Super Bowl Over/Under 2017: Patriots vs. Falcons Spread, Final Score Predictions

The New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons are primed to play an exciting Super Bowl on Sunday.

Well, at least that's every football fan's hope after one of the most boring and uncompetitive NFL postseasons in recent memory.

The Pats are three-point favorites over the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI, per OddsShark, with the over/under total set at 58 points.

On paper, this looks to be a close, high-scoring game, but the games aren't played on paper.

Here's a quick preview and prediction for Super Bowl LI, with a focus on the Patriots offense against the Falcons defense.

Preview

New England shouldn't have too much trouble scoring against a Falcons defense that gave up 406 points in the regular season.

Quarterback Tom Brady will be the best player on the field when the Pats have the ball, and with all due respect to Falcons edge-rusher Vic Beasley, there is no close second.

Brady earned a 99.3 grade from Pro Football Focus this season, the best mark of any player in the NFL. He threw 28 touchdown passes and only two interceptions in 12 regular-season games.

Brady managed to find so much success in part because he was able to stay upright this year. According to Football Outsiders, New England had a 4.7 percent adjusted sack rate, which was the sixth-best mark in the league. That's a stark improvement from last year, when the Pats finished 18th with a 6.5 percent sack rate.

Offensive tackles Nate Solder and Marcus Cannon have done tremendous jobs protecting, in particular, as they finished 10th and 16th, respectively, in Pro Football Focus' pass-blocking grades.

The issue on the other side of the ball is that, outside Beasley, the Falcons don't have a consistent and dependable pass rush to challenge the Pats blockers.

Beasley finished the year with 15.5 sacks and six forced fumbles, which were the best marks in the NFL, but the rest of his team combined for only 18.5 sacks, per Pro-Football-Reference.com. Overall, the Falcons finished with a 5.4 percent adjusted sack rate, which was only 24th in the NFL, per Football Outsiders.

Even more troublesome is that Falcons defensive lineman Adrian Clayborn, who finished second on the team with five sacks, suffered a torn biceps against Seattle in the divisional round and won't play in the Super Bowl. No one else on the Falcons finished with more than three sacks this year.

If you put all of the above statistics together, you'll see that the Falcons are likely going to have trouble stopping the Patriots passing attack, simply because Brady is likely going to have enough time to dissect the matchups and throw to the best open target.

Brady has something else going in his favor, and that's the Pats' three-headed versatile running attack against a Falcons defense that has trouble against running backs.

Patriots running back LeGarrette Blount finished with 1,161 yards and 18 touchdowns this year, including two games in which he scored twice and ran for 100-plus yards. He's capable of putting the team on his back if the game plan calls for him to do so.

The Falcons defense had trouble stopping the run all season long, allowing 4.5 yards per carry and finishing 29th in run DVOA, per Football Outsiders.

Furthermore, the Pats have two running backs who can effectively catch passes out of the backfield: Dion Lewis and James White.

Lewis has been active 16 times for the Patriots over the course of two seasons, and all of those games have been wins. That's not a coincidence. The former University of Pittsburgh star has shined in a Pats uniform, gaining 1,082 yards from scrimmage and six touchdowns over the course of two seasons (including the playoffs), per Pro-Football-Reference.com.

White isn't utilized as often as Blount and Lewis, but he's still effective when his number is called. He caught eight passes for 47 yards and two touchdowns in the Pats' 35-17 win over Cincinnati in October.

The Falcons also have a problem with pass-catching backs, as Football Outsiders noted they allowed 53.5 receiving yards per game to running backs, the worst mark in the entire NFL.

Final Thoughts and Score Prediction

This game isn't going to be 10-7 late in the fourth quarter like Super Bowl XLII. Both teams are going to score at least 20 points, simply because the offenses are too dynamic and the defenses aren't good enough to clamp down a stone-cold lock like Seattle did against Denver three years ago.

Ultimately, the Patriots offense will win far too many matchups against the Falcons defense. The guess is that the Pats will enact a ball-control offense to keep the Falcons offense off the field for long stretches of time, which will turn this into a lower-scoring game than some might anticipate.

The edge goes to New England, and so does the game as the Pats collect their fifth Lombardi Trophy.

Score: Patriots 31, Falcons 24