The bets are determined by checking a wide variety of projections against my own knowledge of how players will be utilized given game context. The player prop lines were taken from this site.
Seattle @ New England
SEA -4.5, O/U 45.5
Drake Maye u38.5 rushing yards -113: The story of the playoffs for Maye has been his scrambling ability, but this isn't a great matchup for that (although, truth be told, anything against the Seahawks defense is a difficult matchup) - the Seahawks are 2nd in DVOA when QBs scramble, and the Patriots don't design many runs for Maye. Maybe is projected under this number on FantasyPros, FantasyPoints, and PFF.
Drake Maye o19.5 completions -120 (BetMGM): Continuing the theme of fading playoff narratives, we now turn to an over in the passing game. The Patriots are a pass-first team, ranking 9th in early-down pass rate. Given the game environment (Pats are dogs) and total (45.5), we should see plenty of Maye passes on Sunday.
Kenneth Walker u22.5 receiving yards -110 (Caesars): With Zach Charbonnet (ACL) out for the conference championships, it was surprising to me to see how much playing time George Holani received. Holani ended up running the same number of routes (17) as Kenneth Walker, with each also receiving 4 targets. This is a difficult matchup - the Patriots defense ranks 10th in DVOA against running backs as receivers, and all 3 projections that I checked have Walker under this number.
Demario Douglas o1.5 receptions +155 (Caesars): Pop found himself buried a bit on the depth chart with Mack Hollins (abdomen) returning in the conference championship game, running a route on just 9 of 29 dropbacks. That said, we expect Maye to dropback a lot more in a non-snow game where the Patriots are projected to be trailing, and Douglas remains one of the better receivers on New England, ranking 2nd in yards/route run on the team (behind Diggs). Douglas typically runs out of the slot, which is typically a tough matchup as Seahawks safety Nick Emmanwori typically lines up there, but he suffered an ankle injury in practice on Wednesday.
Cooper Kupp o3.5 receptions +145 (BetMGM): The Patriots need to do two things: slow down JSN and get pressure on Darnold. Even though I like the Patriots interior pass rush against the Seahawks interior line, I still think the Patriots will do a fair amount of blitizng - for starters, they've increased their blitz rate from 27.4% in the regular season to 41.4% in the postseason. Further, Darnold has a -1.0% passing DVOA when blitzed, which ranked 23rd among qualifying quarterbacks. This will mean more short passes, which benefits Kupp and his 8.5 aDOT/slot role. Kupp also ran a route on 33 of 41 Sam Darnold drop backs in the conference championship game. I'll take the dog odds here.
AJ Barner u24.5 receiving yards -105 (BetMGM): The only other book (that's actually legal in my state) that's offering a line here is DraftKings, which is putting the same number at -113. For the matchup, the Patriots have been middle of the road against tight ends, ranking 15th in DVOA. That said, the 3 projections that I checked have Barner below this number.
