Super Bowl

The Seattle Seahawks will defend their Super Bowl title on Sunday against the New England Patriots, who are aiming for their fourth Super Bowl victory. The game will see one of the league’s best offenses, directed by quarterback Tom Brady, against a brilliant Seattle defence. In the regular season, the Patriots were 11th in yards per game with 1,073, while the Seahawks led the NFL in total defence, allowing only 267.1 yards per game. If New England wins, Brady would tie Hall of Famers Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw for the most Super Bowl rings with four apiece, cementing his status as one of the best ever to play the position.
The Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots have been on a collision course over the last three months. The teams are a combined 16-3 since the start of November and have looked like the two best teams in the league over that time.
The Seahawks’passing game was exposed by the Packers in the NFC title game, and the Patriots have the personnel to replicate Green Bay’s game plan, so once again, Seattle’s fortunes will fall on the legs of Marshawn Lynch and Russell Wilson. The Seahawks defence has dominated everything put in its path, but in Rob Gronkowski, Seattle’s defence gets a new challenge. The Patriots run game will present its own challenges, but not one the Seahawks aren’t familiar with.
As of late Thursday odds have the New England Patriots as one-point favourites over the Seattle Seahawks. There’s been significant movement since the line was first released after the conference championship games: Seattle had opened as a three-point favourite at some shops, but as money poured in on the Patriots, the number moved the other way and has held there for some time. There are indications though, that the line could swing back again, making this game the first pick-’em in Super Bowl history.

Games like this, with two evenly matched teams, usually come down to situational football; specifically, which team performs better in the red zone. The Patriots always land near the top of the league in red zone efficiency and did so again in 2014, scoring a touchdown on 62.3 percent of their red zone drives, fifth best in the league. Seattle, on the other-hand, finished 20th in red zone efficiency. Meanwhile Packers Quarter-back, Tom Brady reiterated that even if he continued to sniffle his way through his Super Bowl media engagements on Thursday, confirming that he was still battling the cold that he caught from his wife and children, he did not expect it to affect his performance during Sunday’s game against Seattle.
The World’s Best Tipster would indicate the Seahawks settling for field goals too often and New England trying to cash in on its opportunities, giving Bill Belichick his fourth Super Bowl title, or not?