It may not be Monday morning, but since NFL Week 16 wrapped up with 3 games on Christmas Day, we decided to move this column to Tuesday. Surprisingly, two out of the three NFL underdogs won their respective games outright yesterday!
If you have a bit of a Christmas hangover, let me assure you that you're in good company. Let's check out a crazy bet and a bad beat from NFL Week 16. As you'll see below, it was a VERY Merry Christmas for a certain someone at DraftKings Sportsbook!
Crazy Bet: 14 Player Anytime TD Parlay Comes Up Roses!
A sports bettor at DraftKings had a Christmas that he'll never forget. He placed a $5 "lottery ticket" type of bet on a 14-player Anytime TD parlay. If all 14 players somehow found the end zone in Week 16, he'd win almost half a million dollars!
The fun actually started two days before Christmas with Najee Harris. The former Alabama star plunged into the end zone on Saturday afternoon to get this crazy bet started off on the right foot. The Steelers ended up blowing out the Bengals and our crazy bettor lived to see what Bills WR Gabe Davis could do on Saturday night.
Mr. Davis did not disappoint. Despite going through a cold streak, Davis led the Bills with 130 receiving yards and a touchdown against the Chargers. This meant the parlay was still alive with a 2-0 record heading into the meat of the schedule on Sunday.
One of the craziest legs of this parlay was on DK Metcalf. The Seahawks star wideout just narrowly missed a touchdown in the back corner of the end zone against the Titans. However, after going to review, officials confirmed that Metcalf actually got both feet in bounds and awarded him with the TD. At this point our crazy bettor was thanking the Good Lord for instant replay.
The rest of the Sunday plays went as planned, as 8 more players on the parlay card all scored touchdowns! That left 3 plays left on Christmas Day to take home a win of over $489,000. Do you think this fellow slept a wink at all on Christmas Eve night?
Christmas stared out perfectly, as Chiefs RB Isiah Pacheco found the end zone from 12 yards out in the 2nd quarter against the Raiders. Now all that was left for a huge payday was D'Andre Swift and Christian McCaffrey.
Swift, a former standout at the University of Georgia, had a great game for Philly but had to wait a while to hit paydirt. Thankfully though, he did find the end zone with about 11 minutes left in the 4th quarter. The score helped the Eagles take down the Giants 33-25.
Now it was all up to Christian McCaffrey! If the former Stanford star scored a touchdown, our crazy bettor would take home nearly half a million bucks from DraftKings. Thankfully, he didn't have to wait too long. CMC scored on a 9-yard run late in the 2nd quarter to give this bettor a Christmas miracle that he'll always remember! What a score!
Bad Beat: Chiefs Putrid Offense Costs Bettor $220,000
Unfortunately, it wasn't a very Merry Christmas for a sports investor at Caesars in Nevada. They watched as Patrick Mahomes and Co. proceeded to flush their $220,000 ticket down the proverbial toilet. The Chiefs tried to make things interesting late, but they had no shot of ever covering the -10 point spread.
Isiah Pacheco gave Kansas City their only lead of the game with a 12-yard TD run about halfway through the 2nd quarter. The turnover bug then bit the Chiefs in a mighty big way. Well, make that 2 mighty big ways.
Bilal Nichols picked up a Patrick Mahomes fumble and rumbled 8 yards into the end zone to put Las Vegas back on top 9-7. Just 7 seconds later, Jack Jones picked off a Mahomes pass and took in back 33 yards to the house. Brandon Bolden ran in the 2-point try and the Raiders never looked back.
That pretty much sealed the deal on this bad beat. Hopefully, Santa was kinder to this person on Christmas than the gambling gods were. Ouch!
