My girlfriend is an east-coaster. I, obviously, am a west-coaster. We like to argue about which coast is better, and there are pluses and minuses to each, of course. One of the huge pluses to living on the west coast is that I get NFL games at 10am on Sunday mornings. This Sunday will be one of the lucky occasions where I get the Seahawks at 10am in my living room.
I'm looking at this game like gambling with house money. What (besides more injuries) can the Seahawks lose? Conventional wisdom around the league is that the Giants are one of the best, if not the best, teams in the league. The Seahawks started horribly, and have already shown this year that they don't travel to the east coast well. I haven't seen a single pundit pick the Seahawks, and really, I can't expect any of them to. Hell, in my pick 'em leagues I'm picking the Giants. The Seahawks should have no business winning this game.
So, what happens if they lose? I initially ranked this game as the third-most difficult game of the season, and it has to be more difficult than a home game against the Brady-less Patriots. Regardless of what the Seahawks record is now, regardless of their division or conference standings, unless they were thinking this game was going to be the difference between 15-1 or 14-2, this wasn't a game that they had to win to get into the playoffs. Now, the 49ers game at home was one they had to win, and now they have to make up for it, but this Giants game isn't that. The game at Tampa, or home vs. Philadelphia, those are the tough games they now have to win to make up for the loss to the 49ers. This game, again, is house money.
Regardless of the final score, if the Seahawks come away from the game without a major injury, they can't be worse off than they are today. Perhaps you can argue that a Rams-style blowout would put them in a worse place in terms of confidence and momentum, but horrible losses can be put in the rear-view mirror.
But think of what a win would do. First, in terms of wins and losses, it would be an absolute steal and would completely make up for the 49ers loss. It will make the trips to Tampa, Miama, and maybe Dallas, easier from the standpoint of having confidence in travelling east. Maybe most important of all, a win would go a large way towards writing off the first two losses to injuries - to the receivers, to Locklear, to Morris. It would put the Seahawk right back on track as the favorite in the NFC West, and give them a ton of momentum going into a home game against a beat-up Packers team.
House money. That means no worries when watching on Sunday.
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