Chiefs can't beat the Bengals with a healthy Patrick Mahomes, why would they beat them now?

I understand the skepticism. Mahomes will play with a high ankle sprain, and we do not know how much he will be hobbled. If we play "Internet Dr." and study the scarce amount of practice videos of Mahomes from this week, he seems fairly "healthy" moving around. I believe, and maybe this is with my red and yellow glasses on, that we see an Andy Reid masterpiece in this game. The Chiefs have been preparing for this game for 365 days now. They failed in this contest in historic fashion with a second-half collapse last season. This is their time to shine, and they’ve been waiting for this moment for a year. It has been the team's motivation all season.

Kansas City played a bend-but-don’t-break defense in the first matchup against Cincy this season. The defense did not allow explosive plays, but otherwise, it was not productive. The Chiefs didn't tackle well, they didn't stop the run, rush the passer or disrupt the Bengals pass game in any way. They can’t play any worse on Sunday. They've played better pass defense with rookies Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson getting more reps in the secondary. We know about Chris Jones and his ability. If the Bengals roll into the game with three backup offensive linemen, Kansas City's defensive line needs to do work.

None of this will be easy. Cincy has K.C.'s number for a reason. But with the team knowing they need everyone’s best with Mahomes less than 100%, I think the Chiefs take this home.

Remember, Cincinnati has not beaten Kansas City in blowout wins. I have the Chiefs winning a close one.

PICK: Chiefs (-1 at FOX Bet at time of pick) to win by more than 1 point

Pick via FOX Sports Betting Analyst Jason McIntyre:

I was on the Chiefs in their last meeting where they led the Bengals 24-17, but lost the game late after Travis Kelce fumbled and Harrison Butker missed a 55-yard field goal. That’s been the theme in the three 2022 calendar meetings: KC leads early, Cincinnati closes strong late. The Bengals have outscored the Chiefs 26-6 in the fourth quarter and OT over those three meetings.

Early this week I bet the Bengals at pick ‘em, thinking that Patrick Mahomes wouldn’t be close to 100%. And then Wednesday the best quarterback in the NFL moved cleanly at practice, and it appears he’ll totally fine in the AFC title game.

The biggest thing I want to look at this week in both games: Which defense will change who they are to confuse the opponent?

Don’t expect the Bengals to do what they did in the second half of the AFC title game — where they rushed three and dropped eight. They’ll definitely want to pressure Mahomes early and test the health of that ankle. Reid is a master game planner, and I think the Chiefs ML 1st half is the best way to attack this game (-116 at time of pick).

PICK: Chiefs 1st half moneyline (-116 at FOX Bet at time of pick, bet $10 to win $18.62 total) to win outright

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Insights from FOX Sports Gambling Expert Warren Sharp:

Last week I was down on the Bills' defense. The Bills had played a ton of bad offenses, and when they stepped up in class to face a decent offense, they were exploited.

The Chiefs have played five games against offenses that ranked top 15 this season. While they went 3-2 in those games, what was more impressive was what their defense could do. Aside from their game vs. the Bengals (27-24 loss):

They held the Bills to 24, 49ers to 23, Jaguars to 17 and then 20, and Seahawks to 10.

Two things I really was down on regarding the Bills' defense, which I thought would provide an opportunity for the Bengals' offense, was the Bills lack of pressure and their performance against short, quick passing.

First, the pressure. Prior to Von Miller’s loss, Buffalo ranked fourth in pressure rate while blitzing at the fourth-lowest rate in the NFL. Since his loss, the Bills ranked 24th in pressure rate despite blitzing at the 13th-highest rate. And they ranked 30th in pressure rate since Week 15.

That’s not an issue for the Chiefs. In fact, since Week 12, the Chiefs are recording pressure at the NFL’s sixth-highest rate despite blitzing at the NFL’s 10th-lowest rate.

And down that stretch, out of six defenses with a pressure rate above 38%, the Chiefs are the only defense to record that pressure rate despite blitzing on less than 23% of dropbacks (they blitz on just 21.6% of dropbacks).

The Chiefs have been a top-10 pressure-rate team all season long, but unlike the Bills, they didn’t drop off at all.

So how have the Chiefs been defending short, quick WR throws?

We have a full sample size from that Bengals game earlier this year (Week 13), where the Chiefs allowed Joe Burrow to go 10-of-12 for 8.8 YPA, +0.73 EPA/att and 83% success when passing in fewer than 2.5 seconds. That’s not great.

