WOW Bulletin Board predictions by ALL the ESPN football writers

[gobesmug]

I've never bought the premise that Kraft had to have Brady as a part owner.

What would be the benefit?

I would go the opposite direction.

If Kraft had tried to sell a small percentage at a discount like the Raiders did, I bet the Pats would have been fined multiple first rd picks as the media would have been spinning that Brady took a discount all those years to cheat the salary cap knowing Kraft was going to pay him back later.

 

[RobertWeathers]

I would go the opposite direction.

If Kraft had tried to sell a small percentage at a discount like the Raiders did, I bet the Pats would have been fined multiple first rd picks as the media would have been spinning that Brady took a discount all those years to cheat the salary cap knowing Kraft was going to pay him back later.

No question the media would have ran with that one.

 

[Steve102]

Tom Brady is not going to pick the Patriots when his new HC is the Seahawks OC. He is also not going to pick Seattle over the team he spent 20 years with.

And the team he owns is not in the game.

 

[TomPatriot]

Seahawks-Patriots: Super Bowl 2026 predictions, picks, odds

The Seahawks and Patriots will again meet in the Super Bowl. We have early predictions, matchup insight, looming questions and team breakdowns.

www.espn.com

Gut-reaction predictions​

Stephania Bell, NFL analyst: Seahawks. Their defense will be the difference-maker here; the consistent, relentless pressure up front will ultimately force costly turnovers by the Patriots.

Matt Bowen, NFL analyst: Seahawks. Their defense has the team speed and physical demeanor up front to limit Maye's ability to create explosive plays.

Jeremy Fowler, national NFL reporter: Seahawks. Most complete team in the league. They can win in several different styles. Darnold's confidence is renewed.

Dan Graziano, national NFL reporter: Seahawks. They've been the best team all season, hiding in plain sight, and they'll make life brutally tough on Maye, who has already been sacked 15 times this postseason.

Dan Orlovsky, NFL analyst: Seahawks. The Patriots' offense isn't good enough to beat this Seattle defense.

Eric Moody, fantasy and betting analyst: Seahawks. Seattle's defense has been formidable all season, and defense still wins championships. The Patriots are averaging just 18.0 points per game this postseason, the fourth fewest by a team entering the Super Bowl and the fewest since 1979. Two of the three teams went on to lose the Super Bowl.

Jason Reid, senior Andscape writer: Seahawks. The Seahawks' top-ranked scoring defense will shut down the Patriots' offense.

Aaron Schatz, NFL analyst: Seahawks. The Seahawks have been No. 1 in my DVOA ratings for most of the second half of the season, and with that defense, I'm expecting a lower-scoring Super Bowl. Seahawks 24, Patriots 18.

Ben Solak, NFL analyst: Seahawks. The Patriots' run against elite defenses ends with the true best unit of the season. With two weeks to plan, Macdonald will have too many tools to fluster and disrupt Maye.

Lindsey Thiry, national NFL reporter: Seahawks. They're playing textbook complementary football on offense, defense and special teams. And they have standout playmakers who can change the game in a moment's notice in each phase.

Seth Walder, NFL analyst: Seahawks. ESPN's FPI, which considers a team's play on a down-to-down basis all season, sees the Seahawks as being in a different class as the Patriots. I'm inclined to trust the numbers. Seahawks by double digits.

Field Yates, NFL analyst: Seahawks. The Patriots have faced an extremely difficult string of defenses this postseason, finding ways to overcome the field in the AFC. But Seattle's roster is superior to the rosters of its first three foes, and I believe Seattle will take home the franchise's second Lombardi Trophy.

F ‘em. All of ‘em.

 

[JMC00]

I should clarify. He wants NE to win. He is just not going to come out and say it.

If he wanted the Pats to win he would have said it and that's supported back the fact that he won't even make a prediction. He isn't calling the game so there is no need for him to be unbiased for the sake of calling the game. Him owning 5% of the Raiders as an excuse is just lol, he literally utter the words "I'm a Patriot for life" when the team put a statue up for him 6 months ago.

