Field Gulls
It’s another Seattle Seahawks game day!
Week 15 is here and the Seahawks are in control of their playoff fate. Win out and you’re the No. 1 seed, do anything else and you’re likely playing on the road throughout the postseason. While the Seahawks are on the rise, the Indianapolis Colts have fallen off the No. 1 seed race and are just trying to make the postseason. How quickly 7-1 with a Daniel Jones career turnaround can become 8-5 and relying on Philip Rivers to save your season.
It’s time for some game predictions, but let’s first look back and be awed and amazed at my predictive powers from the win over the Atlanta Falcons.
Bold prediction: Seahawks get a special teams touchdown
Score! Rashid Shaheed made me prophetic.
Seahawks offense prediction: Someone other than JSN gets a receiving touchdown
Cooper Kupp ends the drought!
Seahawks defense prediction: Kirk Cousins held under 200 net passing yards
Didn’t even clear 200 without the sack yardage lost.
Falcons prediction: Bijan Robinson breaks one explosive play
Explosive runs are commonly defined as 10+ yards. He had one carry for 11 yards, his literal only explosive play.
Final score prediction: Seahawks take the Falcons seriously, pull off another road win
I predicted a 34-16 win in which “the 2nd half turns an uncomfortably close game into a rout.”
For as much as the Seahawks have been great with taking the ball away, the one thing they haven’t done is get a turnover on the opening possession. They’ve come close by intercepting Kyler Murray on the second possession of the first Arizona Cardinals game, but that’s that. The Colts have generally been great at taking care of the ball, but they had three giveaways against the Jacksonville Jaguars last week and their season seemingly turned for the worse after six turnovers versus the Pittsburgh Steelers.
What better way to welcome Philip Rivers back in the NFL than to strip sack him or force an errant throw leading to an interception? Let’s see it happen. I sense Nick Emmanwori will be involved. Emmanwori was only an infant when Rivers was drafted by the Chargers in 2004.
Indianapolis is dealing with a depleted cornerback room. Sauce Gardner is out with a calf strain, Charvarius Ward is on IR after another concussion, and they started the year with Xavien Howard as a starter and he retired midseason. In recent weeks, the Colts have been near the bottom of the league in rate of 15+ yard pass plays conceded. For the sake of this column, we’ll up the explosive pass play to 20+ yards, which is generally standard.
With conditions not looking as daunting for kickoff as initially expected, the Seahawks should be well within their rights to air it out. Jaxon Smith-Njigba will get his numbers, but can we see more explosives to...
