The last game of the NFL season is here, as the Seattle Seahawks take on the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 60.
The Seahawks are -238 favorites to win the game, while the Patriots are +195 underdogs on DraftKings Sportsbook.
Super Bowl Confidence Pick
Medium Confidence: Seahawks over Patriots
My straight-up pick to win the Super Bowl is the Seattle Seahawks. While it should be a competitive game, I have more faith in the Seattle defense than any other unit on the field. The Seahawks finished the regular season as the leading defense in the league by EPA/play. While some defenses are elite in certain spots, Seattle does not have a single weakness on defense. The Seahawks’ defense finished in the top five in the NFL in all of these defensive statistics: EPA/play, success rate, EPA/dropback, dropback success rate, EPA/rush and rushing success rate.
Drake Maye was brilliant during the regular season, but he has struggled through the postseason despite the Patriots winning games. Maye got sacked five times in each of New England’s three playoff games. He has also turned the ball over five times and had three fumbles that didn’t get recovered by the opposing defense. He takes too many sacks when pressured and fumbles too often when getting sacked. The Seahawks will be able to get after Maye in the same way that Houston and Denver did. Unlike those teams, the Seattle offense should be able to take advantage of Maye’s mistakes.
To illustrate how much Maye has struggled, look no further than his EPA+CPOE composite. This measures both explosiveness and accuracy, creating the best blend of how good a quarterback has played. During the regular season, Maye led all 30 eligible NFL quarterbacks in EPA+CPOE composite. In the postseason, Maye ranks 13th out of 15 in EPA+CPOE composite, ahead of only Jalen Hurts and C.J. Stroud. Maye’s postseason EPA+CPOE composite is -0.007. It’s only a three-game sample size, but the regular-season quarterback that he most closely compares to is Shedeur Sanders, who finished the season with a -0.003 EPA+CPOE composite.
So far this postseason, the NFL leader in EPA+CPOE composite is Sam Darnold. He leads all postseason quarterbacks in adjusted EPA/play, completion percentage and success rate. Darnold had a breakout campaign with the Vikings last season and has backed it up, and more, this season. The only team that Darnold struggled against all season was the Rams and he got his redemption by playing brilliantly against them in the NFC Championship Game. Darnold should be able to get the ball to the NFL’s leading receiver, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and get the ball in the end zone anytime the Patriots make a mistake.
It’s unlikely to be a blowout, but there is a path where the Seahawks win by a significant margin. It is nearly impossible to run the ball against Seattle. For most of this game, Drake Maye will be forced into obvious passing downs. That is when Seattle can get pressure and force Maye into the same type of mistakes that he has been making all postseason. Seattle should also dominate the field position battle with its elite special teams. Seattle finished the regular season second in the NFL in special teams DVOA. Meanwhile, New England finished 20th. Rashid Shaheed could make a game-changing play in the return game, while New England should be routinely pinned deep. All of this makes the most likely result of this game a Seattle victory.
