49ers vs. Seahawks Predictions: Expert NFL Picks Against the Spread (Week 6)

San Francisco 49ers (2-3 SU, 2-3 ATS) vs. Seattle Seahawks (3-2 SU, 1-3-1 ATS)
NFL Football Week 6
Date/Time: Thursday Night Football, October 10, 2024 at 8:15 EDT
Where: Lumen Field, Seattle, Washington
TV: Prime Video

The San Francisco 49ers come to Lumen Field for a Thursday Night Football battle with the Seattle Seahawks in this NFC West showdown. For it being only the 6th game of the season for both teams, I’d imagine both squads would enter this game with some urgency based on recent results. After a nice 3-0 start to the season, the Seahawks have dropped two in a row, including Sunday’s 29-20 upset loss to the Giants. Again at home this week, they look to right the ship. However, they are running into a Niners’ team that surely has some alarm bells sounding after losing 24-23 to the Cardinals at home last week. With both of these teams losing last week as at least touchdown favorites, who can get on the right track and get us the cover on Thursday Night Football?

Tough Week to Go Against the 49ers?

The 49ers are on the road, albeit in a familiar divisional setting, facing the prospects of sinking to 2-4 if they don’t find a way to win this game. Granted, they have some built-in excuses for a slow start to the season. And most teams who have seen the injuries the Niners have gotten would be in even-worse shape. Still, as they round into better health, the excuses will hold less water, as the defending conference champions really need to start cooking. They won’t be getting Christian McCaffrey back this week, but Jordan Mason has been good as a fill-in. In addition, a banged-up Deebo Samuel and George Kittle should be in better health, and one could reason why the timing might be good this week, as urgency is surely high and with better overall health.

Focusing solely on San Francisco’s predicament this week could camouflage the issues the Seahawks have on the table this week. After a 3-0 start, falling to 3-3 would be a bitter pill to swallow. Going to 4-2 sounds a lot better. This is a period where Seattle needs to start stockpiling wins. This is game two of a five-game stretch where they get four at home and starting that patch off at 0-2 and dropping to .500 is going to put them behind the 8-ball with some heavily backloaded road-games on their schedule. Losing to Detroit and especially at home to the Giants last week was a bad look, but they were still in those games, with some costly mistakes along the way being the determining factors.

Possible Advantages on Thursday for the 49ers

With four straight wins over their divisional foes, the 49ers have seen their recipe for success surface recently. And while the 49ers have dealt with some injuries on the defensive side of the ball, as well, they usually get unleashed in this matchup, pitted against a Seattle offensive line that still suffers in certain spots. The Niners can stop Kenneth Walker and the Seattle run-game from getting on too much of a roll, while getting to Geno Smith with enough regularity to disrupt the offensive flow. We saw the Giants all over Smith on Sunday, and that doesn’t promise good things against this aggressive SF defense. If the Seahawks’ offensive line falters again in this spot, they’re reduced to Geno Smith slinging it around. That’s not entirely hopeless in terms of possible effectiveness. Smith really has a lot of good targets with his three-deep WR crew of Metcalf, Lockett, and Smith-Njigba, along with Walker, RB Zach Charbonnet, and TE Noah Fant catching passes. But it makes them a bit one-dimensional in contexts such as these against more-complete teams like San Fran.

But Not So Fast…

There still seems something askew with the Niners. This start to the season is partially an injury deal, to be sure, but it almost seems like there’s a little bit of a hangover afoot or something that just isn’t quite right. While Mason has been excellent in spots this season, maybe we’re getting into the longer-term downside of not having CMC in action. Now instead of his near-constant production opening things up for others to shine, you’re now just hoping one of the other guys shines. There seem to be more games the last year or two where key guys just disappear for a whole game, whether it was Deebo Samuel last week, or Brandon Aiyuk, or George Kittle in others.

Perhaps even more alarming is a San Francisco defense that, while also having the excuse of injuries, is really melting down late in games, a major culprit for them already being 0-2 in the NFC West so far in ’24. Against the Rams a few weeks ago, they were up 21-7 deep into the third, with three Rams scores in the final 6:15 costing them the win. And last week against Arizona, the defense again loosened up late with the come-from-ahead loss. And not that the offense is shining late either, but these late-game fades are difficult to overcome in this league.

Take the Points on the Home Dog

I’m not sure urgency is a cure-all for the 49ers at this point, especially as the Seahawks have some of their own. And maybe I have this unfounded built-in bias of preferring Seattle more in the underdog role, as opposed to the frontrunning role we saw them in last week. I like them better as a team that can sneak up on you. I think they’re dangerous this week and nice and dug in at home for what looks to be a toss-up type of divisional game where having better than a FG might come in handy. I’ll take the Seahawks this week.

Loot’s Prediction to Cover the Point Spread:

I’m betting on the Seattle Seahawks plus 3.5 points.