This is about as good as it can get.
The National Football League has taken advantage of the end of the college football regular season by adding a pair of Saturday games to their schedule and no less than three head-to-head games this week will decide leaders in their divisions.
It starts tonight, when arguably the best two teams in the league square off at Lumen Field to decide who rules the West. The Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams come into action tonight each with 11 wins and 3 losses, the winner of this battle will take command of the NFC West Division with two games to go.
The Rams won the first of two games between these two teams last month, a game in which Seattle Quarterback Sam Darnold tossed four interceptions. If the Seahawks turned the ball over that many times at SoFi Stadium, the Rams victory must have been a romp.
Nope.
The Rams won the game by only two points, 21-19, and didn’t cover the three-point spread.
See how close these two teams are. While in most corners the Rams are talked up as the better of the two teams and their quarterback, Matthew Stafford, a leading candidate for Most Valuable Player, the numbers tell a different story. The Seahawks actually have a four points better points for and points against number and a defense that has allowed 19 fewer points.
Maybe the Seahawks are the better team. The books didn’t know when they played last month given the point spread, the Rams by three, is pretty much an indicator that the teams were considered equal and Los Angeles got the standard spread shift based on home field advantage.
Last year, as the savior in Minnesota, Darnold led the Vikings to their second most regular season wins in franchise history, 14. Unfortunately, he was playing out of the same division as the Detroit Lions, who collected 15 wins last season and earned the top seed in the National Football Conference playoffs.
The Vikings 14 wins only got Minnesota a fifth seed, and they entered the playoffs with the most wins in history for a fifth seeded team … and lost to the Rams in the Wild Card round.
This season, Darnold might end the year with the fifth seeded team with the second most wins in NFL history if the Rams prevail for the division title and Seattle loses only one of their final three games.
Talk about tough luck for Darnold!
Well, maybe not. I think there is a very good chance that it is the Rams that enter the postseason as the fifth seed with the second-best record for that playoff slot in history. Because tonight, at home with motivation on their side, I think the Seahawks win this one. What happens the next two weeks will be up for grabs, after all, Seattle almost lost last Sunday to a quarterback making his first start in five years and closing in on eligibility for social security payments.
That, by the way for clarification, was Phillip Rivers ending his nearly five-year retirement to join the Indianapolis Colts and then almost engineer a road win over the talented Seahawks in his surprise start. It took a long field goal set up with only seconds on the clock for the Seahawks to eke out a two-point win over the Colts, 18-16.
My next question is when will Rivers be eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame? There is a five-year waiting period, does that start over for him now? If it does, he gets a big consolation by receiving insurance coverage from the league which should be a big benefit given he’s got ten kids.
Back to tonight.
I think we may just be getting the better team, at home, needing the win against a public favorite. The line opened on this game with the Rams a one-point favorite, and money rolled in on the visitors and yet the books moved the line opposite of the public action. Today, the Seahawks are the slight favorite, by as many as two-points in some locations.
Let’s see, we have a choice to bet with the public or take our lead from the book.
I think I’ll go with the book.
Qoxhi Picks: Seattle Seahawks (-1½) over Los Angeles Rams