Washington at Seattle

Afraid of laying nine here? No worries. This appears to be the easiest pick of the weekend. Seattle should absolutely crush the Skins. There are generally two camps of fans out there when it comes to Seattle. Those that picked them for the Super Bowl and like their chances and those that love to bash them (due to their recent letdown seasons and reputation for being soft). If you are in the latter group, you might want to rethink things. In looking at the numbers this week, Seattle is damn good! They went 13-3 and outscored opponents 452-271 on the year. They averaged 4.7 yards per carry while giving up fewer than 95 yards per game on the ground. They averaged 7.66 yards per pass attempt as Hasselbeck completed 65% of his passes (only second to Peyton). Not to mention the fact that they have one of the best running backs in the league (the MVP who put it in the endzone 28 times) and a defense that recorded the highest number of sacks of all teams remaining. They are focused and rested and playing at home. Washington limps in off a tough game in which they put up the fewest offensive yards in a playoff win ever. Washington's defense is very good and against Chris Simms and the Tampa Bay Bucs, that worked. Not this week. Seattle will score here and Washington just doesn't have the offense to keep up. Teams that are playing their second playoff game after a 3+ year absence from the playoffs are just 2-12 ATS. Washington has to be a bit exhausted here after playing at Philly and then Tampa the last two weeks. They've had a great ride over the past six weeks but it's time to come to an end. This game reminds me of last year's Conference Finals game in which Minnesota went into Philadelphia as an eight point underdog and got trounced 27-14. The much stronger team just manhandled them. Four stars on the Seahawks in a blowout.