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Super Bowl XLIX Line Report: Books call early Patriots money an 'overreaction'

Greg M. Cooper / Reuters

It was deja vu for oddsmakers when a flood of money came in on the New England Patriots while they were running up the score in an eventual 45-7 AFC Championship Game victory over the Indianapolis Colts.

Just hours after the Seattle Seahawks needed a lot of bounces to go their way to gut out a 28-22 overtime win over the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game, the far more decisive victory by the Patriots had bettors running to the ticket windows.

That early action saw the consensus Super Bowl line drop from Seattle -2.5 to a pick'em, with some spots going so far as to make the Patriots 1.5-point favorites.

A year ago, bettors had the same reaction to championship weekend. The Denver Broncos had the more impressive Sunday, while the Seahawks went right down to the wire, needing a late stop in a win over the San Francisco 49ers.

Bettors bet on Denver so heavily that day that it swung the line right around, making the Broncos the favorites.

“It’s always an overreaction, no matter what, people overreact to what they see in the championship games," Nick Bogdanovich, director of U.S. trading for William Hill, told Covers. "People did it last year too."

Bogdanovich notes that the book continues to hold steady at a pick'em despite heavy action on New England, which under ordinary circumstances would have caused a line move to Patriots -1.

"Those numbers in and around three are all pretty much interchangeable," Bogdanovich said.

Sportsbook.ag saw their line flip around from +3 to -1.5 on the Patriots through Sunday.

"Pats dominated their championship game and the Seahawks, in all fairness, were somewhat lucky in beating the Packers like they did," Sportsbook.ag oddsmaker Peter Childs said. 

"So with those two results freshly in the minds of our bettors, it's no wonder it's been all Pats money. But I do believe we're going to eventually see some Seahawks money. We've got two weeks until the Big Game - plenty of time for bettors to form an opinion on the Seahawks."

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