102 New England & SeattleAs sports bettors people tend to remember what they saw last. In this case it was a Seattle team that trailed for almost the entire game and a New England squad who dominated the Colts. Going into the weekend the NFL futures had the NFC favored by 2 1/2 to 3 over the AFC. With Seattle and New England expected to win it made sense. Green Bay would have been a bigger favorite over Indy if each of the dogs won, but not many were expecting that result to happen. So after the third quarter the books started leaking out feelers with low limits on a possible Super Bowl matchup of the Seahawks and the Patriots, who were up big over the Colts. Most put the Seahawks as a 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 point favorite. Similar to what the NFC over AFC bet would have been before the weekend. But most of the early money came in on the Patriots, and according to some bookmakers in town it wasn’t sharp money. It was fans who were in town for the games who wanted to get down before leaving for the weekend. Keep in mind that it doesn’t take much money to move a number early in the week, especially when not on a key number. So when you hear the media talk about the huge influx of cash on the Patriots, you can come to your own better informed conclusions. Currently 76% of the bets in the big game have come in on the Patriots. Yet the overall money bet on the game is much closer to even. That means the bigger bets are on the Seahawks while the smaller bets are favoring the Patriots. Which gets right back to our original thoughts on what the public remembers most is what they saw last. Keep in mind the Patriots have absolutely owned Andrew Luck since he was drafted by the Colts. So a big win from New England didn’t come as a surprise. In fact, the Patriots were our only play last week as we felt the team had value after struggling with Baltimore. A team that has always played the Patriots very well. So New England who almost and probably should have lost to Baltimore the week before is now all of a sudden a public darling from taking advantage of a good matchup. The Seahawks on the other hand struggled against a Green Bay team that in most power ratings were ranked third in the league coming into the game. A team led by the MVP but clearly not 100%. There isn’t anyone out there that would rank the Colts on the same level as New England, Green Bay or Seattle.Getting to the game itself lets look at a few numbers. Seattle played the third toughest schedule in the league, New England the 11th. When taking on the Top 5 power ranked teams this year Seattle was 3-0 and the Patriots 2-1. Against the weakest ten teams in the NFL New England was 5-0 and Seattle 2-0. So the Patriots padded its record playing a much weaker schedule than the Seahawks. Russell Wilson is his career is 10-0 against Super Bowl winning quarterbacks. He already beat Tom Brady in his rookie season. Teams entering the Super Bowl with the top ranked scoring defense in the NFL are 9-1 in the big game. Teams coming off scoring 40 or more in the playoffs are terrible pointspread propositions in the following game. That includes a big scoring output in the conference finals. In our mind Seattle is the better team who played the tougher schedule. The situation screams Seahawks after the way it played last week. The situation is very similar to a year ago when the Broncos looked invincible and took a ton of opening money against these same Seahawks. We will be on the repeat champion Seattle squad.PLAY SEATTLE
Shortest fg over 25 1/2 yards -125
Brady to throw INT Yes -150
Alternative Line Seattle -10 1/2 +375
Shortest TD und 1 1/2 -120
No OT -800
Brady Pass Attempts Ov 37 -110
TD Passes by R Wilson Ov 1 -175