Ladies and gentlemen, degenerates and scholars of human suffering, your Super Bowl LX matchup is set: the Seattle Seahawks versus the New England Patriots. At Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. On February 8th. And if you told me two years ago that Sam Darnold would be quarterbacking a Super Bowl team, I would have asked what substance you were on and whether you had enough to share. This is the first Super Bowl in over 50 years between two teams that entered the season with at least 60-1 odds to win it all. Both of them. Sixty to one. The sportsbooks set those odds and then immediately went to lunch because they assumed neither team would ever matter again.
And yet here we are. Seattle went 16-3 this season and is 14-5 against the spread because apparently Mike Macdonald decided to become a football genius when nobody was looking. The Seahawks are on a 9-0 straight-up run. A NINE GAME winning streak heading into the Super Bowl. The last time a team rode a streak like that into the championship, everyone acted surprised when they won, and then pretended they saw it coming all along. That's going to happen again. You know it. I know it. The guy at the bar who "always liked Seattle" definitely knows it.
The Line: Seahawks -4.5, Because the Books Have Seen Enough
Seattle is a 4.5-point favorite with the moneyline at -230. New England is +190. The over/under is 45.5, which feels generous considering the Patriots' idea of offensive fireworks is a 10-7 win. They beat the Broncos 10-7 in the AFC Championship. Ten to seven. That's not a football score. That's the calorie count of a celery stick. They advanced to the Super Bowl by producing the same offensive output as a JV team playing in a rainstorm with a deflated ball.
But here's where my degenerate brain starts doing dangerous things. Drake Maye is 23 years old and playing in the Super Bowl in his second NFL season. If he wins, he becomes the fifth quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl that young. The narrative writes itself. The comeback. The dynasty reborn. Belichick vindicated from whatever beach he's watching from. The problem is that narrative requires Maye to not get murdered by Seattle's defense, and he's already been sacked 15 times this postseason. Fifteen sacks. That's not a playoff run, that's a workplace injury report.
Sam Darnold: From "Seeing Ghosts" to Seeing Confetti
The Sam Darnold redemption arc is the kind of story that Hollywood would reject for being too unrealistic. This is the man who once said he was "seeing ghosts" on Monday Night Football while wearing a Jets uniform, which, to be fair, is a perfectly reasonable response to playing for the New York Jets. He bounced to Carolina, sat behind Kirk Cousins in Minnesota, and somehow ended up in Seattle where he's thrown for 346 yards and three touchdowns in a Conference Championship Game like a man who woke up one morning and decided to be good at football.
Darnold finished the NFC Championship with a 31-27 shootout win over the Rams, outdueling Matthew Stafford, who threw for 353 yards and three touchdowns himself and STILL lost. Stafford threw for more yards and the same number of touchdowns and lost. That's the kind of stat that makes you question whether statistics have any meaning at all, which is something I've been questioning since my first parlay ticket in 2019.
The Coaching Matchup Nobody Predicted
Mike Vrabel vs. Mike Macdonald. Two Mikes enter, one Mike leaves. Vrabel was the betting favorite for Coach of the Year at -400, which is the kind of odds that make you think "this is free money" right before it isn't. Macdonald was +450. Neither of them was supposed to be here. Both of their teams were jokes last season. And now they're coaching in the Super Bowl while Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay are at home watching on a couch that costs more than my car.
No coach has won Coach of the Year AND the Super Bowl in the same season since Bill Belichick in 2003, which was so long ago that some of the players in this Super Bowl weren't born yet. Think about that. There are professional football players younger than Belichick's last dual-award season. Time is an undefeated opponent and it's coming for all of us, but especially for my bankroll on February 8th.
The Bet I'm Going to Make and Immediately Regret
I'm looking at the under 45.5 because the Patriots have demonstrated a religious commitment to not scoring points. Their offensive philosophy appears to be "run the ball, play defense, and hope the other team forgets how touchdowns work." They won the AFC Championship 10-7. They would have won it 3-0 if the rules allowed it. Bill Belichick's ghost is possessing this team and the ghost only knows how to call running plays and punt.
But Seattle can score. Seattle HAS been scoring. And if Darnold gets rolling and the Seattle defense forces a couple of turnovers from a 23-year-old making the biggest start of his life, this could turn into a 31-13 type game where the over hits because one team scored all the points and the other team scored the football equivalent of a participation trophy.
So naturally I'll bet the under AND take Seattle -4.5 because I enjoy contradicting myself financially. This is fine. Everything is fine. Two teams that were 60-1 preseason are playing for the Lombardi Trophy and I'm going to pretend I have any idea what's going to happen. We all are. That's the beauty of this stupid, beautiful sport. See you on February 8th. Bring tissues. For the tears or the celebration, depending on which side of -4.5 you're standing on.