But the Bengals did have all three starting offensive linemen in that game and will be without them in this one.

Since that Week 13 game, and including the first playoff game, vs. WR passes thrown in fewer than 2.5 seconds, the Chiefs defense ranks first in success rate, fifth in EPA/att and sixth in YPA.

Naturally, they faced plenty of bad offenses in that range, but against the fifth-ranked Jaguars' pass attack (which is statistically better than the sixth-ranked Bengals' pass attack), the Chiefs' defense held Trevor Lawrence to:

-0.48 EPA/att, 36% success, 4.6 YPA and 9-of-14 on passes to WRs thrown in under 2.5 seconds

And against the Seahawks' and Raiders' passing attacks, both of which rank above average, the Chiefs held them to:

-0.02 EPA/att, 35% success, 6.1 YPA and 15-of-23 on passes to WRs thrown in under 2.5 seconds

This secondary has shown improvement with the healthy return of Trent McDuffie in Week 9.

The bottom line?

The Chiefs' defense is better than the Bills in both of those two key areas: pressure and pass defense vs. quick WR passes.

When you look at last week’s game to see the way the Bengals jumped out to put up 14 points in the first quarter, one thing stands out:

In the first two drives of the game, the Bills sat back in a soft zone and let the Burrow have anything he wanted. They played man on just 6% of the Bengals' snaps and on 0% of Burrow’s pass attempts.

The Bills primarily played 2-high (8-of-9 dropbacks) in forms of Cover-6, Cover-4 and Cover-2, and one snap of Cover-3. Burrow shredded them.

So the Bills made an adjustment on the Bengals' third drive of the game.

They played man on 33% of Bengals' snaps on that next drive, and combined to close the half over three drives, the Bills played 28% man. They used Cover-1 man more than any other defensive coverage on those next two drives.

When the Bills played man (mostly Cover-1 but one snap of 2-man) they held Burrow to:

-0.50 EPA/att, 17% success, 1.5 YPA, 1-of-5 for 20% completions

When they played zone:

+0.40 EPA/att, 50% success, 6.3 YPA, 5-of-8 for 63% completions

On the season, look at Burrow’s splits by coverage scheme:

2-man: -0.31 EPA/att, 36% success, 5.4 YPA, 42% comp (14 dropbacks)
Cover-0 man: -0.14 EPA/att, 54% success, 3.8 YPA, 58% comp (26 dropbacks)
Cover-1 man: +0.07 EPA/att, 45% success, 8.7 YPA, 57% comp (132 dropbacks)
Cover-3 zone: +0.03 EPA/att, 48% success, 7.2 YPA, 72% comp (178 dropbacks)
All 2-high zone: +0.09 EPA/att, 49% success, 7.4 YPA, 74% comp (339 dropbacks)

Burrow and the Bengals have solved 2-high zone for themselves.

The Bengals struggled massively vs. 2-high zone to start the year, even though they expected to see more of it entering the season. But look at what happened from Week 6 onward:

Weeks 1-5 vs. 2-high zone: -0.25 EPA/att, 39% success, 6.3 YPA, 71% comp
Weeks 6-plus vs. 2-high zone: +0.24 EPA/att, 54% success, 7.9 YPA, 76% comp

Cincinnati has become much better, and yet teams are still throwing it at them as if it might cause them problems when it has not.

In Week 13, the Bengals shredded the Chiefs usage of 2-high zone, recording +0.58 EPA/att, 64% success, 10.7 YPA, 12-of-13.

Steve Spagunolo must figure out a different strategy to attack Burrow from a coverage perspective, potentially dramatically increasing their usage of 2-man, which has been their best defense to close the season (-0.42 EPA/att, 21% success, 5.0 YPA and 35% completions).

Aside from coverage, the biggest key for this game when the Bengals have the ball is pressure.

When the Chiefs get pressure, they rank first in EPA/att, second in success rate, first in YPA (3.6) and sixth in completion rate (42%).

When they don’t get pressure, KC’s defense ranks 32nd in EPA/att, 25th in success rate, 24th in YPA (7.8) and 32nd in completion rate (75%).

When the Chiefs have the ball, they’ve done just fine vs. this Bengals' defense.

