Sports betting enthusiasts love to find as many ways as possible to put a bet down on the Super Bowl. People who do not want to follow the point spreads can bet on things like the opening coin toss, how many touchdown passes each quarterback will throw and whether or not the opening kickoff will be returned for a touchdown. One of the bets that some fans enjoy is the over-under. It can be a challenging bet, but it can also be a lot of fun when you get it right.

When you read the Super Bowl odds each day, you will see a positive number associated with one team and an equal negative number associated with the other team. The team with the negative number is the favorite and that number is the point spread for the game. A little further down the line you will see a number that is often not marked as anything or it could be marked with a +/- indicator. That is the over-under and it is the bet that allows you to bet on the total number of points that will be scored in the game.

Hockey blog fans are familiar with the concept of over-under because it is used in hockey betting all of the time. If the over-under for the Super Bowl is 45, then you can either bet that the combined score will be 44 or less, or you can bet that the combined score will be 46 or more. If the combined score is 45, then it is a push. For example, the over-under for Super Bowl XLVI is 55 points, which means that the Patriots and the Giants would have to combine for 56 points or more for an over bet to win. Since the Pats and Giants are high-scoring teams, then an over bet may be a good one to make and another way to make money betting on the Super Bowl.

The online betting sites are getting geared up for the NFL playoffs, but there are still two weeks of the regular season to get through first. Some teams are battling for playoff spots while other teams are trying to build on something positive for next season. The bookie software has all of these teams eliminated from playoff contention, but that does not mean that they cannot finish the season strong.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Carolina Panthers

This is exactly the kind of game that the Carolina Panthers need to help build on next season. The inexplicable collapse of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will play into the hands of the constantly improving Panthers. With a couple of off-season changes, this Carolina team could be a playoff contender next year. This game will help kick-start that momentum.

Pick: Carolina Panthers

Minnesota Vikings @ Washington Redskins

The NFL fans in Washington have endured one of the most violent roller coaster rides in NFL history these last couple of years. But it may be time for the Washington train to get on track. Christian Ponder is not holding up to the pressure of being an NFL starting quarterback, which means that Joe Webb may start this game. Either way, this win will give the Redskins something to build on for next season.

Pick: Washington Redskins

Arizona Cardinals @ Cincinnati Bengals

In all reality, both of these teams are showing significant progress in the second half of the 2011 season. But the Bengals are much better than it was supposed to be as Cincinnati fights for a playoff spot. This game will be a stepping stone to being a playoff contender next season for the Bengals.

Pick: Cincinnati Bengals

Week seven of the 2011 NFL season allows bettors who have yet to make a futures selection on the Super Bowl 46 winner, a better idea of who is for real or who is pretending to compete for the title. With roughly eight weeks left in the 2011 Breeders Cup betting, there are plenty of teams that we did not expect to still be in the mix, that find themselves in the mix. Here is a look at the latest Super Bowl updates using a fine mix of bookie software agents.

Detroit Lions  (12 to one)  – Before the season started, the Detroit Lions were one of a handful of teams that nobody in their right mind would have considered a plausible Super Bowl threat in any year, especially coming out of a lockout. However, as Matthew Stafford and Megatron and their peers have shown, the Detroit Lions are for real, and they could be a contender for years to come. Entering week seven of the NFL season, the Lions are an impressive five and one. To put that into perspective, consider that from 2000 to 2009 the Lions were lucky if they could string three wins together for the entire season. Now with only eight weeks left, the Lions have an opportunity to show fans and critics alike, that they are for real and that unlike the Detroit Tigers, they can get the job done in the playoffs.

Buffalo Bills (25 to one) – Add the Buffalo Bills into the same category as Detroit for teams nobody in their right mind believed would ever make it to the Super Bowl in the next decade. The Bills have been men on a mission this season, as former Cincinnati Bengals whipping boy Ryan Fitzpatrick has looked like a younger version of Peyton Manning as he’s guided the Bills to an impressive record.

The 2010 NFL betting season is getting underway, and it is unclear who will be the next Super Bowl Legend. Throughout the NFL’s 40 year history, there have been many greats to hoist Vince Lombardi’s trophy. Yet as many fans betting on the NFL know, becoming a legend in the game is far harder than many expect. One legend that became known as Mr. Super Bowl was San Francisco 49ers legend Joe Montana.

Joe Montana

From his first professional snap, fans and experts alike just knew there was something magical about Joe Montana. Today, Montana is known as Mr. Super Bowl, as no quarterback has ever taken it to another level during the big game, the way he has.

