Seahawks vs Patriots: Should you bet against Seattle’s 5-year streak of competitiveness?

There’s a certain anticipation anxiety that presents itself when waiting for game lines. Especially true if you have handicapped the game yourself, and are just waiting for the official line to come out. After the Buffalo game, I figured the Seattle Seahawks had not shown enough to be a simple 3-point dog against the New England Patriots. No, I fully expected a public duping line that started at 7 — And oh yes, I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long, long time.

The Seahawks are finally more than a touchdown underdog in a game with Russell F’ing Wilson as quarterback.

Seattle has not been more than a 7.5-point underdog since 2011, at a time when coin flipper extraordinaire Tarvaris Jackson was the signal caller for the Hawks. They were double-digit dogs in three games that season, covering the spread in 2 of them. In the time since then, the Hawks have not been more than a 7.5-point underdog in any game… period. And for good reason it seems, as Kenneth in Rolling Stone said earlier in the week, you’d have to go back to that 2011 season to find a game in which Seattle lost by more than 10 points. (October 30, 2011 - Bengals 34, Seahawks 12)

The Patriots come into this game the darling of the betting public, going 7-1 SU and ATS on the season thus far. Since Tom Brady’s return, the final scores have covered the spreads by wide margins too, leading to nice relaxing ass-kicking’s of which every Seattle fan this year can only dream about. It definitely hasn’t been a year to curb your alcoholism. That consistency though has the effect of inflating lines, as books raise the bar until they can’t get away with it anymore. The Seahawks have shown none of that consistency lately, and have followed up ATS wins with ATS losses in five of their last six tries.

The public has indeed come in on New England throughout the week with 61% of wagers made on the Patriots, and 76% of the wagering amount on them too. This action has led the line to go as high as +8 at Bovada and +9 at 5Dimes.

So this pick can’t be just based on a line not being available for a long time, now can it? Absolutely it can. Betting lines and the wagering markets have the effect of normalizing all inputs and variables into a single number. It all boils down to this, and the line is much more elegant than the fact that the Seattle has been placed as +265 moneyline underdogs straight up, or 2.65 to 1 odds to win.

We’ve seen injuries before in the last four years. Lots of them. We’ve seen a shitty offensive line. Played on the road at night. Played in bad weather. You get the picture. The one constant has been the Seahawks’ ability to stay in games and and only lose in soul-crushingly close fashion. To expect anything different here is to break a trend much stronger than the Patriots have going on right now. Grab those points for the Hawks. I’m taking +8 myself, and…

Hold on to your butts.