Monday Night Football debuted in September 1970, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that this Monday's game on Christmas Night -- the last of three games on the holiday -- is one of the best matchups ever in that spotlight with the AFC-leading Baltimore Ravens (11-3) visiting the NFC-leading San Francisco 49ers (11-3) in a matchup of Super Bowl 58 favorites. The rampaging 49ers are -5.5 on the SportsLine consensus with a total of 47.

This marks just the third regular-season matchup between teams with the best outright record in each conference in December or later since the 1970 merger. It last happened in Week 16 of 2005 when Seattle beat Indianapolis 28-13. The Seahawks reached the Super Bowl that season but lost to Pittsburgh. San Francisco is the +200 favorite to win the Super Bowl at DraftKings and is Baltimore next at +550. It's only the second time in the last 10 years that the top two Super Bowl favorites will meet in a December or January regular-season game. 

What more can we ask for here? San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy is the -200 favorite for NFL MVP and Baltimore counterpart Lamar Jackson, the 2019 winner, is the +450 second favorite. The Ravens lead the league in scoring defense (16.1 points per game) and the 49ers (16.7) are second. Baltimore enters Week 16 with the AFC's best point differential at +159 and San Francisco tops in the NFL at +191. They have combined to win 10 straight games, nine of those by double digits. 

At DraftKings, 49ers vs. Ravens is the +500 favorite for the Super Bowl 58 matchup, with 49ers over Ravens as the +1000 exacta leader and Baltimore over San Francisco next at +1200.  

Obviously both teams can't win out, and if a team has to lose it's much better to lose to a team from the other conference for tiebreaker reasons. But if either team does in fact win out, it will have home-field advantage through its conference playoffs. San Francisco has a lot more leeway to get the NFC's top seed than Baltimore does in the AFC because the Niners hold head-to-head tiebreakers over their biggest top-seed competition in Philadelphia and Dallas. So even if the Niners lose here, they're in pretty good shape as they finish at Washington and home vs. the Rams. 

Baltimore has a tougher finishing slate, but at least both are home games: vs. Miami, which could determine the AFC top seed, and vs. Pittsburgh, which might be eliminated from playoff contention. The Ravens are -170 to earn the No. 1 seed. 

We'll take you through every aspect of the Ravens-49ers Monday night game that you need to know before you lock in your bets, including SportsLine expert picks, props, trends, injury information and everything else that will help you know which plays are worth making for the primetime matchup.

Who wins Ravens vs. 49ers in the Week 16 Monday Night Football game, and what critical X-factor makes one side of the spread hit HARD? Join SportsLine right now to see everything you need to know about the game in the 16th Monday night matchup of the 2023 season!