TNF: Bears Prime meat for Seahawks
Hicks Pick: Seattle keeps postseason dreams alive with win over Chicago.
Thursday Night Football, 8:15 p.m. ET, Soldier Field (Chicago, IL), Amazon Prime
If you watched both Christmas Day game blowouts, congrats on your tolerance for the anticlimactic. And, if like some, you struggled with your Netflix streaming, you didn’t miss much — at least was certainly the case with the second game of the doubleheader.
In the earlier game, the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs knocked off the Steelers in Pittsburgh, 29-10. This game was actually close going into the fourth quarter before the Chiefs ran off the final 13 points. With the win, Kansas City clinched the No. 1 seed in the AFC. Expect Andy Reid to sit Patrick Mahomes, who threw for three TDs, Travis Kelce (eight catches) and other key starters in Week 18.
The second game, Baltimore at Houston, was a wire-to-wire 31-2 rout in favor of the visiting Ravens. Running back Derrick rushed for 147 yards and a score, and Lamar Jackson recorded 255 total yards and three touchdowns (two passing, one rushing) to lead Baltimore. The victors doubled the Texans in total yards as the much-maligned Ravens defense posted its second straight impressive performance.
The Ravens win and Pittsburgh’s loss to KC means Baltimore moves into sole possession of first place in the AFC North.
Now it’s time to move from one source of streaming NFL fan frustration to another: the Thursday night game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Chicago Bears freezing and pixelating (but not fast-forwarding or pausing) on Amazon Prime.
Seahawks at Bears
Seattle faces its third straight NFC North team, and it has to hope the third time's a charm.
The Seahawks lost two games, at home, to North powers Green Bay and Minnesota. The setbacks were costly, as Seattle surrendered a one-game lead in the NFC West and now trail the Los Angeles Rams by a game.
Seattle’s best odds for making the playoffs are to win the division as they trail Washington, the team presently holding the final wild-card spot, by two games. A Seattle Thursday night means a Rams win on Sunday eliminates the Seahawks from playoff contention.
The Seahawks need to up their game Thursday on both sides of the ball. The defense played better against Minnesota after getting shredded by the Packers in Week 15.
The offensive side has not been any more consistent — unless you regard the Seahawks’ running game as consistently underwhelming. The Bears do allow 134 yards rushing per game, but can Seattle take advantage?
It seems more likely that Geno Smith will again need to shoulder the weight. D.K. Metcalf’s production has fallen off since his midseason return from injury. But Seattle could have a star in the making in Jaxon Smith-Njigba who caught 18 passes combined in the last two games.
The Bears 4-11 have been playing out the string for so long it got us curious as to the longest string ever made. (Best we could find was a ball of twine that contained 1.6 million feet.) Oftentimes, an interim head coach can inject some piss and vinegar into a team’s effort. That hasn’t happened with the Bears, as the team’s losing streak has now reached nine, with the three games thus far under Thomas Brown ending in blowouts.
(Take heart, Bears fans. The juice that a midseason coaching change can bring is often a false positive. Elevating Mike Singletary and Antonio Pierce from interim to full-time head coaching gigs are cautionary examples.)
Still, the Seahawks can not afford to look past Chicago. In a season littered with dark ones, a bright spot for the Bears and Caleb Williams is that the No. 1 overall selection has strung together nine games with 20 pass attempts and no interceptions, tied for the third longest such streak in NFL history.
And that feat is kind of remarkable, given that Williams is taking a beating on a weekly basis. The Bears’ offensive line has given up 60 sacks, second most in the NFL. The Seahawks are in the bottom half of the league with 35 sacks.
After 4.5 sacks combined in Weeks 12 and 13, Seattle DE Leonard Williams has not gotten to the QB the last three weeks. Still, “Big Cat” (seven sacks on the year) can be a disruptive force, and the Bears need to stymie him to give the passing game a chance on Thursday night.
When Williams found time to throw last week against Detroit, he went to Keenan Allen. The veteran wideout had his best game of the season against the Lions, and his one-on-ones with Riq Woolen on Thursday night could be decisive. We like Seattle’s best corner to put a Woolen cap on Allen’s production, and for Seattle’s passing game to come alive at Soldier Field.
PICK: Seattle 28, Chicago 23
Key matchup: CB Riq Woolen (SEA) vs. WR Keenan Allen (CHI)
Key matchup: WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba (SEA) vs. CB Jaylon Johnson (CHI)
Key matchup: DE Leonard Williams (SEA) vs. T Larry Borom (CHI)
