Early Super Bowl Line

It was just pointed out to me that over at Bodog, they have posted the "Early Super Bowl XLII Line" at AFC -16.5. At first I thought this had to be a mistake. But apparently that's the consensus, both at Bodog and SportsBetting.

I guess people think the Pats are just that good. I also was very surprised to see them favored by between 5 and 6.5 points at various sites against the Colts this weekend in Indianapolis. This doesn't necessarily mean that the linesmakers think the Pats are 8-9.5 points better than the 2nd best team in the NFL; it just means that they know they'll get pretty equal action on both sides, because the general public think the Pats are that good. And they were right- the Pats have gotten the majority of the action at -5.

I'm already looking forward to New England's Week 16 matchup against the Dolphins, in Foxboro. The Pats were favored by 17.5 points against the Redskins last week, so it's going to be significantly higher than that. How high depends on what happens over the next few weeks, but my guess right now would be 24.5. Can anyone else remember a line that high? I can't.

Update: Thanks to k-man for pointing this out in the comments: if you go here, you can see all 19 times a team has been favored by over 15 points since 2000. Those teams have won every game outright, and are 12-7 against the spread. The highest line was the Eagles favored by 20 over the Texans on 9/29/02. They won by 18.