New England Patriots (3-2) at Seattle Seahawks (3-2)

As you may know, the Seahawks have a huge home/road disparity. Since 2007, they are 29-14 ATS at home and 15-29 ATS on the road. Because of this, I love betting on their games and frequently make significant plays on them at home and against them on the road. For the first 4 weeks of the season, I was 4-0 on their games using mainly just the home/road disparity and all 4 were significant plays.

Last week, the Seahawks won in Carolina and I lost my bet, as I failed to put enough value into the Panthers’ injuries (Jon Beason, Chris Gamble) and into the fact that the Seahawks were in their 2nd straight road game. Before last week, dogs in their 2nd straight road game were 122-86 ATS since 2008. As bad as the Seahawks are on the road, they were 4-4 ATS in that situation coming into last week. Still, betting on them at home and against them on the road is generally a good idea.

This week, they are 4 point home dogs. As home dogs of 3 or more, this team is 14-4 ATS since 2007, including 2-0 this year, pulling two home upsets over the Cowboys and the Packers. Home dogs, in general, are 18-11 ATS this year, which is something. We’re also getting line value with the Seahawks. The difference between these two teams’ yards per play differentials is 0.4, in favor of Seattle, which should translate to a line of 5.5 in favor of Seattle, and that’s not even taking into account how good they are at home. We’re getting at least 9.5 points of line value with the Seahawks.

The reason the Seahawks have the superior yards per play differential is because the Patriots’ is actually negative. A 24^th ranked defense in terms of yards per play allowed has a lot to do with this. They allowed 28 to the Bills and though they only allowed 21 to the Broncos, a lot of that had to do with how little the Broncos were on the field. The Broncos’ defense could not get the Patriots’ offense off the field and the Patriots dominated the time of possession battle roughly 35 minutes to 25 minutes.

The Seahawks, however, lead the league in yards per play allowed. They’ve frustrated Aaron Rodgers, Tony Romo, and Cam Newton immensely this year, so the Patriots, at the very least, won’t dominate the time of possession battle. This will likely expose their defense. For the record, teams that run 80 plays or more in a non-overtime game are 75-97 ATS since 1989 in their next game.

There are two reasons why the Patriots’ yards per play differential is significantly inferior to their record and points differential. The first one is that they’ve become a running team. Running plays tend to get fewer yards per, but tend to translate to more consistent drives. This is one of the few flaws of yards per play. Teams that run more will look inferior to teams that pass more, even though that might not be the case. The Patriots have actually run on 191 plays, as opposed to 185 passes this year. However, the same can be said about Seattle, who has run 172 times to 125 passes, so this is not relevant this week.

The other reason is because they are dominating the turnover battle, forcing 14 takeaways to 4 giveaways. However, turnover differentials tend to be very inconsistent on a week to week basis. If you look at every possible turnover differential that a team can have, teams in each group tend to average a turnover differential of about +0.0 the following week, no matter how good or bad they were in this area the following week. You can see more, here.

I almost want to make an exception for the Patriots because they’ve done this for so long and because they’re so well coached and so well quarterbacked, but I really don’t think their defense can rely on takeaways like this going forward. Their offense might continue to limit turnovers. I’m not expecting Tom Brady to start suddenly turning the ball over at a high rate, but their defense won’t continue to average 2.8 takeaways per game from here on out.

Most notably, the high number of fumbles they’ve forced and recovered this year is unlikely to continue. They’re forcing and recovering 1.6 fumbles per game right now. That’s a record pace. They’ve recovered 8 of the 10 fumbles they’ve forced, which is also unlikely to continue. Even, if they continue to force fumbles at this rate, they can still only expect to recover 1 per game (5 over 5 games).

In spite of all this, the public is pounding New England likely because of how unstoppable their offense has looked in the past few weeks. That’s true. They have been pretty unstoppable, but the Seahawks probably have a better chance than anyone else they’ve faced of doing so. I love going against the public, particularly on big public leans, and that’s just another reason to love Seattle this week. This is a big play.

Public lean: New England (new thing I’m adding, siding with the odds makers on bets is not a bad thing to do since they make so much money, so I’m listing this here to allow readers to “fade” the public, if they so choose, in this example, the odds makers win if Seattle covers)

Sharps lean: NE 15 SEA 10

Final update: Slight sharp lean on New England, but I still like Seattle.

Seattle Seahawks 23 New England Patriots 20 Upset Pick +160

Pick against spread: Seattle +4 (-110) 4 units

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