Sharp or Square: Super Bowl LX Betting Preview, Best Bets & Predictions

Look, I’m with Simon in that I have spent my entire adult life working in sports media and using “I need to watch football” as an excuse for everything. It is the greatest ‘get out of anything’ card or ‘leave something early’ card that exists.

Being able to say, Hun, it’s Thursday night – I gotta watch the Bengals-Jags game tonight. I gotta be able to talk about this game. Or maybe it’s Sunday afternoon. I can’t go to our friends house to hang out on Sunday afternoon. I’m taking notes. Sunday afternoons during football season are my most stressful moments of the year. Those are always the times when my wife wants to come in and just have the longest, most detailed conversation about what’s happening in our lives and the world. And I keep having to tell her, just pretend this is my office and my office is 30 miles from our house. I am not here. I cannot have a conversation right now. That excuse is officially gone.

Shame On Us!

We did a very special Shame On Us to start the show this week. The Super Bowl matchup between the Seahawks and the Patriots was actually scripted months ago. We spent all that time during preseason talking about the Rams or the Packers at longer odds or taking the Chiefs and the Ravens at both less than 12-1 or whatever it was.

Back in September, the NFL released a Super Bowl poster for this season with a bunch of NFL stars facing a massive Lombardi trophy. And at the very front, closest to the trophy on the left, it was none other than Sam Darnold and Drake Maye.

The script was written. If only we had paid closer attention, we would have bet a Patriot-Seahawks matchup at 100-1. That is the longest odds for a Super Bowl matchup in 50 years.

Historical Preseason Odds

Here were some other interesting stats that I grabbed from our friend Ben Fawkes, my old ESPN colleague who’s at Yahoo Sports now. Never before have two teams with preseason Super Bowl odds of more than 50-1 met in the Big Game. The closest approximation to any of this was all the way back in 1992 when the San Francisco 49ers had 50-1 odds and the Bengals had 60-1 odds and they met in Super Bowl XVI.

We could have had the Patriots at 80-1. We could have had the Seahawks at 60-1. Both to win the Super Bowl. Neither of us had either of them.

One more note on the preseason odds: the Arizona Cardinals actually had shorter odds to make the Super Bowl before the season began than the Seattle Seahawks did.

I don’t know if you’ve looked at next year’s Super Bowl futures yet, either. It is the most wide open – in my lifetime – that it’s ever been, which is really fun and exciting. We’re all overreacting to this season, while I’m going to lean into just betting what’s happened in the past and probably get a lot of good value on a lot of these quarterbacks. I don’t know when Patrick Mahomes is coming back, but I’m going to want those Kansas City Chiefs at 15-1.

Contest Update and the Final Week Sprint

We went 3-2 in the contest last week. Big bounce-back for the good guys. We won with the Broncos +4.5, Stidham to throw that pick, and Seattle -2.5. We lost with the New England/Denver total and Jaxon Smith-Njigba to not score a touchdown.

In our nine-week Hard Rock Bet contest, we are now 56-49 heading into the final week of the season. The leaderboard looks like this: we have four entries tied at the top with 28 wins, but 11 more right behind them with 27. It’s gonna be a photo finish. We can’t wait to announce the winner the Tuesday after the Super Bowl. Good luck all.

Narratives That Matter More Than Trends

We can talk about all the trends in the world and they do have impact here, but the things that stand out to me are going to be the narratives for this game. The narrative of the Seahawks defense, the narrative of “can you trust Sam Darnold”, the narrative of “did the Patriots play anybody and does that matter?”

That continued into the playoffs where they got C.J. Stroud on the road in bad weather without Nico Collins. They got the Broncos in Denver with Jarrett Stidham in a blizzard. They continue to get the very, very good breaks. I’m not discounting Mike Vrabel. I’m not discounting Drake Maye. Drake Maye led the league in completion percentage. He had a magical year. But at some point we need to do the analysis of these two teams on the field.

The Seahawks defense is just so much better than anything they’ve faced. Opponent success rate on runs against Seattle: 34%, lowest in the league. Opponents have managed -34 first downs over expectation when rushing against Seattle – by far the lowest in the league. The next closest is the Texans at -4.

So we know what the Patriots are going to have to do here. We know that they’re going to have to put the ball in Drake Maye’s hands and he’s going to have to find ways to beat the Seahawks defense deep. We saw a little bit of softness against the Rams. The Rams’ offense was able to find openings and do that. But I don’t think the Patriots have the same kind of weapons that the Rams do between Davante Adams, Puka Nacua, and at tight end either. So it’s a fascinating matchup. You really have to believe the Patriots can level up in order to be competitive in this game.

Why Mike Vrabel Scares Me Most as a Seahawks Bettor

Here’s a stat I looked up this morning because we’ve always loved betting on Mike Vrabel and we’ve really loved betting Mike Vrabel as an underdog. Mike Vrabel was 21-14 ATS as a dog of three points or more as the head coach of the Tennessee Titans. Mike Vrabel this year, as a dog of three points or more, was 2-0 with outright wins against the Bills and the Ravens.

For all the Seahawks love, the thing that scares me most about betting the Seahawks is Mike Vrabel – because the guy manages the game so well. He never seems to make the wrong decision. He never seems to be flummoxed in any scenario down to how he manages substitutions with the play clock winding down or how he manages 4th and goal situations at the end of the half. We’ve seen him do this. He’s just such a good situational coach. You got to earn it as a favorite against Mike Vrabel.

Contest Props and What’s Already Getting Hit

There will be a few additional props that are going to be in the contest this week in addition to the usual sides and totals:

• First half spread
• First half total
• Jaxon Smith-Njigba total touchdowns (o/u 0.5)
• Sam Darnold total passing touchdowns (o/u 1.5)
• Drake Maye total completions (o/u 19.5)
• Rhamondre Stevenson total rushing yards (o/u 53.5)

Stevenson’s rushing total is already coming down. It opened at 56 yards and in a lot of places, it’s already closer to 50.

Sharp or Square: Super Bowl Picks & Leans

• Seahawks -3.5
• Sam Darnold to win Super Bowl MVP (+125)
• Rashid Shaheed to win Super Bowl MVP (+2500)
• Kenneth Walker Over 20.5 Receiving Yards

While Simon is standing pat and being patient with the side and total, I already took out a position on Seattle -3.5 when it opened. I wish I got a little more down, but will keep an eye out for any 4’s that pop up throughout the next week or so.