Vegas expects a classic when Seahawks play Cowboys Saturday

The Seahawks play the Cowboys on Saturday in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. Oddsmakers think Dallas will win but just barely.

The Seahawks have a good recent history against the Cowboys. Seattle has won four of the last five meetings between the teams, including the last three. In those last three games, Dallas has not scored more than 13 points in any game. But none of these game have been playoff games.

Dallas gets to play at home on Saturday when the playoffs start and Seattle travels to play the Cowboys. Usually a home team gets 3 points added when it comes to point-spreads. According to Odds Shark, though, the Cowboys are favored by just 1.5 points for the Wild Card game.

The biggest reason the point-spread is as small as it is, says Odds Shark, is that Russell Wilson is simply a beast in prime-time games. Saturday’s game is at 5:15 pm PT. Odds Shark says Seattle is “an astounding 5-0 against-the-spread in the last five games as an underdog in a prime-time game and 25-6-4 ATS in their last 35 games at night.”

Wilson, though, has been fantastic in those contests. In 28 prime-time games, Wilson has thrown for 52 touchdowns with only 14 interceptions. That’s good stuff.

Odds Shark also says that Seattle could easily be the favorite in the game. Dallas has been great in the second half of 2018 but a lot of that is because they tend to score early and get a lead and then use their ground game to eat clock. Plus, their defense has been getting better all season. If Seattle can score early and fairly often, they could be in control of the game.

But still, this is a game of evenly matched teams who want to do the same kind of things: run the ball well and play sound defense. Dallas, though, has home-field advantage and many times that goes a long way in determining who wins in the playoffs.