play11:06Dan Orlovsky gives props to Sam Darnold, ‘He won in the way EVERYONE said HE COULDN’T!’On Get Up, Adam Schefter, Dan Orlovsky, Rex Ryan and Damien Woody join Mike Greenberg to discuss the Seattle Seahawks defeating the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship to advance to the Super Bowl.
play0:56Saturday: Drake Maye doesn’t have to be a hero to win Super BowlJeff Saturday says Drake Maye can lean on his teammates and coaching staff to help lead the Patriots to victory in Super Bowl LX.
Ben SolakCloseBen SolakESPNBen Solak joined ESPN in 2024 as a national NFL analyst. He previously covered the NFL at The Ringer, Bleeding Green Nation and The Draft Network. and Seth WalderCloseSeth WalderESPN AnalyticsSeth Walder is an analytics writer at ESPN, specializing in quantitative analysis. He is also a regular on “ESPN Bet Live” and helps cover sports betting. Seth has been at ESPN since 2017. He previously worked at the New York Daily News covering the Jets and Giants. You can follow Seth on X via @SethWalder.Multiple AuthorsJan 29, 2026, 12:10 PM ET
Who is Jerry Rice’s pick for Super Bowl LX? (0:39)Jerry Rice explains to Rich Eisen why he’s siding with the Seahawks over the Patriots in the Super Bowl. (0:39)
Dan Orlovsky gives props to Sam Darnold, ‘He won in the way EVERYONE said HE COULDN’T!’On Get Up, Adam Schefter, Dan Orlovsky, Rex Ryan and Damien Woody join Mike Greenberg to discuss the Seattle Seahawks defeating the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship to advance to the Super Bowl.
On Get Up, Adam Schefter, Dan Orlovsky, Rex Ryan and Damien Woody join Mike Greenberg to discuss the Seattle Seahawks defeating the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship to advance to the Super Bowl.
Saturday: Drake Maye doesn’t have to be a hero to win Super BowlJeff Saturday says Drake Maye can lean on his teammates and coaching staff to help lead the Patriots to victory in Super Bowl LX.
Jeff Saturday says Drake Maye can lean on his teammates and coaching staff to help lead the Patriots to victory in Super Bowl LX.
There are seemingly endless ways to bet Super Bowl LX. From the typical on-field stats and outcomes to the off-field entertainment, there is also value to be found in the matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots.
The action we’ll explore here is more of the typical type, with Ben Solak looking at the offensive side of the ball, and Seth Walder examining the defensive side.
Solak and Walder bring different perspectives into how they approach sports betting. Solak leans on his expertise in player evaluation and the X’s and O’s to find edges. Walder relies on statistical models to pick out plus-expected value bets. They’ll give you a peek at how the teams match up before diving into a few bets that make sense on both sides of the ball.
From yardage totals to interception long shots and everything between, here’s how our analysts see the betting edges available for Super Bowl LX.
Dan Orlovsky gives props to Sam Darnold, ‘He won in the way EVERYONE said HE COULDN’T!’
Seattle takes a run-first approach. The Seahawks led the league in called run rate in large part because of the leads they’ve held for many of their regular-season blowouts. On the season, they have a called run rate 4.9% over expectation, the ninth-highest rate among all teams. So they’re a bit more balanced than they first appear.
Because the Seahawks commit so much to their run action with heavier sets and under-center alignment, their boot and rollout game is especially dangerous (12.6% of quarterback Sam Darnold’s dropbacks are designed rollouts, which was fifth in the league this season). On rollouts, Darnold averages 0.44 expected points added (EPA) per dropback and a success rate of 58.5%, and his 11.1 yards per attempt is second only to Lamar Jackson.
This rollout focus of the passing game is of particular importance against the Patriots, who win in the pass rush with their elite defensive tackle duo Milton Williams and Christian Barmore. By relocating Darnold and moving the pocket, Seattle can protect him from the fast interior pressure that leads to turnover-worthy plays.
The more Darnold rolls out, the more likely he is to take a free access scramble for a few yards. Darnold also was running the ball far more during the second half of the season than he did in the first half. In fact, 25 of his 38 rush attempts (66%) have come in his past 10 games. Some of those rush attempts are kneels, but if we remove those, the disparity becomes even bigger, with 19 of his 25 rushes (76%) coming in the second half of the season.
Darnold over 2.5 rushes is also an interesting bet at +107, as the Seahawks are 4.5-point favorites over the Patriots and, accordingly, the more likely team to kneel the football at any point.
