Two teams left to battle for the Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl LX
Training Camp. Preseason. 18 weeks. Wild Card, Divisional Round, Conference Championships.
And now: down to one game.
Seattle Seahawks (-235) vs New England Patriots (+185)
Any Super Bowl betting preview usually starts with the biggest names at the QB position. We’ve gotten used to names like Brady and Mahomes and others that even the biggest non-football fan at your Super Bowl party can recognize.
For Super Bowl 60, it’s a different story. No one had Maye vs. Darnold as the matchup before the season started. Most NFL Futures had both teams somewhere between +6000 and +8000. Even halfway through the NFL season, when he started getting NFL MVP talk, Drake Maye was not a household name.
Can he become one? On paper, sure. Maye proved again that he’s got the all-star gene, pulling off a crucial naked bootleg late in the AFC Conference Championship to seal the deal.
The soft NFL regular season schedule for the Pats this past season has been talked about enough. Maye’s playoff performance, against 3 strong defenses (Denver, Houston, and the Chargers), show that he can withstand pressure from a harder opponent. He’s taken some punishment, getting sacked 15 times in the past 3 weeks, but he’s come out a winner each time. Maye isn’t at Brady-level football yet, but if they go down bad against the Seahawks, he’s not going to be the reason the Pats lose.
The problem for the Pats is that Maye is seemingly the only elite player on the roster. In the Super Bowl, you need star players to make star plays. Kayshon Boutte is their only big-play receiver, although Stefon Diggs can still make things happen too. At running back, TreVeyon Henderson and Rhamondre Stevenson are solid. If the NE defense keeps the game close through three quarters, the Pats’ 1-2 punch at running back could wear down the Seahawks’ D.
History-wise, the Patriots have the big 6-1 edge in Super Bowl wins. If you think legacy matters, then the Pats are a lock.
But legacy isn’t on the roster for Super Bowl LX. Seattle won its only trophy when Russel Wilson led the team over a decade ago, and New England hasn’t met Roger Goodale on stage since Brady was the QB in 2019. Eleven years ago, it took that infamous INT thrown by Wilson at the goal line to seal New England’s win over Seattle in the only time the teams have met head-to-head in the big show. That was a year after the Legion of Boom took the Seahawks all the way, with a 43-8 drubbing of Peyton Manning and the Broncos.
That defense-dominant win is the blueprint for the 2025-26 Super Bowl for the Seahawks, a team led by defense. The Seahawks’ D this season is a whole new ball game than 99% of the Pats opponents over the past 5 months, a list that included the softest schedule in the NFL.
Seattle’s defense is next-level. They led the team to a 14-3 record. They were first in the NFL in points allowed, barely allowing over 17 points per game. They have three All-Pros in their starting 11, with Leonard Williams, Devon Witherspoon, and Ernest Jones IV.
With the early Super Bowl spread of 4.5 in favor of the Seahawks, it looks like the books and the betting public are factoring in the inexperience of Maye and the rest of the New England lineup and they’re seeing through that soft schedule.
Check the latest odds at Lucky Rebel.
On the other side of the ball, Sam Darnold looks like he’s erased all the memories from last year’s dismal playoffs. That rough performance cost him his gig as the Minnesota Vikings’ QB and landed him in Seattle. But he’s a different player in this year’s postseason. He completed 70% of his passes through the Divisional Round and the Conference Championships, putting up an average of 36 points.
Darnold’s main target all season and in the playoffs has been WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the NFL’s leading receiver for the 2025-26 season, so he’s an obvious play to put up numbers when you’re making your Super Bowl prop picks.
But the Seahawks’ QB spread the ball around in the AFC Conference Championship game against the Rams, with Darnold completing 25 passes to 7 different receivers. While JSN is a safe play for a Super Bowl playoff prop bet to haul at least one TD, don’t ignore the other receivers. The Pats will be keying on Smith-Njigba all game, leaving Cooper Kupp, Jake Bobo and others a great chance to get on the scoreboard.
Don’t fade a WR4 or TE3. Super Bowl coaches always have a couple of plays that they haven’t pulled from the playbook all season, and obscure touchdown scorers often get great odds. And New England’s OC Josh McDaniel always has something going. While Diggs and Boutte will get the primary attention from the Seattle DBs, a player like Mack Hollins to score a touchdown at +370 looks enticing. Same with Rashid Shaheed (+340) for the Seahawks.
The X factor for New England in Super Bowl LX comes down the Patriots’ big play ability. They were second in the entire NFL with the number of plays of 20+ yards (69 of them to the Rams’ 72). Is that a real thing, or is it because NE’s weak opponents averaged a weak .391 winning percentage, offering up the deep ball to pretty much every team? Maye showed the ability to drop in long passes with great accuracy though, and players like Boutte can haul in every kind of pass. If head coach Mike Vrabel can use his own Super Bowl experience to draw up some big plays, New England could keep this one closer than the spread suggests.
Speaking of that spread. If you’re a point spread bettor, consider how hot the Seahawks have been for the past 3 months. Since Week 5, they’re 11-3 ATS. Darnold, spanning his current team and the Vikes last season, is 25-11-1 ATS. He’s been underestimated by the books for two full seasons now. With the current Super Bowl spread sitting at -4.5 for Seattle, it’s not hard to picture a relatively easy cover just based on the talent on the field and the Seahawks’ momentum.