Seattle Seahawks -3.5
Sat January 5 ‘08 4:30p
The Redskins are a nice story, a team that has rallied around a backup quarterback following the death of one of their most talented and popular players, reeling off four straight wins and covers to earn a wild card berth. But legitimate questions persist about the Redskins ability to carry that momentum forward into the postseason. In fact, Washington faces extremely difficult matchups on both sides of the football as they travel to face the Seahawks on Saturday.Make no mistake about it – Seattle’s home field is one of the strongest in the NFL. The Seahawks went 7-1 SU, 6-2 ATS at home this year, the lone loss coming back in early October thanks to a handful of special teams breakdowns. And the crowd noise here is second to none, creating all kinds of problems for opposing offenses. An offense like the Redskins, with a backup QB behind center and a handful of key line injuries is a bad matchup against a Seahawks defense that sacked opposing quarterbacks 45 times this season, 4th in the NFL. We can expect pass rushing force Patrick Kerney (14 sacks this year) and blitzing machine Julian Peterson (10 sacks) to have success pressuring Todd Collins into mistakes.

On the other side of the football, the Seahawks match up very well with Washington. The Redskins lost pro bowl safety Sean Taylor last month, and former #1 pick Carlos Rogers won’t be playing in the secondary either. Mike Holmgren has been perfectly comfortable with the ‘pass first’ offense of Seattle, eschewing the running game repeatedly over the second half of the season. Matt Hasselbeck guided this team to the Super Bowl only two years ago, and his receiving corps is as healthy as they’ve been all season, with Bobby Engram, Nate Burleson and Deion Branch all at 100%. Look for the Redskins secondary to struggle against this elite level passing game, as Seattle cruises to victory. Take the Seahawks.

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