Sportsbook.com Names NFL Favorites

No NFL team has ever reached the Super Bowl by winning three straight road games in the playoffs. Odds makers at Sportsbook.com don't favor either Pittsburgh or Carolina to accomplish the feat this year, installing Denver and Seattle as slight favorites in the Conference Finals.

"It's hard to see any team winning three straight road games in three straight weeks with the amount of pressure and what's at stake," said Peter Childs, odds maker, Sportsbook.com. "It's never happened before, but with Shaun Alexander maybe at less than 100 per cent for Seattle and Pittsburgh playing so well, you never know."

While no team has ever won three straight on the road, visitors this week will be heartened by the fact that at least one road team has won a Conference Final game each of the last eight post-seasons, with both road teams winning in 1997 when Denver beat Pittsburgh and Green Bay topped San Francisco. In fact, Carolina beat Philadelphia on the road just two years ago to make it to the Super Bowl, and that team remains pretty much intact today.

Despite that fact Pittsburgh comes to Denver as a 3.5 point underdog in the AFC title game after defeating the favored Cincinnati Bengals on Wild Card weekend then pulling off the biggest upset of the playoffs, dominating the Indianapolis Colts, a team once thought by many to be on route to a perfect season. Carolina, likewise, is a 4 point underdog in the NFC Final despite pulling off two straight upsets, both in cold weather cities, beating the New York Giants in the Wild Card game and the Chicago Bears yesterday.

In addition to odds on this week's games, Sportsbook.com has now installed Denver as the favorite to win the Super Bowl, with odds set at 9-5, followed by Seattle at 13-5, Pittsburgh at 3-1 and Carolina at 4-1. Of the four teams, Pittsburgh entered the season with the best odds of winning the Super Bowl. The Steelers were 25-1 favorites. The Seahawks had the worst odds among the four semi-finalists at 35-1.