Super Bowl LX takes place this weekend, on Sunday, February 8th. After the favourites were dropped, some even before the play-offs, the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks will fight for the coveted trophy, an unusual Super Bowl that nevertheless happened before, eleven years ago, with victory for the Patriots 28-24 that time.
EA Sports has already made their traditional prediction, expecting that Seahawks will win again, and with a narrow margin, 23-20. But what do experts think? According to CBS, this will be the first Super Bowl matchup since 1981 in which both participants had preseason Super Bowl odds of 50-1 or longer.
However, the Seahawks seem to be clear favourites: in a poll made by ESPN with 58 experts, 48 of them (82.8%) favoured the Seahawks, with the most common prediction being 27-17. A simulation also made by ESPN gives Seattle the upper hand, but not by a lot, 59.6% chances of winning, with an average of 3.6 points more.
The only NFL pundit in ESPN who thinks Patriots will win (23-20) is Mike Reiss. "Few think the Patriots can win. It will take the best performance of the year from the offensive line to do so, and the feeling here is that they have it in them. This game, as many are, will be determined at the line of scrimmage", he said.
Meanwhile, on NFL.com, two of the five experts picked the Patriots. Why? "The Super Bowl has been decided by a field-goal attempt in the final 10 seconds of the game five times in its history, and the Patriots have won two of those five contests thanks to Adam Vinatieri", said Brooke Cersosimo.
Finally, Ali Bhanpuri thinks that both teams are extremely well-coached, and were even tied in the league with six victories of 17-plus points, so the final score will reflect the parity... We will find out on Sunday, starting at 23:30 GMT, 00:30 CET.