Montana won all four of the Super Bowls he participated in and had the highest passer rating of any Super Bowl quarterback. What’s more, he was the most valuable player in three of the four Super Bowls.

Perhaps the most impressive feats that make Joe Montana our Mr. Super Bowl King, is that in those four games, he set records for most passing completions and total yards. No quarterback has even come close to what Big Joe accomplished.

Montana’s two biggest Super Bowls were Super Bowl XXIII versus the Cincinnati Bengals and Super Bowl Super Bowl XXIV against the Denver Broncos. In the first game against the Bengals, Montana orchestrated one of the greatest drives in Super Bowl history. With just over three minutes to go, the Bengals led 16 to 13 and to say the tension was high in the 49ers offensive huddle would be an understatement. Montana was able to break the tension by moving the ball from the 49ers eight yard line all the way down to the Bengals end zone where he connected with John Taylor for the game winning pass.

Montana passed for a then record 357 yards, and two touchdowns while rushing for 15 yards. The next year in Super Bowl XXIV, the 49ers made quick work of the John Elway led Denver Broncos, cruising to a 55 to 10 beat down. Montana was named the MVP for the third time as he completed 22 of 29 pass attempts for 297 yards and five touchdowns.

Sports betting enthusiasts make – and lose – a lot of money betting on NFL games, chiefly the Super Bowl. The winner of professional football’s ultimate showdown receives the Vince Lombardi Trophy. It might not have quite the stature of the Stanley Cup, but this trophy certainly rates as a more precious prize than the Lawrence O’Brien Memorial Trophy given to the NBA champion, and the trophy handed to the winner of Major League Baseball’s World Series.

The Vince Lombardi Trophy didn’t always have the name. The sterling silver creation – with a football resting on a massive, thick stem – was initially referred to as the “world championship trophy.” The first frontal inscription on the seven-pound figure was “World Professional Football Championship.”

In order to realize how the Lombardi name attached itself to this trophy, one needs to be aware of the history of professional football in the United States. In 1967, the Super Bowl came to life, but at that time, there were two separate pro football leagues, the upstart American Football League and the well-established National Football League, which came into being in 1920. It wasn’t until the 1970 season that the AFL and NFL merged, creating the unified NFL we see today. For the first four Super Bowls – from 1967 to 1970 – the AFL and NFL logos existed on the world championship trophy, and in the first two editions of America’s largest sporting event, the game was not called the Super Bowl, but the “AFL-NFL World Championship Game.” The Super Bowl name stuck in Super Bowl III, played in 1969. That was the year when the New York Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts and gave the AFL its breakthrough victory over the NFL on the big stage. That result, followed by the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs beating the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV, created momentum for the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. That’s what occasioned the need to give this trophy a special name.

While the AFL and NFL were merging in 1970, Washington Redskins coach Vince Lombardi died. Given Lombardi’s role in winning the first two Super Bowls (or AFL-NFL World Championship Games), not to mention his hallowed place in football history, the league and commissioner Pete Rozelle called this magnificent silver art piece the Vince Lombardi Trophy. It is held aloft in triumph after Super Bowls, even now.

Ever since the internet was created in 1989, betting enthusiasts have wagered on the Super Bowl. In the beginning of the decade, fans betting on the New England Patriots enjoyed the luxury of the team winning three of a possible four Super Bowl finals. The Patriots three titles put them in the top half of the league amongst the elite teams capable of winning multiple championships.

In 1967 and 1968, the Super Bowl was dominated by the NFL as they would easily handle the competition posed to them by the AFL. However from 1969 until the merger in the latter half of 1970, the AFL proved to be an equally dominant league winning the final two “Super Bowls” before the merger took place.

Over the years, the scheduling of the Super Bowl game went from the second week in January after a long 14 week regular season and playoffs, to the current first Sunday of February format, after a grueling 17 week and three round playoff format. This change in format took place eight years after the two leagues first merged in 1978 and has continued since.

The merger and creation of the Super Bowl game are commonly associated with former NFL commissioner Peter Rozelle, as without him there may be no present day NFL. One of the traditions associated with the NFL is the Vince Lombardi trophy. Vince Lombardi was a legendary Green Bay Packer coach who guided the Packers to the first two Super Bowl championships and three of the final five NFL only championships, in 1961, 1962 and 1965. When Lombardi died of cancer before the start of the 1970 inaugural NFL merged season, Rozelle chose to name the championship trophy after his dear friend. As a result of winning the Super Bowl game, the players on the winning team are presented with the Vince Lombardi trophy, signifying their achievement. The trophy is designed as a silver football on top of a beam.