Hawks (

15.5) at
49ers (

24)

Game Overview ::

By Mike Johnson >>

• Two teams on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum.
• A loss here and Trey Lance could legitimately be benched.
• Both teams are likely to have a run-heavy approach and struggle to turn drives into touchdowns.
• Neither team plays with much tempo or pace, which should lead to low play volume.

How Seattle Will Try To Win ::

The Seahawks rode emotions, a raucous home crowd, a solid defensive performance, and Broncos mistakes to a shocking Week 1 victory on Monday Night Football. Now playing on a short week against a division rival, they will have to move on quickly if they want to compete as they enter this game as double-digit underdogs. 

Seattle had a solid showing on Monday night but didn’t do anything extraordinary. The Broncos outgained the Seahawks by nearly 200 yards, as Seattle only mustered 253 total yards of offense. The 49ers defense is no joke and will certainly form a tough obstacle for Geno Smith and the Seahawks. Contrary to popular opinion, the Seahawks actually played at a top-10 pace in 2021. However, in Week 1 they were dead last in seconds per snap, while only having 49 total offensive snaps (the league average is in the low 60s). Putting that together, we have a conservative offense that wants to play at a slow pace, doesn’t accumulate much volume, and isn’t very efficient. While we can all see this reality, in Pete Carroll’s mind they are undefeated, and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

How San Francisco Will Try to win ::

JM >>

• I really like the Lance/Jennings angle that Mike highlighted above — but same as Mike, this would be reserved for large-field play
• On tighter builds, I don’t want to mess with a single player from Seattle; I don’t want to trust Deebo at his price tag; and I don’t want to hope Jeff Wilson’s role is “big enough” when there are better options available; any of these options can be played around with in large-field play, but these are non-starters for me in tighter builds
• On tighter builds, the two players I have “fringe interest” in are Trey Lance and Brandon Aiyuk, who cost $5.7k and $5.1k on DraftKings, respectively (and cost $10.8k combined)
  • I’m firmly in the “Lance non-believer” camp (I drafted him on under 2% of my Underdog rosters — at a position where I’m typically very happy to take swings on unestablished running QBs outside the top rounds; he just looked SO bad to me as a passer last year, and the training camp reports highlighted his inaccuracy consistently enough, that I didn’t feel the reward outweighed the risk at his draft capital; to be clear, this is still very much something I could be proven wrong on), but as long as his price remains low in DFS, he’ll continue to carry 5x upside
  • Aiyuk was A) the 49ers’ training camp standout and B) Lance’s favorite weapon all summer, and he is now effectively the WR1, as Deebo will be used more as an “offensive weapon” than as a true wideout; that said…if Jimmy Garoppolo threw 28 or fewer passes in eight of his 15 games last year (with four games in which he threw 23 or fewer passes!), what do we think the chances are that Lance is called on to pass a ton in a game the 49ers control? With that in mind, it’s hard to see Aiyuk’s targets truly spiking, which means it’s hard for me to see myself actually pulling the trigger on this play; the upside is there, even on lower volume, so he’s definitely tourney-worthy; but if I have only a few builds this weekend, I don’t think I’ll actually end up going here