Ironed Out

Who wants it more?? That is the question I’m asking these two teams, because I believe this will be the answer to the winner of this game. Let’s look at what we are dealing with. The Seahawks, who are leading their division by one less loss than the Rams, need this win to give them a cushion over Los Angeles, who just climbed up the rankings due to a 49ers’ loss on Thursday night. Seattle has lost five of the last seven games, with those two losses coming to Buffalo and Los Angeles. They have seemingly found their sweet spot. But let’s not get complacent. There is work to be done, and against an ambiguous Packers team, they need their A game. This will be challenging too, as they are 5th in the league in total offense, and the Seahawks defense, while much better their last four games, needs to be able to continue that dominance. Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who needs 89 yards to break 1,000 yards on the season, has been Geno Smith’s favorite target of late, as over his last five games, has 523 receiving yards at 4 TDs. He will be leaned on this Sunday, as well as the return of Kenneth Walker, who was sidelined last week due to injury. Seattle needs to be able to work the ball around to their playmakers and keep Green Bay guessing if they want to win this game.

The Packers, who are 4-2 on the road this year, have won eight of their last eleven games, (those losses were to Detroit twice and the Vikings,) and are on a heater. Jordan Love has had 18 TDs and only 1 INTs during the Packers last 8 games. That is a clear improvement from Love, who was having trouble with that earlier this year. If that can get figured out, which it seemingly has, the Packers can and should be dangerous. They have a lot of sneaky weapons in guys like Jayden Reed and Christian Watson, even guys like Romeo Doubs and Tucker Kraft have been having pretty good statistical years. And then there’s Josh Jacobs, who is having an incredible year on the ground, totaling to over 1,000 yards rushing and 12 total TDs. I think if the Packers keep it clean, they will win this game, but it will not be with ease. The deciding factor, for me, is Seattle’s home record, which is 3-4. I think the Packers come in and take care of business.

POSTGAME:

The Packers are a great team when they want to be, and boy, did they want to be tonight. I mean, they must’ve really wanted to win with that start, going up 14-points before the first quarter was even over. All their drives in the first half led to points in the form of a TD or FG, putting them up 20-3 at halftime. It didn’t help that Geno Smith went down with an injury with over 7 minutes left in the third quarter. This puts a nice little damper on that nice stretch of football the Seahawks have been having as of late. They just didn’t have it tonight, and fall to 3-5 at home, but the Packers were just the better team all around. Jordan Love was 20/27 for 229 yards and 2 TDs and zero INTs, totaling Love to 20 TDs and 1 INT in his last 9 games. Their defense had two INTs tonight and remain an equally important and effective part of their success. They are now just one game behind Minnesota, and two games behind the Lions in the NFC North.