Seahawks vs 49ers: a “by the numbers” prediction
By Keith Myers
Seahawks vs 49ers: The offense for the Seattle Seahawks has been awful thus far this season, but playing San Francisco should help them start to get on track.
The Seattle Seahawks (1-1) host the San Francisco 49ers (1-1) this week. The Seahawks will be looking to jumpstart an offense that has been among the worst in the league through two games.
Before we get to the prediction for this game, lets start by examining how both teams have played. It is easy to say that the Seahawks are the far better team, but do the statistics actually bear that out?
As bad as Seattle’s offense has been (and it has been genuinely bad), San Francisco’s offense has been worse. The only reason the 49ers have scored more points has been because their defense has picked up turnovers deep in enemy territory.
It is a bit surprising that the Seahawks’ rushing offense has been statistically poor thus far. Rawls’ 7 runs for -7 yards last week certainly didn’t help things, but Christine Michael countered that by averaging 6 yards per carry.
| Seattle | Category | San Francisco |
| 31st | Scoring | 9th |
| 25th | Yards per carry | 26th |
| 26th | Yards per pass | 31st |
| 14th | Turnovers | 22nd |
| 1st | Def. Scoring | 16th |
| 2nd | Def. Yards per carry | 18th |
| 18th | Def. Yards per pass | 9th |
| 32nd | Def. Turnovers | 16th |
Defensively, the Seahawks are still among the best in the NFL. Through two games, they’re right where they’ve been for the last 4 seasons: first in defensive scoring.
The main issue with Seattle’s defense so far is the complete lack of turnovers. They’ve yet to collect a single one. What is weird is that this hasn’t been created by dropped interceptions or bad fumble-luck. The Seahawks simply aren’t creating turnover opportunities.
Overall, this looks like it should be a low-scoring game. The 49ers shouldn’t be able to have much success against Seattle’s defense. It is also unlikely that Seattle’s anemic pass offense will be able to do much against San Francisco’s surprisingly decent pass defense.
The one bright spot for Seattle is that SF’s run defense has been fairly mediocre thus far. Christine Michael should have some room to run at times this week.
Next: Seahawks DVOA report for Week 2
Prediction: Everyone wants Seattle’s offense to break out this week, but they haven’t shown signs that it is about to happen yet. I believe they will finally begin waking up offensively, but not quite to the level where they start putting up big numbers.
Seattle 16 – 6 San Francisco