Seattle at Detroit

Seattle shocked many pundits last year, making it to the Super Bowl and giving the Steelers a run for their money. That "unknown team from the Northwest" is not under the radar any longer. They didn't do much in the offesason to improve (not that they needed to). But, they did suffer a big loss with right guard Steve Hutchinson leaving for Minnesota. His Pro Bowl performance last year was one of the reasons for Hasselbeck and Alexander performing as they did. They may be without starting wideout Darrell Jackson here who is just back from knee surgery. They are definitely without tight end Jerramy Stevens who is out, also due to knee surgery. Detroit in contrast made a lot of changes - most for the better. I like the addition of Jon Kitna, who if you will remember, had a great year with Cincinnati before Carson Palmer took over. Mike Martz, an offensive guru, is helping to get this offense on track. It's no surprise that this line has climbed from 3.5 to 6 as the betting public is all over Seattle after the season they had, and down on the lowly Detroit Lions. But the Lions, their new coach and fans will be big-time pumped here in the dome. It should feel like no game has felt in Detroit in a long, long time. Until their season fell apart, Detroit played great at home last season, especially on defense (allowed no more than 21 points to any team). Look for Detroit to leave it all on the field. Visiting teams that won 13+ games the year before are dismal in week one against the spread. And, teams that were near the bottom of the league in offensive production last year peform very well in week one. These two trends meet here and demonstrate what we know: the public is all over the Hawks here so we'll go the other way.