10-1 Eagles are underdogs at home to 49ers and Kyle Shanahan has no idea why
The smart money says to take the San Francisco 49ers in a huge NFC Championship rematch on the road against the Philadelphia Eagles.
But the head coach of the 49ers isn't buying it.
Despite having more rest days than the Eagles and being favoured by 2.5 points, Kyle Shanahan made it clear that Philadelphia should be leading the betting line.
The Eagles are an NFL-best 10-1 and are led by MVP candidate Jalen Hurts.
Philly also dominated the 49ers 31-7 in last year's NFC Championship game and earned a trip to the Super Bowl with the victory.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. But I don’t really know how that stuff works,” Shanahan told reporters. “I don’t really know why. It is random.”
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Las Vegas experts normally don't do random, so Shanahan might be behind the times in favouring his own team in Week 13.
With Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and Brock Purdy, the 49ers possess one of the most explosive offenses in the league.
The 49ers also tout the No. 1 scoring defense in the NFL.
Then there's the fact that San Francisco can get a piece of NFC Championship revenge and pull closer to Philly for the best record in the sport.
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Wrap it all together, and Shanahan's 8-3 team has more at stake on Sunday than the Eagles.
Vegas must know that.
Or Sin City could just be encouraging extra bets for one of the biggest NFL games of the year.
While Shanahan played down the 49ers being favourites, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni embraced his 10-1 team technically being the underdog.
"Not going to get wrapped into what anybody else thinks of us, whether that's another team, whether that's whoever makes the spreads, or anything like that," Sirianni . "We just worry about going to work for ourselves. I think going into the last year and the year before, no one really thought we would be any good. I think it's OK to be the underdog.
"I said on the radio the other day, before I ever stepped foot in the city, all I knew about this city was Rocky versus Apollo Creed, and the city plays the underdog well."
Shanahan has been around the NFL for a while now and knows all the modern coaching tricks.
If the 49ers beat the Eagles in Philly on Sunday, San Francisco's coach won't care who the betting favourite was during the week.
Shanahan will just know that the 49ers won -- which is exactly what Vegas believes is going to happen.