Patriots v Seahawks at Levi's Stadium (Bay Area)
Super Bowl LX pits our two top-favored teams, Patriots and Seahawks at Levi's Studium, home of the 49ers.
The location event is billed as San Francisco, but it's not really in San Francisco. It's in Santa Clara, south end of
the Bay--Silicon Valley. The 49ers play here and, in fact, their
team HQ is in Santa Clara as well. And while this is a "neutral site" it's certainly a location much more familiar to the Seahawks,
who play here every year v their division rivals. It's also just a short trip down the coast as opposed to cross country for the
Patriots. While our computer won't give any points for homefield advantage, I'd say this venue slightly favors the Seahawks.
One look at our favorite pass efficiency stat, yards per pass attempt--offense minus defense difference and you can see why these are the two top-rated teams. Seattle is number 1 and New England is number 2. Let's look at offense and defense numbers for each club.
The Seahawks lead the league on the offensive passing efficiency at 7.70. With Patriots just a tick behind at 7.66, ranking 2nd. To put that in
perspective, it's less than half an inch behind the Seahawks.
Killer Stat, Offense. Toss up.
On pass defense the Seahawks rank 2nd to Denver at 5.15. They earn more yards then they allow by a big margin--clearly league's best.
No surprise they are here. The Pats allow 5.95, slightly stronger than average, yet their difference number is 2nd best in the league.
See both teams on the defensive side of our Killer Stat, (Opponent Yards per Pass attempt) chart.
Killer Stat, Defense.
Our computer calculates the most likely outcome based on regular season statistical averages. What it might be missing is that the Patriots started off slowly and get progressively better all season. They look stronger now, at season's end then their full-season stat figures indicate. We can see this by looking at their improvement in Net Total Yards difference in the chart below. In 4 of their first 5 games Patriots were out-gained by their opponents. But no team did it after week 5. With the average in a clear uptrend.
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2025 through Week 17
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