First off good luck everyone. It's be a shitty season with some of the most amazing comebacks in my 25 years of booking/making bets AND I was on the wrong side of every single one of those except sea/gb.
I am taking the pats for 2 dimes, a team I generally dislike.
1. There is a lot of talk in handicap write ups about distraction - there will be and has been no distraction. This team is likely THE most professionally locked and focused in for all of football. Hernandez murder - no distraction. Spy gate - no distraction,deflate gate, a big deflation.
2. New England will come out motivated and I expect them to pop the scoreboard early. They have been called cheaters, they have been mocked and laughed at by seattle. The actions by Seattle have been horrible all of us know you want you team to be quiet and give the other NO locker room material. New England has enough locker room material, from Seattle and the world to steam roll. And let us remember everyone who keeps quoting tom brady as 0-2 in the last two...he knows that stat too. Remember that TV stat about green bay being 40-1 when leading by 16 or more in the 3rd quarter....yeah that's now 40-2.
3. Seattle Defense has been strong all season, until Green Bay. Sherman is weaker and that is huge. Speaking of defense New England hung an average of 37 points on 3 of the top four defenses in the league - with the weakness of Sherman and NEP's strength on the passing game, seattle will not be any stronger than they were against green bay and I expect the same result. In the regular season Seattle was ranked #1 against the pass giving up only 185 per game, but in the post season they were ranked 5th giving up 200....with indy ranked 3rd against the pass in the post season, NEP slaughtered them in the 2nd half with fully inflated balls.
4. On offense Seattle is not quite one dimensional but it is really close. This is not the same team as last year and Tom Brady is NO P. Manning after neck surgery. In the playoffs, NEP has the top ranked offense, Seattle has the last and they are ranked 27th in passing yards. Outside of running the ball, how are they going to move? This for me is the biggest question mark how will Seattle move the ball if new england stacks the box and puts a spy on wilson, they still have no serious threats over the top.
5. I watched every minute of every playoff game and participated in the threads for each playoff game here on pregame. Winning in the NFL is all about where you are at the right time. There are teams who look AWESOME at the top of the season and yet by November they are in line to fire their coach. Before you bet, put aside all the comparisons to last year's superbowl, manning and brady, deflate gate, stats, defense, offense, and just close your eyes while you think back to GB and Seattle, in seattle -- where they were getting the butts kicked by an offense team. I was heavy on Seattle for that game. In the 3rd quarter did you think Seattle could (not would - could) come back? At home and Seattle laid an egg. It was ONLY because GB took their foot (their broken ankle foot) off the gas that Seattle had a chance. It was amazing that Seattle came back and I made bucks, but was it Seattle or Green Bay who determined the outcome of that game...me thinks it was Green Bay who lost that game. NOW - who thinks NEP will take their foot off the gas? I know that this one fact alone would have me betting on the Patriots because they will never stop. I do not want to be there again with Seattle's broken defense who dropped from first in total defense in the regular season to 6th in the post season.
I will play:
pats 1/2 half 1k
pats game 1k
pats & under teaser +7/u54.5 1k