Frank Lorenzo
Seattle Seahawks at Kansas City Chiefs (pk, 40.5 o/u)
Both the Seattle Seahawks and Kansas City Chiefs have the tools to make a playoff run this season, but dreams of a deep run come winter can wait. Both squads will merely be looking to build some rhythm and round out their final roster when they meet this Friday at Arrowhead Stadium (7:30 PM Eastern).
Seattle experimented with some new names on the offensive line in their preseason opener, with starting right tackle Justin Britt playing left guard and Drew Nowak taking a few reps at center. The results were not great and backup QB Tarvaris Jackson suffered the consequences, leaving the game against the Denver Broncos with a high ankle sprain.
“His ankle is legitimately sprained — he’s got a high ankle [sprain],” head coach Pete Carroll told the Associated Press. “We don’t know how long it’s going to take. Guys respond differently to these. He feels pretty good about it. We’re hoping it’s a couple weeks only.”
With Jackson out, starting QB Russell Wilson is likely to play most of the first quarter. But the newly-extended franchise QB will give way to third-stringer R.J. Archer for most of the game.
Seattle will be facing a Chiefs team that put in one of the more impressive performances in Week 1, downing the strong Arizona Cardinals 34-19. Head coach Andy Reid was especially pleased with back-up QB Chase Daniel, who went 17-29 for 189 yards in two-quarters of play.
“The ones [i.e. the first-team offense] could have been sharper. … The twos and threes played tremendous and they moved the ball,” Reid said to the AP. “Chase did a nice job with that group.”
Pete Carroll is 13-8 during preseason games, while Reid is 29-36. But, given that much of this game figures to be a matchup between Daniel and Archer, plus the fact that the Chiefs are at home, Kansas City looks like the play in this pick’em game.
Pick: Chiefs (pk).
(Photo credit: Brandon Schulze (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/legalcode].)
