Super Bowl Props – How Many Rushing Yards Will LeGarrette Blount Gain?

This is the latest in our series of Super Bowl XLIX prop bet articles. We have already looked at the over/under on Russell Wilson TD passes, and which team will commit more penalties.

Today, we look at total rushing yards for New England running back LaGarrette Blount.

The odds are currently as follows:

Total Rushing Yards for LeGarrette Blount: 60.5 yards o/u

It seems like every position except the ball boy (although Deflategate may change that) has a prop bet for this year’s Super Bowl XLIX. One of the more intriguing offerings this year involves Patriots running back LeGarrette Blount.

Blount had a tumultuous year. He spent two-thirds of the season with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but was cut for leaving the field early during a win against the Tennessee Titans. He was also arrested earlier this year for marijuana possession along with his then teammate Le’Veon Bell.

After Blount was cut, his former team, the Patriots, came calling and they’re glad that they did. Blount rushed for 281 yards and three scores with a 4.7 yards-per-carry average for New England, and brought much needed stability to the position (which had featured Stevan Ridley, Shane Vereen, and Jonas Gray).

Blount’s hallmark moment in the playoffs came against the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game when he ran the ball 30 times for 148 yards and three scores. He was even better in the Pats’ 2014 playoff game against the Colts, rushing for 166 yards and four touchdowns on 24 carries.

Given Blount’s playoff success, the majority of the public sees the 60.5 number as being too low.
But the public may be forgetting that Seattle had the third-best rush defense in the league this season. They did give up 73 yards to Eddie Lacy in the NFC Championship Game, but Lacy needed 21 carries to get there; that’s only a 3.47 yard average. And with Aaron Rodgers on a gimpy calf, it was vitally important that Green Bay establish at least the semblance of a running game.

Bill Belichick is not going to keep feeding Blount unless the back has success early. He showed that against Baltimore, when the Pats ran zero run plays in the second half.

Moreover, it appears that Carroll was willing to let Lacy get some yards by keeping his defense back and negating the big pass play.

I would be very surprised if Carroll takes the same approach in the Super Bowl, as the Patriots don’t have the same deep threats as Green Bay. Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, and Brandon LaFell are nice targets for Brady, but they don’t have the speed of Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb, and Davante Adams.

Look for the Seahawks to be more aggressive at the line of scrimmage, forcing Tom Brady to overcome a tough pass rush (and in the process stopping the Patriots run game at the line of scrimmage).

That’s why the under (60.5) on Blount’s rush yards is the play.

(Photo credit: Jack Newton (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdn/10563140515/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)