No one would even look sideways if he said something like "I went to 5 SBs with Josh as my OC and I won SBs throwing TDs to Mike so it would be nice to see them win a SB" or even "Mike won a SB as a player with the Pats, so it would be cool to see him win it as the coach of the Pats"

But nah just a "no dog in this fight", literally the only connection he has to the Seahawks is he beat them in a SB and the team he has 5% ownership of wants to hire their OC as coach

 

[Grogan14]

If he wanted the Pats to win he would have said it and that's supported back the fact that he won't even make a prediction. He isn't calling the game so there is no need for him to be unbiased for the sake of calling the game. Him owning 5% of the Raiders as an excuse is just lol, he literally utter the words "I'm a Patriot for life" when the team put a statue up for him 6 months ago.

No one would even look sideways if he said something like "I went to 5 SBs with Josh as my OC and I won SBs throwing TDs to Mike so it would be nice to see them win a SB" or even "Mike won a SB as a player with the Pats, so it would be cool to see him win it as the coach of the Pats"

But nah just a "no dog in this fight", literally the only connection he has to the Seahawks is he beat them in a SB and the team he has 5% ownership of wants to hire their OC as coach

He owns 10% of the raiders

 

[Grogan14]

I've never bought the premise that Kraft had to have Brady as a part owner.

What would be the benefit?

Great pr for the team
Helping with decisions and advice
Visibility of having an all time GOAt as part of the face of the franchise
Increases fan interest and confidence
Lots of benefits

 

[BTTA]

The only indicators we have of what actually goes on in Tom Brady's head is his behavior, not his words. That doesn't cause me to feel warm and fuzzy about his loyalty to the NEP.

 

[Grogan14]

Love Brady the player 1000%
Post retirement he has gotten too big for his britches
I still think under the facade he harbors resentment toward BB and Kraft

Really would be nice to have his open support

 

[yukon cornelius]

one?

Pats are better it interior DL, better at CB, better at QB, better at TE...at the very least

better coaching staff

 

[JMC00]

Agree. Kraft really blew it by not getting Brady involved in Pats ownership.
Although he pays lip service to the organization which has a statue of him outside the stadium and has honored him several times he really seems to have divorced himself from the organization.
20 years playing for Kraft and in Foxboro and he does not root for the team at all?
Sad.

Its not a great look for the organization

Kraft didn't blow anything not getting Brady involved in ownership. What was he supposed to do gift him 5% of the team to keep him from buying a % of the Raiders? Kraft is still a businessman and Brady didn't have the money to afford a 5% stake. Brady would have had to come up with about $400m for a 5% stake and that's a fair value.. Him and his business partner paid a heavily discounted $220m ($110m each for 5% each) for 10% of the Raiders because they are one of the least valuable teams in the nfl and Mark Davis probably needed the money and probably wanted the PR of Brady buying a stake.


It's not a bad look for the team at all. It's a horrible look for Brady with how he continues to distance himself from the team that literally 6 months ago put a statue up of him. It's clear him, his agent and his PR people decided it was best to become a run of the mill media guy that will skirt around praising the Patriots to help his image post-playing career.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Great pr for the team
Helping with decisions and advice
Visibility of having an all time GOAt as part of the face of the franchise
Increases fan interest and confidence
Lots of benefits

No thanks on Tom's decisions and advice. Hes shown nothing with the Raiders so far.

Tom is about his brand now. The team is secondary.

The team has plenty of interest in confidence.

 

[TommyD4207]

I’m not surprised that the media are overwhelmingly picking Seattle. On paper their roster is top-to-bottom slightly better at nearly every position…except one.

But this is where anti-Patriots bias comes into play. Surely someone is going to argue, “the Patriots are better at the most important position”. No? Bueler?

This is just objectively untrue.

 

[PlainOldEd]

Most of time it becomes clear early in the Superbowl which team is going to have an easier time of it - in my decades of watching them. Which team is looser vs seems to be pressing? Whose scripted plays (first sequence) seem to be working better? I think we will all know early on if our scouting and strategy is going to work...

28-3

 

[PlainOldEd]

I feel like everyone actually thinks the Pats will win.

if they believe that wouldn't they pick them? you'd think they would like to be able to say "see? I picked the Pats, look how smart I am!!"

