January 26, 2026 | Balls Deep International
Well, here we are. Super Bowl LX. The two weeks of pure torture between the conference championships and the actual game where I slowly convince myself that every single bet I'm about to make is genius, only to watch my bankroll disintegrate in real time on national television. It's like Christmas morning, if Christmas morning ended with you sobbing into a half-eaten bowl of queso.
Seahawks vs. Patriots. Sam Darnold vs. Drake Maye. A sentence that, if you said it out loud two years ago, would've gotten you involuntarily committed. But here we are, and the betting market is already doing that thing where it moves in every direction just to personally mess with me.
Let's recap how we got here, because both games were absolute chaos in completely opposite ways. The Seahawks beat the Rams 31-27 in the NFC Championship, which was a fun, high-scoring, totally normal football game. Touchdowns, big plays, Sam Darnold doing Sam Darnold things, except now the Sam Darnold things are somehow good? Stephen A. Smith literally said Darnold "shut everybody up," and as much as it pains me to agree with Stephen A. on anything, he's right. The man who was a meme is now one game away from a ring. The simulation is broken.
Meanwhile, in the AFC Championship, the Patriots beat the Broncos 10-7 in what I can only describe as a football game that technically occurred. A snow game. Ten to seven. That's not a final score, that's a temperature reading in February. I had the over. Of course I had the over. I always have the over. I will never learn.
BetMGM opened the Seahawks as 5-point favorites for Super Bowl LX. Five points. That is the biggest the Seahawks have ever been favored in a Super Bowl. Let that sink in for a second. A team quarterbacked by Sam Darnold is the biggest Super Bowl favorite in franchise history. I need to sit down. I am already sitting down. I need to lie down.
Some books opened it at 3.5 and it's already crawled up to 4.5 with early money coming in on Seattle. So depending on where you look, you're either laying 4.5 or 5, which is the kind of spread that makes you stare at your sportsbook app for 45 minutes and then close it without placing a bet, only to come back an hour later and slam the Patriots +5 because you "have a feeling."
That total of 46.5 is interesting given that the AFC Championship was a combined 17 points in a blizzard. But sure, 46.5, that seems reasonable for a game involving an offense led by the Ghost Seeing himself.
Can we talk about Drake Maye for a second? This kid led the Patriots through the entire playoffs as favorites in all three games. ALL THREE. The New England Patriots were favored in three straight playoff games with a second-year quarterback, and they won all of them. Mike Vrabel has turned this franchise around so fast it gave me whiplash. Last year they were a laughingstock. This year they're in the Super Bowl. I don't understand anything anymore, and I've accepted that.
Maye threw for a combined 127 yards in the snow game against Denver, and they still won. That's not quarterbacking, that's just vibes. The defense carried them on its back like a parent carrying a sleeping toddler out of a restaurant. And now they're getting 5 points in the Super Bowl, which, historically, is a pretty generous number for a team that just won three playoff games.
Sam Darnold's career arc is genuinely the most insane story in recent NFL history. This is a man who saw ghosts on Monday Night Football, got traded to Carolina where he somehow got worse, and then just decided to become a legitimate franchise quarterback. "Shut everybody up" doesn't even begin to cover it. He shut up the entire concept of being a bust.
And now he's a 5-point favorite in the Super Bowl. If I had put $100 on "Sam Darnold Super Bowl Favorite" as a prop bet three years ago, I could've retired. But I didn't, because I am not a genius. I am a degenerate who once bet the under on a CFL game because the weather looked "cloudy."
Look, I genuinely have no idea what to do with this game. Five points feels like a lot for the Super Bowl, but Darnold and the Seahawks just hung 31 on the Rams in the NFC Championship, so it's not like they can't score. Meanwhile, the Patriots just won a game 10-7 in the snow, which tells me their ceiling might be "slightly above unwatchable" on offense.
The total at 46.5 is probably where I'll end up throwing my money, because I'm constitutionally incapable of not having action on the total. Will it go over? Will it go under? Will I care about the answer after my third frozen margarita? The answer to the last question is always no.
Two weeks until Super Bowl LX. Two weeks of agonizing, second-guessing, and ultimately making the exact same mistakes I make every year. My wallet is already crying. My liver is filing for early retirement. Let's ride.