The Green Bay Packers are somehow favored to beat the Seattle Seahawks this Sunday. Is this NFL pick too easy to be real?
Sunday, November 14, 2021 – 04:25 PM EST at Lambeau Field
Something very strange is happening on the NFL odds board. The Green Bay Packers (7-2 SU, 8-1 ATS) won’t have Aaron Rodgers at quarterback for Sunday’s matchup with the Seattle Seahawks (3-5 SU, 5-3 ATS), who will have Russell Wilson under center after a three-game absence with a mangled thumb. Yet the Packers are 3.5-point home faves at Bovada (visit our Bovada Review) as we go to press. The heck?!
The projections all say this is Green Bay’s game to win, too. Forget those projections, I say. Forget them right in the ear. The Packers are a far worse team with back-up QB Jordan Love at the helm, and the Seahawks are considerably better now that Wilson has replaced Geno Smith. There are other reasons to put Seattle in your Week 10 NFL picks, but these are the two best reasons – and according to the consensus reports, 65 percent of early bettors agree.
Love may eventually turn out to be a worthy successor to Rodgers, as Rodgers was to Brett Favre before him. But Love wasn’t up to the task in his first NFL start, losing 13-7 to the Kansas City Chiefs (–7.5 at home) last week; Love was 19-of-34 for 190 yards passing with one touchdown throw and one pick. His minus-33.0 percent DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) at Football Outsiders is only slightly better than what Zach Wilson (minus-35.6 percent) posted with the New York Jets before getting injured.
Meanwhile, the Seahawks were able to cover each of their three games with Smith (minus-15.8 percent) as their starting quarterback, even though he was performing at roughly the same level as Jared Goff has (minus-15.5 percent) for the Detroit Lions. Getting Wilson (plus-27.9 percent, No. 4 overall) back in uniform will make a world of difference for Seattle, who “should” be 5-3 instead of 3-5 according to their Estimated Wins at Football Outsiders.
Then you have the fact that the Seahawks are coming off a bye week, and they’re getting that extra half-point above the magic number three – at least at some of the top-rated sportsbooks. Others have it Seattle +3 with less vigorish to pay. It’s usually better to shed that half-point rather than pay the premium on juice; that hook is worth about 18 cents according to the Wizard of Odds so let’s do some quick comparison shopping.
GTbets: Seattle +3 (+101) (visit our GTbets Review)
Intertops: Seattle +3.5 (–115)
In this case, the difference between the two lines featuring the best vig for each spread is 16 cents, so it’s actually worth it to add that extra half-point and the chalk that goes with it. But let’s keep things conservative and make this a small-ish bet, given that Wilson hasn’t played in a while, and might be rushing back too quickly in an attempt to save Seattle’s season. Save those big bets for when we have fewer known unknowns.
NFL Pick: Seahawks +3.5 (–115) at Intertops (visit our Intertops Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.