With the Super Bowl on the horizon, we know that hundreds of millions of dollars will be bet on the outcome of the game between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots.
As most are aware, the Seahawks are favored to win, listed as 4.5 point favorites by DraftKings’ Super Bowl betting. The spread feels about right, all things considered. The Seahawks have come through more tests than the Patriots, and they arguably possess more offensive weapons.
Favorites have struggled to cover the spread recently
Yet, before jumping into the merits of backing the Seahawks to cover, let’s take a moment to consider some context. First, let’s look back at the last five Super Bowls and the spread before the game:
Super Bowl LIX (Feb 9, 2025): Chiefs -1.5 vs Eagles
Super Bowl LVIII (Feb 11, 2024): 49ers -2 vs Chiefs
Super Bowl LVII (Feb 12, 2023): Eagles -1 vs Chiefs
Super Bowl LVI (Feb 13, 2022): Rams -4.5 vs Bengals
Super Bowl LV (Feb 7, 2021): Chiefs -3 vs Buccaneers
The first thing we note is that 4.5 is on the upper end of the spread, atypical for recent Super Bowls. The second is perhaps more important – no favorite team has covered the spread in the last five Super Bowls. It’s a pretty startling statistic. And while, when betting, you should not be bogged down in concepts of correlation meaning causation, it remains the case that you have to consider these trends.
Indeed, if we extend our timeline back a bit, we can see that 13 of the last 18 Super Bowls saw the underdog win against the spread. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was way more common to see the favorite cover, but not so much in the modern era.
The Patriots kept things tight all season
As for the individual teams, the Seahawks covered a 4.5-point handicap in 12 of 19 games (regular season and postseason). Four of the seven non-covers were wins by 1-4 points, and the other three games were losses. The Patriots +4.5 covers would have paid on 18 of the 20 games this season, with the early-season losses to the Raiders and Steelers (both by 7 points) being the exceptions.
You can go down a blind alley with these kinds of statistics, because, of course, the Patriots are going to win ATS with a high percentage rate in a season where they made the Super Bowl, but it remains the case that these games are, more often than not, tight. Three of the last four Super Bowls were decided by three points or less. Conversely, there are enough recent examples of Super Bowl teams blowing away the opposition for Seahawks fans to have confidence that Sam Darnold and co. can steamroll the Patriots.
All of this does suggest caution, however. The Patriots’ tactics and the occasion itself might equate to a nervy start for the Seahawks, one where the offensive line has difficulty finding the kind of groove it enjoyed in the regular season and Playoffs. The Seahawks are rightful favorites, but we have seen a lot of score predictions citing the Seahawks winning by three, thus not covering the spread. We aren’t saying those predictions are right. Rather, it’s a case of an expectation of a tighter game than what the odds show. Plan your bet accordingly.