 

[PlainOldEd]

Lost in the sauce of all the blowout predictions for Seattle including Patrick Surtain saying 35-7 which obviously could happen because it can happen in any game, the Vegas spread despite all the pro Seattle sentiment is still only 4.5 points.

This is not some kind of Rams-Patriots or Giants-Pats 07 double digit huge upset, trust me as someone who worked in the gambling industry the modelling these people have for these games is way more sophisticated and involves much smarter people than fans who sit and watch the game with a few beers, they are right much more than they are wrong which is why you have CEOs of these companys being paid 20m a year.

Isn't the objective of the gambling industry to get the money evenly split? If so, then the consensus of the people placing bets matters very much. But I still agree that what ESPN people, who are often chosen for the way they look or sound, think doesn't matter.

 

[festy1986]

Pulled this from an aggregator.


Of the 58 picks, a whopping 48 of them were for Seattle to win, which works out to 82.8%. Just 10 voters picked the Patriots.

 

[TommyD4207]

Pulled this from an aggregator.


Of the 58 picks, a whopping 48 of them were for Seattle to win, which works out to 82.8%. Just 10 voters picked the Patriots.

Implied odds currently (Seattle -235 on the moneyline) is about 70%,
Seems like the media is becoming prisoners of the early-established narrative.

Will be interesting to see if there's any shifts when the smart money starts coming in closer to the game.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

LMAO

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Patriots, best defense in the league when we're healthy. And we're healthy.

I guess we were good enough to beat the 1st, 3rd, and 5th best defenses in the league, but can't possibly score against the 6th best.

I'm terrified that Seattle can beat you several ways. Oh noes what if the Patriots can't do that!

I love these guys all opionating from the heart and checking what passes for their brains at the door.

I guess I won't go full no-fear cavalier renegade steer clear a tournament a tournament a tournament of lies about it and claim the exact opposite of these "predictions," but what we'll generously call the "reasoning" here could easily be applied with the names changed and result in a Patriots pick. In fact, I'll say most of the supporting comments are more of a natural Patriots argument than a Seahawks argument.

And if anybody wants to judge Drake based on the vertical slurpee and the Denver blizzard, okay fine, if we're playing in an environment involving supercooled water. There might be some of that a few hundred miles away from Santa Clara Sunday, where the temp will be in the 60s and 50s. Minus weather, you can take a look at what we hung on the Texans for 21 offensive points. Super-efficient complementary football, featuring 167 yards and 3 TDs against, oh noes, the best defense in the league.

As for TD number 4... yeah, that was the Patriots defense. Best D in the league when healthy.

All this reminds me of the standard kid-level analysis of any given game or season when cheering on their home tean:

[NAME] [NAME] [NAME] [NAME]!!! What you gonna do!

No awareness that you can type any team's names in all caps

FCK EVERYBODY

except us

 

[Diffs4]

What is strange here is ESPN's own computer model, which all year has underestimated the Patriots, gives the Patriots a 40% chance to win the game. You would think it would be like 90% the way the media talks about this game. Based on this, you would expect the picks would come in around 60/40 maybe a little higher towards the Seahawks. But 100% of the ESPN picks that are in are on Seattle. I find that very strange but not surprising. This is no mismatch, far from it, and for anyone to argue you have to be a Patriots fan to pick the Patriots has fallen into group think and the media narrative that the Patriots do not deserve to be here and the Seahawks are a juggernaut that cannot be beaten. They should have lost to the Rams twice. They scored 13 points to beat SF in their last game. Yes I know they scored 41 in the playoffs. In the second to last game of the year, this juggernaut was tied with Carolina 3 to 3 at halftime.

Seattle is a good team, as are the Patriots. They deserve to be favored and they should be a 60/40 favorite. But the media picks being 80% plus is ridiculous and is based on people being pissed that the Pats are back in the SB so quickly. I think the Pats win a close game. Maybe I am wrong and the Seahawks will blow the Pats out. I do not see it at all watching the games that both teams have played. I trust my eyes, not some narrative being force fed to me by a media that clearly seems to be biased. More people need to learn to think for themselves, especially today.