At first glance, the average bettor may glean many things that don't make sense with the spread. Firstly, the Denver Broncos were one of the best teams in the NFL last season, and they are rarely three-point or more underdogs at home. In fact, this has only happened twice since the start of the 2025 season, including when they started Jarrett Stidham in last year’s AFC Championship game. We also know that Denver won last week while Seattle lost, so one might imagine that the market would swing in the home team's direction.
A closer look at one of the sharpest markets in the world and it starts to crystallize. For starters, Broncos quarterback Bo Nix has not been sensational. Take a gander at Denver news outlets and you’ll see plenty of criticism for the third-year pro, and the data supports it. Through five weeks, Nix has only thrown for 942 passing yards (21st) and six touchdowns (19th) with a 59.88% hit-rate on pass attempts (27th). He owns a QBR of 41.8 (24th). For reference, even Malik Willis ranks higher.
The Broncos' offensive concerns are well documented at this point, and most point towards the play-calling. We're in no place to investigate why it happened, but Davis Webb has at least shared play-calling duties with legendary offensive guru Sean Payton, and it hasn't worked out very well. Even last week against the hapless Chargers, they were very unimpressive in a win (224 total yards, 18 first downs). The Broncos’ offense ranks in the bottom quadrant of the NFL in points, yards, yards per pass and yards per run, and now they’ll battle one of the league’s premier defenses after a loss.
Injuries bogged down the Seahawks in Week 5, but we don’t count that as an excuse. San Francisco turned it over three times in their NFC West battle but it still didn’t matter; the Niners rose to the occasion and made better plays in the fourth quarter on both sides of the ball, outscoring the Hawks 11-3 to seal a victory. It was a defensive, sloppy game on both sides, with the home team turning it over four times themselves.
We've come to expect a disciplined, buttoned-up presentation from the reigning Super Bowl champions, but we also know this is the NFL and randomness happens. We also know that, regardless of how well Seattle's offense performs (Zach Charbonnet was a limited participant in practice on Tuesday and they hope to get him back for TNF), the Seahawks’ defense remains one of the premier units in the NFL and this is a bad matchup for the Broncos, even at home, especially with Seattle coming off a loss. We can only look in one direction.
Seahawks vs Broncos prediction: Seahawks -3 (-102) available at time of publishing. Playable at that number to -120.
