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When I wrote and made my picks on last year’s Super Bowl XLVIII, it was mentioned that the game was one of the hardest for professionals to call. That game had Seattle as the underdog with 2.5 points being given them at the Vegas Sportsbooks. They handily won the game outright and my winners prediction was correct, though I incorrectly guessed the over/under.

Thankfully, I had no money on the Over/Under (I always considered that a fool’s bet) and my win prevented Vito “The Nose” from busting my kneecaps.

If last year was made difficult, this year should be worse. Yesterday, the Las Vegas Sportbooks once again has Seattle as the underdog, with only 1 point being given them for wagering purposes. That one point, by the way, is a useless point. The game can’t end in a tie and should the Patriots actually win by one point, your wager (getting one point added to the Seahawks) would result in a tie and in Las Vegas, ties lose the wager.

So, points given or taken on a Vegas bet is pretty much useless. Gamblers will be betting on who they think will win, not the amount of points to cover the spread, of the final score.

The Over/Under Total Score line is 47.5 points.

So, what do I think?

If Tom Brady can be rattled early, he’ll likely be flinching even with no defenders near him, as he did in his 24-20 loss against the Giants two years ago. In that game, the Giants pressured him early with blitzes. He was flinching and breaking out of the pocket often. It affected his game and was noticed.

Of course, much of it depends on the Seahawks ability to keep the pressure on Brady and to sack him early in the 1st quarter. If that can be accomplished, it may be another romp for the Seahawks.

Even if that doesn’t happen, Seattle will still win, but not by a wide margin.

As we saw in last year’s Super Bowl, immobile quarterbacks usually don’t fare well against Seattle – and Tom Brady is one of the most immobile quarterbacks in the NFL. Seattle might have trouble scoring, but they’ll eventually wear down the Patriots and use the ground game for much of their scoring.

The pros picks are listed below.

John Avello, Wynn Las Vegas: Patriots 24-20. The Seahawks defense must be respected, but I have less respect for their inconsistent offense. I don’t believe they’ll pull out the Houdini act against a determined and over-inflated Tom Brady.

Nick Bogdanovich, William Hill: Seahawks 24-21. Russell Wilson makes one more big play to win it.

Hugh Citron, Stratosphere: Seahawks 34-7. Wilson has big day, and the defense closes down Pats’ short passing game.

Chuck Esposito, Station Casinos: Seahawks 26-20. Although all the hype has been on New England, that won’t deflate the Seahawks. Defense, defense, defense.

Aaron Kessler, Golden Nugget: Patriots 20-13. Defensive struggle, but the Seahawks struggle more to score.

Jay Kornegay, Westgate SuperBook: Seahawks 23-17. Expect Wilson to make a few more plays against the New England defense than Brady will against that Seattle defense.

Ed Malinowski, Stratosphere: Seahawks 24-21. Seattle forces turnovers and wins a close one. Art Manteris, Station Casinos: Seahawks 34-24. The better all-around team wins a good game in the fourth quarter, when New England is sucking wind.

Jason McCormick, Station Casinos: Seahawks 23-20 (OT). Patriots come back from a 10-point deficit in the 4th quarter only to lose in OT. A Richard Sherman interception sets up the game-winning field goal.

Tony Miller, Golden Nugget: Seahawks 34-17. Same scenario as last year. All the hype and talk on the AFC team. Meanwhile, Seattle does all the talking on the field. It’s never close.

Marc Nelson, Aliante: Seahawks 24-20. Seattle’s defense is a little better than New England’s.

Bert Osborne, South Point: Seahawks 34-21. I like a higher-scoring game and trust the Seahawks just a little more.

Jay Rood, MGM Resorts: Seahawks 17-10. The Seahawks deflate the Patriots hopes in the fourth quarter with equal pressure on both sides of the ball.

Jeff Sherman, Westgate SuperBook: Seahawks 23-20. Outside of the Green Bay game, the Seahawks were playing their best ball at the end of the year … we had the NFC -2.5 vs the AFC for the last couple months, and it’s not time to overreact based on one weekend of games

Jeff Stoneback, MGM Resorts: Seahawks 30-20. Patriots take an early lead, but as happened all year,  the Seahawks defense and Beast Mode take control in the 4th quarter and win pulling away.

My Pick

My money is on Seattle + 1 point. I think Brady will be shutdown the same way Manning was last year.

Because Manning is held in check:

Under 47.5 points total.

Final score:

Seahawks 24
Patriots 20

Result:

Seahawks 24
Patriots 28

It seems the final score tells the story. I got it wrong, though I felt robbed with the Seahawks so close to a touchdown in the final couple of minutes, only to have a short pass picked off at the goal line.

It was however, one of the best Superbowls I’ve watched and it lived up to the hype.

And should a couple of guys carrying a baseball bat, named Tony and Joey come into town looking for me, tell them I moved. I like my kneecaps.