Kenneth Walker III continued his excellent postseason carrying the football in the Seahawks’ win over the Rams, and he has increased his damage as an early-down pass catcher on screens as well. But to keep him fresh in Zach Charbonnet’s absence, the Seahawks often pulled him on late downs, sticking Holani in as their third-down back. Holani had 14 routes against the Rams to Walker’s 15 and collected four targets for 27 yards in the game.
Even though Holani is not a well-known name, an 11.5-yard line for a dedicated third-down back in what should be a close game is simply too low and should be bet accordingly.
The Patriots had one of the worst goal-to-go defenses in football this season, but they have largely avoided red zone drives because of their excellent play between the 20s. The Seahawks’ offense should give them a much stiffer challenge than they’ve faced all playoffs, so I’m interested in Seattle’s team total touchdown overs as well. I expect the Seahawks’ scoring drives to end in seven points, not three.
Saturday: Drake Maye doesn’t have to be a hero to win Super Bowl
The Patriots’ spread-and-shred approach allows Maye to play point guard and distribute to a deep room of talented receivers and tight ends. Nine Patriots pass catchers had at least 200 receiving yards in the regular season, more than twice as many as the Seahawks, who had only four. The Patriots’ two leading receivers, Stefon Diggs and Hunter Henry, had fewer combined receiving yards (1,781) than Jaxon Smith-Njigba did by himself (1,793).
Though the Patriots are static in their formations and pre-snap operation, they do employ a fullback (Jack Westover) and multiple tight end sets, along with jumbo personnel, to force defenses into certain coverages and packages (25.3% of the Patriots’ dropbacks this season have come against base defense, in large part because of their heavier groupings). It’s something that they share with the Seahawks, who have seen base on a whopping 34.2% of their dropbacks.
I generally love Henry as a solid three-down tight end, but this isn’t the game for him. Henry is much more productive against single-high defensive shells (2.34 yards per route run) relative to two-deep shells (1.30 yards per route run), as the Patriots love to use him as a seam or deep corner/crosser runner. Henry will see plenty of impressive rookie Nick Emmanwori in coverage, and though the Seahawks’ defense gives up more tight end targets than the average defense, it’s only marginally so.
It’s also very relevant that Maye has a bit of a sack problem and Darnold has a bit of an interception problem.
But, like betting any category, nothing matters more than the odds. So despite all that I wrote above, below you’ll find an under for a Seahawks defender (against Maye) and an interception over, also for a Seahawks defender (against Maye) — because that is what my models identified as the best bets.
As always for me, I lean on statistical models to find values against the odds. So rather than try to envision how the game will play out, I let the numbers guide me to the bets I’m making.
More than anything else, this bet hinges on Harold Landry III’s injury status and playing time. Landry has been dealing with a knee injury that has reduced his workload or caused him to sit out games entirely in every game from Week 16 on, including sitting out all of the AFC Championship Game. Ponder has been a major playing time beneficiary.
An undrafted rookie free agent, Ponder has 4.0 sacks this season and a 10.9% pass rush win rate at edge (a bit below average for a starter), but at these odds he hardly needs to be amazing. And similarly, given the major plus-money here, this bet does not require Landry being inactive to make it worthwhile. It’s a good bet whether Landry is out or playing roughly half his normal workload, as has been the case for more than a month now. And I’m quite willing to take that chance.
Williams is coming off a heck of a season in which he recorded a 13% pass rush win rate at defensive tackle, which would have ranked sixth if he qualified. But the “at defensive tackle” part is crucial for sack forecasting here, because interior rushers simply sack the quarterback less frequently. Williams is indicative of this, logging 5.5 sacks in 15 games despite having such a great season.
This is a new model I worked up just for the Super Bowl, because who doesn’t want another long shot to root for? And I’m glad I did, because it found one interception player prop it loves: Bryant to record a pick. It sees three things that Bryant has going for him to record a pick in this game:
The result? My model puts the fair odds on a Bryant pick at +535. If it’s right, then we’ve got ourselves a value.
A 6.5 combined tackle line for a corner is very high. And I get it, because Witherspoon has really high tackle rates for his position. He has recorded a tackle or assist on 10.6% of his defensive snaps, fifth highest among all outside corners with at least 300 snaps this season.
But my model is well aware of that fact, and it still thinks the under is the play. Why? The power of the base rate. As many tackles as Witherspoon has had over his 14 games played this season, we have far, far more data points of corners across the league. And only 12% of games played by outside cornerback starters resulted in them recording seven tackles or more.