Among all the prop bets being offered at DraftKings Sportsbook, there are several novelty props that are offered only for football’s biggest game. Instead of choosing which player you think will score the game’s first touchdown, the 1st Touchdown Jersey Number prop allows you to stack several players together, and if any player wearing a jersey number over/under 15.5 scores the first touchdown — depending on what you select — the bet would hit.
Both teams have plenty of high-scoring options on their rosters. In the postseason, the Eagles have scored a league-leading 35.0 points per game, and the Chiefs are fifth, scoring 27.5 points per game. During the regular season, Philadelphia had the league’s seventh-best offense, while Kansas City was 16th-best.
The player with the best odds to score the first touchdown of the game is Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, who wears number 26, followed by Philadelphia quarterback Jalen Hurts (#1). The next five after that are a trio of Chiefs — tight end Travis Kelce (#87), running back Kareem Hunt (#29), and wide receiver Xavier Worthy (#1) — and the Eagles’ wide receiver duo, A.J. Brown (#11) and DeVonta Smith (#6).
Although Barkley’s odds are by far the shortest, the safer bet is that the first touchdown scorer’s jersey number is Under 15.5 (-115).
Bet on Super Bowl novelty prop bets at DraftKings Sportsbook, including 1st Touchdown Jersey Number Under 15.5, here.
The most likely player with a low jersey number to score the first touchdown is Hurts, who has led the league in rushing touchdowns among quarterbacks in each of the past four seasons and found the end zone three times in the NFC Championship Game. He also scored three touchdowns in Super Bowl LVII two seasons ago, when Kansas City edged out a dramatic 38-35 victory over Philadelphia. During the regular season, Hurts accounted for 51.4% of the Eagles’ rushes within the opponent’s five-yard line, 19.4 percentage points more than the next quarterback, the New York Giants’ Daniel Jones.
Then there’s the matter that many of the Chiefs’ top playmakers wear low jersey numbers. While Kelce was Mahomes’ leading target this season, Worthy, DeAndre Hopkins (#8), and JuJu Smith-Schuster (#9) have combined for 16 scores this season, and Mahomes (#15) and Isiah Pacheco (#10) have combined for five more on the ground. Together, these five players accounted for slightly less than half of Kansas City’s total touchdowns, including three of its six postseason scores. That’s before considering wide receiver Hollywood Brown (#5), who hasn’t scored this season but ranked third on the Chiefs in target share in the regular season.
Brown and Smith also combined for 15 receiving touchdowns during the regular season, the seventh-most of any receiving duo in the league. When combined with 14 touchdowns, players with a lower jersey number accounted for 29 of Philadelphia’s 54 regular-season scores. In the postseason, players with low numbers have scored five of the Eagles’ 13 touchdowns.
Barkley and Kelce are the dangerous ones here, and they have combined for 24 total touchdowns this season. They could easily score first, but I’ll take the low numbers on Sunday.
