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49ers Open As Slight Favorites As They Head To Carolina

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) - Online oddsmakers projected the 49ers as a slight favorite to advance to the NFC championship game following their last-second win at Green Bay Sunday afternoon.

Phil Dawson's 33-yard field goal as time expired gave the 49ers a 23-20 win in one of the coldest games in NFL history Sunday. That victory set up a 10:05 Pacific time showdown next Sunday hosted by a Carolina squad that surprised experts with a 12-4 record and the NFC South division title.

By Monday morning, 4 of 5 online betting sites tracked by ESPN projected the 49ers as a slight favorite against Carolina, with the point spread among those four sites ranging from 1 to 2.5. Only the website Bovada listed the Niners as an underdog, and giving them 2.5 points.

Experts also project a low scoring struggle between two of the league's elite defenses, with the over/under line for total points set at 43 – the lowest projected total for next weekend's games.

The 2nd-seeded Panthers took the weekend off after earning a first round bye. Carolina largely shut down the 49ers when the two teams faced off in November, a game San Francisco dropped 10-9. Each team has lost only once since that contest.

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