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NFL Week 7 Betting – Seahawks Search for Answers vs. SF

Zack Garrison

by Zack Garrison in NFL Football

Updated Jan 17, 2018 · 9:39 AM PST

Seattle Seahawks (-6.5, 42 o/u) at San Francisco 49ers

It’s hard to fathom, but through six weeks, the two-time defending NFC champion Seattle Seahawks are two games below .500 (2-4, 0-3 Away). Tomorrow, the 2014 Super Bowl champs will look to get their season back on track against the San Francisco 49ers (2-4, 2-1 Home) in a pivotal NFC West clash at Levi’s Stadium (8:25 PM Eastern).

Seattle is going through something of an identity crisis at the moment. Formerly dominant on the ground and on defense, generally, the o-line has struggled in all facets of the game while the defense has given up points at an alarming rate. Last week, they allowed four 80-yard touchdowns drives to the Carolina Panthers en route to blowing a 24-13 fourth quarter lead (ultimately falling 27-24).

Indeed, Seattle has held the lead in the fourth quarter of every game this season.

“It’s very frustrating,” safety Earl Thomas told the Associated Press. “We don’t [stink]. We know who we are. We’re not finishing.”

Thomas and All-Pro corner Richard Sherman looked lost on the decisive play against Carolina, allowing the Panthers’ only real receiving weapon, TE Greg Olsen, to streak down the field uncovered for the winning touchdown. Evidently, they each thought that a different play had been called.

Now 2-4 on the year, the Seahawks find themselves two games back of a very good Arizona team in the NFC West. While the NFC Wild Card race remains pretty open, uregency is starting to set in; since 1990, only 14 of 168 teams that started 2-4 reached the playoffs.

“To be where we are right now, it puts us in a position of tremendous adversity for a team,” said coach Pete Carroll to the AP. “It calls on you a lot of stuff, but it calls on us to believe in the guys in the locker room and believe in what we’re doing and hang together until we get things right.”

On offense, Seahawks stats are much the same as last year.  They are averaging 137.8 rushing yards (second-best in the NFL) and 217.5 passing yards (27th) despite the addition of TE Jimmy Graham in the offseason.

The main problem for the aerial attack is protection. Quarterback Russell Wilson has been sacked a league-high 26 times.

Unfortunately for the Niners, they don’t have the fearsome front-seven they used to, and may struggle to capitalize on Seattle’s o-line problems. San Fran is in the bottom-third of the league with just nine sacks through six games.

The team has generally performed better at home this year, going 2-1 at Levi’s and 0-3 on the road. The Niners picked up their second win of the season last Sunday, beating the struggling Baltimore Ravens, 25-20.

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick – who had become an interception factory in Weeks 3 and 4 – has been better of late, throwing for 602 yards, four touchdowns, and zero interceptions over his last two games.

Seattle is 1-5 SU in its last six games on the road against San Francisco, but San Francisco is 0-5 ATS in its last five, overall, against Seattle. With Kaepernick showing signs of improvement and the Seattle secondary struggling, expect the Niners to cover as massive 6.5-point home underdogs.

Pick: 49ers +6.5.

(Photo credit: Philip Robertson from New York, NY, USA (Loudest crowd roar at a sports stadium Seahawks-10) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo may appear cropped.)

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