While the Bengals are 3-0 in these games against the Chiefs, Kansas City has:

led these games by 18, 14 and 7 points
never trailed entering the fourth quarter
trailed for an average of only 15 minutes each game
trailed for an average of only 7:52 in each second half

But Lou Anarumo always has something up his sleeve to slow down Patrick Mahomes. And generally speaking, it revolves around one key principle: Make Mahomes hold onto the ball.

In their very first meeting in the regular season last year, Mahomes was dicing up Anarumo’s defense in the first half. He played a ton of zone coverage. So he shifted to substantially more man coverage in the second half.

In the AFC Championship, Anarumo started the game playing zone, like he did in the first meeting, but didn’t blitz much. Then he adjusted to play a lot more man and used a ton of drop-8 coverage, rushing only three players and dropping eight into coverage. This resulted in Mahomes holding the ball longer and longer.

And earlier this year, Anarumo rarely used drop-8 coverage but sent slightly more blitzes while playing less 2-high.

The end result of all of this scheming?

Mahomes has held the ball an average of 2.9, 3.1 and 3.1 seconds in the three meetings with the Bengals, which are his two longest times to throw in games since 2020, and the 2.9 seconds was his sixth-longest time to throw in a game.

What did Anarumo notice?

Since 2020, when Mahomes averages less than 2.75 seconds per throw in a game, he is 33-1.

When Mahomes holds the ball for at least 2.75 seconds per throw on average, he is 12-10, including 2-5 when averaging 3.0 seconds per throw or longer.

In Mahomes' last game, he completed only 59% of his passes for 223 yards, his third-lowest yardage game of the season.

The other element to these games are reduced drive volume:

Week 13, 2022: eight drives (season-low)
Week 17, 2022: nine drives (only two other weeks saw lower drive numbers)
Conference Championship 2022: 10 drives

This enhances the importance of drives and magnifies mistakes and, in the case of the Chiefs, turnovers.

This game is exceedingly difficult to handicap given the unknowns surrounding Patrick Mahomes, but he did look substantially spryer than expected in Wednesday's practice.

I expect a shorter passing, quicker release from Mahomes, which plays against what Lou Anarumo wants him to do, which is hold the ball.

In three games vs. Anarumo:

Passes thrown < 1.8 seconds: +0.21 EPA/att, 57% success, 6.1 YPA, 81% comp, 2.0 air yards (22 att)
Passes thrown 1.9 - 2.5 seconds: -0.14 EPA/att, 58% success, 7.9 YPA, 73% comp, 5.7 air yards (31 att)
Passes thrown 2.6 – 3.5 seconds: +0.38 EPA/att, 55% success, 9.8 YPA, 68% comp, 10.5 air yards (29 att)
Passes thrown over 3.5 seconds: -0.20 EPA/att, 32% success, 5.4 YPA, 43% comp, 15.2 air yards (25 att)

Because the Bengals blitz at a below-average rate, Mahomes should be able to dink and dunk underneath if he stays disciplined. I don’t think he will be able to scramble around for over 3.5 seconds on a regular basis, even if he wanted to on his ankle. So this comes down to whether Andy Reid can give Mahomes the fastest answers to the test and whether Mahomes buys into the game plan and throws them, even though they aren’t the challenging and exhilarating passes he’s so fond of completing.

Two reasons I’m a supporter of the Chiefs in the first half:

First, just look at Mahomes splits in three games vs. Anarumo:

First half: +0.44 EPA/att, 64% success, 8.8 YPA, 75% comp, 6:0 TD:INT
Second half/OT: -0.39 EPA/att, 35% success, 5.8 YPA, 57% comp, 0:2 TD:INT

And that was with a healthy ankle. I want no part of what Anarumo might cook up in the second half vs. Mahomes.

Secondly, if there is a time Mahomes will be "peak-Mahomes" for whatever "peak" is with his injury (99% of regular Mahomes? 90%? 75%?), it’s likely to come in the first half. That’s when his ankle will have had zero chance to be re-injured by a defender or an awkward step taken. It will have been recently shot up and will feel as good as it will feel the rest of the day.

But with every play that elapses in the game, the odds that the ankle will feel worse increase. Even if it’s just wear-and-tear combined with the pain injection wearing off, let alone it gets tweaked. I have a far better chance of getting "peak-Mahomes" in the first half than I do in the second half, and I want to capitalize on it.

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