NFL Playoff Betting: New Orleans Saints at Seattle Seahawks

Added on Jan 04, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

The NFL playoffs get underway on Saturday with the New Orleans Saints traveling to Seattle to face the improbable NFC West champion Seahawks. The Seahawks are the first NFL postseason team with a losing record but by virtue of their division title they get to host the defending Super Bowl champs.

New Orleans Saints at Seattle Seahawks
January 8, 2011 1:30 PM Pacific

Although a play on the Saints seems obvious here there’s at least a few things that could suggest taking the home dog plus the points. The Saints have historically been a horrible double digit favorite–they’re currently on a 2-10 ATS run as chalk of 10 or more points with a 2-8 mark since 2008. They’ve also got a 3-10 ATS mark in January games, though much of that reflects their postseason struggles for many years until they broke through for their Super Bowl victory last season. They’re just 7-9 ATS this season and 1-4 ATS against opponents with losing records.

These technical considerations for not playing on New Orleans notwithstanding its just not possible to recommend a play on Seattle. Since 2008 Seattle is 3-18 SU/5-15-1 ATS against teams with winning records. And its not like they’ve shown a tendency to improve as the season wears on–in the last three years they’re 1-12 SU/2-10-1 ATS against winning teams in the second half of the season. Overall, the Seahawks are on a 11-23 ATS run as an underdog and 0-5 SU/1-4 ATS as a 10+ point underdog. The Seahawks will likely have Matt Hasselbeck back under center here, but that won’t matter–Hasselbeck has 3001 yards passing with 12 touchdowns and 17 interceptions this year and his 73.2 quarterback rating is his lowest total since 2001. There’s a good deal to suggest that he’ll be gone from the Jet City after this season.

Ultimately, we don’t expect Seattle to give the defending Super Bowl champions much trouble here. They legitimately don’t belong in the post season and needed some fortuitous breaks and a monumentally weak NFC West to get here. The fact that they’ve got to go on the road to face a sub .500 team to open the playoffs will likely give the Saints a ‘chip on their shoulder’ and we look for them to win and cover easily.

Bet New Orleans Saints -10′ over Seattle Seahawks