NFL Football Preview: Jacksonville Jaguars at Seattle Seahawks
One of the most lopsided betting lines you’ll see this season is at play in this Sunday matchup between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Seattle Seahawks. The Jaguars are 0-2 this season and have been especially bad on offense scoring only 11 total points in two games. The Seahawks are undefeated, have arguably the best defense in the NFL and are riding high after an impressive victory over the San Francisco 49ers on national TV last week. The price on this game opened at -17′, was bet up as high as -20 and is now dropped down to -19′ at most books. -20 is a mind boggling price in NFL football and has only been seen four times since 2003. Worth noting that the big underdog covered all four of those games.
Jacksonville is a complete mess. They had a horrible offense *and* a porous defense last year and there’s no guarantee that they’ve improved on either side of the ball. Blaine Gabbert is a ‘work in progress’ at best and the Jags will also start the season without receiver Justin Blackmon (suspended for the first four games). To make matters worse, Gabbert will miss this game with his thumb injury handing the starting job over to veteran Chad Henne. Henne is a serviceable NFL quarterback but far from a game changer. Gus Bradley was hired due to his reputation as a defensive coach but there’s no amount of tactics that can make up for a lack of talent. The Jags’ have an easy schedule but that’s not going to help them here.
By contrast, the Seattle Seahawks are loaded. Percy Harvin will miss the start of the season for the Seahawks but that’s about the only thing that can be considered a ‘downside’ for this young and talent laden team that may not have played their best football in either phase of the game. Considering they led the league in scoring defense last year and that rookie QB Russell Wilson tied Peyton Manning’s record for touchdown passes by a first year player the notion that they could be even better this year is downright scary. The biggest concern in Seattle may be the lofty expectations they have to live up to-they gave the Atlanta Falcons all they could handle in the playoffs so their expectations for success this season is extremely high.
That being said, we’ll take the points here for several reason. The first is the precedent of high number underdogs in the NFL that we outlined in the opening paragraph. Seattle is coming off a huge game and could be in a ‘letdown spot’. Most importantly, perhaps, Jags’ head coach Bradley was the defensive coordinator in Seattle for four seasons before taking the Jacksonville job. Can’t see the Seahawks wanting to embarrass their well liked former coach.