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Bettors Liking the Giants’ Chances in San Francisco

Bovada Guest Blogger

One of the streakiest teams in the NFL is on one heck of a run heading into the NFC Conference Championship game Sunday in San Francisco. The New York Giants are coming off two convincing playoff wins, first over the Atlanta Falcons then over the defending champion Green Bay Packers, at Lambeau Field to boot. And just for good measure, the G-men won their last two regular-season games over the Jets and Cowboys in dominant fashion.

All told, the New York Giants have outscored their last four opponents by a combined 121-50. Yet at Bovada we’ve still got them as 3-point underdogs Sunday on the road against the 49ers.

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Of course, if you want to take the Giants and the points you’ll have to be willing to risk $135 to win $100, a moneyline that suggests how the betting’s been going so far.

There’s also something to be said about a San Francisco 49ers team that hasn’t proven itself in the eyes of many bettors. Not saying those bettors are correct – bad teams don’t go 13-3 and beat the Saints in the playoffs – but they still have the stink of the NFC West on them.

And perhaps more importantly, their quarterback, Alex Smith, has been so mediocre for so long that it seems almost unbelievable that he’s one victory away from playing in the Super Bowl. Sure, he led an amazing drive to beat New Orleans, but it’s just…Alex Smith in a conference championship game? That seems wrong.

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Could that be a source of motivation for Smith? Absolutely. He admitted this week that he’d like his performance to tell all the doubters, I told you so.

“I think if we win this game and go to the Super Bowl it will say it in itself,” he said. “I’m not thinking about that right now. I really feel like winning games as a quarterback this time of year speaks for itself. That’s how you do your talking. So, just focused on this game, preparing myself all week.”

Smith added: “I guess I kind of feel like this whole team maybe is playing [with a chip on our shoulder], if you want to call it that. I don’t know how many wins we were picked to have at the beginning of the season, it wasn’t many. Certainly, I don’t know where we were picked to come in the division, all of that. Not a lot of people were in our corner.”

Meanwhile, over in the AFC, we’ve got the New England Patriots by a big 9 points over the Baltimore Ravens, who didn’t exactly look fantastic in their divisional win over the Texans. That said, giving the Ravens that many points has convinced more than enough bettors to believe they’ll be better this week.