Why I’m Picking The Seattle Seahawks In Super Bowl 48
By Phil Daniels
When I lived on the west coast, I always considered groups of people talking about the weather to be nothing more than a television trope. When you live somewhere that is hot and sunny every day, there’s really no point in discussing weather conditions. But then I moved back to Chicago and quickly remembered the concepts of four separate seasons; of rain, wind, ice, and snow; and of a 32 degree day being a welcomed winter reprieve from temperatures between 0 and 10 degrees. With apologies to residents of Arizona and California, “weather” is real and important.
I previously made the case of simply riding the favorites this postseason. For the Divisional round of the NFL playoffs, I rightly predicted that the New England Patriots would defeat the Indianapolis Colts; the Denver Broncos would beat the San Diego Chargers; the Seattle Seahawks would win against the New Orleans Saints; and the San Francisco 49ers would defeat the Carolina Panthers. Then during the Conference Championships, I correctly picked the Broncos over the Patriots and the Seahawks over the 49ers. To put it mildly, I am on a winning streak that gamblers dream about, and I am doing it by unconventionally betting on every favorite despite statistics telling me that at least one virtually always loses. So why is it that I am abandoning my proven strategy now in favor of the underdog Seattle Seahawks? The answer has in part something to do with the weather.
We’ve all heard the story, and we are all tired of the narrative: Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning can’t win in the cold. Manning himself has told people arguing this point to “shove that one where the sun don’t shine.” Peyton Manning’s loose threats of object sodomy aside, Manning is not a winning quarterback in cold weather. When the temperature is 32 degrees or below, Manning is just 4-7. In games above 32 degrees, Manning is 174-77. Admittedly, 11 games is a tiny sample size in the grand scheme of Manning’s career, but that does not mean that his 36.4% freezing win percentage is insignificant. Some people’s bodies just don’t react well to cold weather—especially individuals in their late-thirties who have undergone four neck surgeries, including reportedly a bone fusion. And once you compound Manning’s lackluster cold weather record with his less than stellar 11-11 postseason record, I begin to seriously doubt Peyton’s Manning’s success in the presumed to be freezing Super Bowl XLVIII played in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Even without inclement weather on Super Bowl Sunday—whether it’s sunny or sleeting—the better team should win, and that team is the Seattle Seahawks. Even though Seattle and Denver both finished the regular season with identical 13-3 records, Seattle boasted the 10th most difficult schedule in the NFL; Denver, meanwhile, was dead last in strength of schedule. The combined record of Seattle’s opponents is 130 wins and 122 losses; Denver’s opponents managed just 110 wins and 146 losses! Peyton Manning may have thrown for a record breaking 55 passing touchdowns this year, and the Broncos offense may have led the NFL in scoring with 37.9 points per game in 2013—a hair over 10 points higher than the second place Chicago Bears—but they did so against relatively poor competition. On the other hand, the Seahawks defense led the NFL in fewest points allowed per game at 14.4 against legitimate opposition, including six games against the rest of the daunting NFC West. Offensively, the Seattle Seahawks were 17th in the NFL, scoring 26.1 points per game against a myriad of dangerous teams. Defensively, the Denver Broncos were 19th in the NFL, giving up 24.9 points per game against the worst allotment of opponents in the entire National Football League.
On paper, Super Bowl XLVIII will match the best offense in the league and a middling defense against the best defense in the league and a middling offense. One could make the case that the Super Bowl is a dead even match up for the ages. But strength of schedule matters, and Denver thrived all season against awful teams like the New York Giants, the Oakland Raiders, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Washington Redskins, the Tennessee Titans, and the Houston Texans. Seattle is better than Denver according to the USA Today’s Sagarin Ratings and Football Outsiders DVOA Analysis. But hey, at least the Broncos are beating the Seahawks eight times out of ten in Madden 25 simulations.
Ultimately, I strongly believe that the Seattle Seahawks are going to defeat the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII because I am confident, both quantitatively and qualitatively, that they are the better team. That said, I keep going back to the success favorites have had so far in both the Divisional round and the Conference Championships. After telling thousands of readers to pick the favorites during the 2014 playoffs, how can I justify abandoning that strategy for the Super Bowl? The answer: because the Denver Broncos would not be the favorite but for casual gamblers.
Over $100 million worth of wagers will be placed on the outcome of Super Bowl XLVIII—sizably more than the average NFL game. Many deep-pocketed gamblers who rarely bet on football, let alone study the game, have already put significant money on the Super Bowl, enough so that the game line moved from even to the Broncos being about a two and a half point favorite over only a matter of hours. Chalk this up to the “Peyton Manning effect.” Gamblers who would not be betting this game if it were not the Super Bowl likely saw Peyton Manning’s name against a relative unknown quarterback to the masses in Russell Wilson and jumped at the opportunity to invest in Manning—someone the average person recognizes from his endless commercials and a memorable 2007 Saturday Night Live appearance. If this game were hypothetically played at a neutral site during the regular season, thus subtracting millions of dollars in additional bets swaying the game line, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Seattle as a 3 point favorite.
I’m taking the”regular season favorite” Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII. My sincerest apologies go out to the Manning family and to the city of Omaha.