Monday Night Football Betting: Are There Reasons to Back the Underdog Seahawks?
We just enjoyed a Smörgåsbord of action to start the 2022 NFL season -- and we have one more serving left. Although the Sunday Night game wasn't really the most filling course despite the hype heading in, we have some good storylines tonight.
Wrapping up Week 1 is a revenge game for the new Denver Broncos quarterback, Russell Wilson, taking on his former team, the Seattle Seahawks. Sometimes the term revenge game -- used when a player goes against his former team -- isn’t very accurate, but with the way things ended between Wilson and the Seahawks (and that it could have ended much earlier), it definitely fits the bill for tonight.
Here is how numberFire ranks each team heading into tonight’s game using our nERD metric and Net Expected Points (NEP):
| Team | nERD | nERD Rank | Rush Off NEP Rank | Pass Off NEP Rank | Rush Def NEP Rank | Pass Def NEP Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle Seahawks | -4.72 | 29 | 19 | 29 | 18 | 24 |
| Denver Broncos | 2.4 | 9 | 16 | 10 | 17 | 16 |
Inside the Standard Bets
Our model thinks the favored Broncos win this one, projecting them to win outright 62.5% of the time. But we have Denver covering the 6.5-point spread only 40.1% of the time.
At FanDuel Sportsbook, the Broncos' moneyline odds are -270 (73.0% implied probability), and their odds to cover the spread are set at -106 (51.5%). Comparing the implied probabilities to the probabilities, our model gives clearly shows that taking Denver isn’t the way to go.
The value is actually on the Seahawks. With our model thinking this game will be pretty close, we have Seattle +6.5 (-114, 53.3% implied) as a two-star bet and the Seahawks winning outright (+220, 31.2% implied) as a one-star wager.
The over/under for this matchup sits at 43.5 points, with a -115 price on the over (53.5% implied). But our algorithm thinks we'll see more points than that 59.7% of the time and has the over rated as a two-star value bet.
Player Prop Value Bets
Since we think this game will be closer than expected, the player prop bets to hone in on are on the Seattle side -- particularly D.K. Metcalf and Geno Smith. Albeit for a short time, the two showed promising chemistry when they were on the field together last season.
Last season, Geno took over during the fourth quarter of Week 5 and lead the offense through Week 8. During that span, he and Metcalf connected for 251 yards and 4 touchdowns. On a per-game basis, that’s roughly 77.2 yards and 1.2 touchdowns -- not bad.
Our player projections have Geno throwing for 220.3 yards and D.K. hauling in 65.2 of them. Geno’s total passing yardage line is at 208.5, and D.K.’s receiving line is 57.5, making both solid bets to hit the over. If choosing just one of the two, I’d lean D.K. My favorite prop bet of the evening is D.K. as an anytime touchdown scorer, which is +200.
What about DangeRUSS? His numberFire projection is 244 passing yards while his passing yards prop is set at 253.5 yards, which makes me want to skip that bet.
Final Notes
Denver’s games went under the point total 12 times last season, while Seattle did so in 10 of their games. Obviously, both teams have seen a change under center since last year, so take what you will from those stats.
Over the last two seasons, Wilson has started 30 games, and the over/under in those contests has been at or below this game’s 43.5-point total only four times. For Denver, they've been in games with a total of 43.5 or below 11 times the last two campaigns.
