Kansas City Chiefs open as touchdown favorites, Los Angeles Rams 3.5-point favorites in conference title games

The Kansas City Chiefs opened as touchdown favorites over the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship Game, after a wild playoff weekend filled with dramatic upsets.

The Chiefs outlasted the Buffalo Bills in a back-and-forth thriller Sunday night to earn a spot in the AFC Championship Game for a fourth straight season. Caesars Sportsbook opened the Chiefs as 6.5-point favorites over the Bengals. The line quickly moved to Kansas City -7 at sportsbooks around the nation.

In the NFC Championship Game, the Rams opened as 3.5-point favorites over the San Francisco 49ers.

The Chiefs were the only favorite to survive the divisional round. Three underdogs — San Francisco, Cincinnati and the Los Angeles Rams — pulled outright upsets. It's only the third time in the Super Bowl era that there have been three outright betting upsets in the divisional round, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.

The Bills nearly made it four outright upsets, something that has never happened in the divisional round during the Super Bowl era. Buffalo took a 36-33 lead over Kansas City with 13 seconds to play — only to have Patrick Mahomes move the Chiefs into field goal position with quick passes to Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce. Harrison Butker made a 49-yard kick to force overtime, and Mahomes connected with Kelce for the winning touchdown on the opening drive of overtime.

«I admit I thought the game was over,» John Murray, executive director of the SuperBook at Westgate Las Vegas, told ESPN. «We had our admin team start setting up a Bengals-Bills AFC title game. Stunning. We were planning on Bills -7.5 versus the Bengals.»

Adam Pullen, assistant director of trading for Caesars Sportsbook, said he would've given the Chiefs 10-1 odds to