Last week, the Giants pulled off a stunning victory over the Broncos, in Denver. A depleted Giants team, who were predicted to lose by 2 touchdowns, went on the road and upset a good football team. This week, the New York Giants are at home versus the Seattle Seahawks. Can the Giants pull off another shocking win on Sunday? Kickoff inside MetLife Stadium is at 4:25 PM ET.
The Seattle Seahawks (3-2) are coming off a bye week and were able to witness the stunning upset victory last weekend by the Giants. The Seahawks know not to take the Giants lightly this week and look to go into New York and outplay the Giants. Seattle is 1-2 on the road this season, so they will need to play great football to beat the feisty Giants this weekend.
New York (1-5) is 0-2 at home, but seems to have some fight left in them after beating the Broncos 23-10 on National television. The Giants will look to continue their newfound running success this week and hope to break down the Seahawks tough defense, while playing good defense on their side.
Seattle has won the last 3 straight games against the Giants, but they haven’t played since 2014. Seattle opened as a 7.5 favorite, but the spread has come down to 5.5 points. The Over/Under opened at 38.5 points and has gone up to 40 total points.
Let me state this right here and now, I don’t see the Giants winning this game and having lightning strike twice. Seattle has played solid football over their last 2 games and this bye week helped them heal some injured players, while allowing their running game to get some much needed practice.
The Seahawks are only allowing 17.4 points per game, while the Giants only score 17.5 points per game. The most points they have put up this season has been 24 points and I don’t see that happening this week. In fact, I see Seattle outscoring the Giants in this one 24-10.
Over their last 2 games, Seattle has held their opponents to just 13 ppg and forced 7 turnovers. The defense is finally coming together after some new additions (Richardson) and some rustiness. They have a great opportunity this weekend against a Giants team that has no receiving threat and a suspect offensive line.
The Giants are only averaging 89.5 rushing yards per game and their biggest success came last week against the Broncos as Darkwa rushed for 117 yards. That was half of his season total so far. Seattle has been prone to giving up rushing yards as they’ve allowed 127 rushing yards per game. So, New York’s only chance in this game is to run on Seattle. However, I don’t see it happening. I expect Seattle to have fixed their defensive lapses during the bye week and they will start looking like the Legion of Boom once again, especially against a Giants team without Beckham and Marshall at the receiver positions.
On offense, Seattle needs to establish consistency. They’ve had games where the offense looks great (against the Colts) and where they have looked horrible (against Green Bay and 49ers). Seahawks QB Russell Wilson needs to be more accurate in the pocket and make more plays with his arm, not just his legs. But, most importantly, that Seattle offensive line has been horrible at times. Against Tennessee, they were thoroughly dominated. They also had trouble against the Rams. Without good offensive line play, Seattle will be in trouble on offense. Fortunately, this week, their defense will control the Giants offense, win the turnover battle and the TOP.
Seattle is 4-2 ATS in last 6 games against the Giants and 4-1-1 ATS in their last 6 games at New York. The Favorite is 5-1 ATS in the last 6 head-to-head meetings.
Look for the Seattle defense to smother and swarm Eli Manning, forcing a few turnovers and shutting down the run game. Seattle has the secondary to lock it down in man-to-man, which will allow that ferocious front 7 to get after Eli. On the offense, I expect Wilson to do enough in the passing game and on the ground to win this game.