Odds: Seahawks open as home favorites against the New York Giants
The NFC West division leading Seattle Seahawks are coming off of a dominant 37-23 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers. The Seahawks are now 4-3 and enter Week 8 as a 3-point favorite on DraftKings Sportsbook against the 6-1 New York Giants who are arguably the most surprising team in the NFL this season. The Giants, who have the second-best record in football behind the unbeaten Philadelphia Eagles, are fresh off a 23-17 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars which came down to the final play of the game.
DraftKings Sportsbook does expect this to be one of the higher scoring games of the week as the over/under is currently set at 46.5 points.
Game notes
New York Giants
Despite being 6-1, the Giants record is rather deceiving. They’ve narrowly avoided defeat a multitude of times this season. The G-men needed a last-minute touchdown and two-point conversion to beat the Tennessee Titans in Week 1 and required a tackle at the half-yard line to beat the Jaguars in Week 7. All of their wins are by no more than 8 points and they’ve yet to lead by double digits.
From a roster standpoint the Giants feature one of the best players in the NFL in Saquon Barkley. The 2018 second overall pick has gone for 100 or more scrimmage yards in five of their seven games this season and gotten 18 or more touches in all but one game. Outside of Barkley, the offense is shaky. The wide receiver room is badly injured with the likes of Kadarius Toney and Sterling Shepard banged up and second-round pick Wan’dale Robinson suffering an injury against the Jags. Four different receivers have led the team in receiving yards showing they are without a true number one option for Daniel Jones.
On the defensive side of the ball the Giants are beatable, but they’ve held up enough this season. Over the last three weeks the Giants have allowed 100-yard rushers twice, including to Travis Etienne and Kenyan Drake. From a passing game standpoint, the Giants defense has been average but they do aggressively blitz under defensive coordinator Wink Martindale. They got four sacks combined against the Green Bay Packers, Baltimore Ravens and Jaguars and in those three games they’ve allowed three different pass catchers to pick up 96 yards or more through the air.
Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks have had one of the best offenses in football over the past month. Led by Geno Smith’s stellar play, they’ve scored 32 or more points in 3 of their last 4 games with the only outlier being their victory over the Arizona Cardinals in Week 6, which saw them put up 19. The running game has becoming a dominant force for the offense as Kenneth Walker lll has quickly become a household name since the season-ending injury to Rashaad Penny. The Michigan State alum has rushed for 353 yards over the past three weeks on 52 carries which is good for a whopping 6.78 yards per carry. Seattle’s offense did suffer a serious blow as receiver DK Metcalf was carted off with a knee injury, however the severity of the injury is not yet known with further testing required.
On defense the Seahawks have been rather shaky but have played better recently. They’ve forced two turnovers in five straight games in addition to forcing 10 sacks over their last three games. Although, on the flip side they allowed a combined 84 points to the New Orleans Saints and Detroit Lions. They’ve been better the last two weeks, in part due to the fact they’ve gone against struggling offenses in the Cardinals and Chargers, but they’ve also looked more organized than they did to start the year.
Few expected this matchup to have both teams with winning records, but that is the case for this final weekend of October.
