San Francisco 49ers (13-5) at Seattle Seahawks (14-3)

This is the third time these two divisional opponents have met this season. The 49ers opened the season with a 17-13 win in Seattle week 1, in which the 49ers won the first down rate battle by 0.73 and the yards per play battle by 5.51%. In week 18, the Seahawks beat the 49ers in San Francisco 13-3, in a game in which the Seahawks won the first down rate battle by 11.90% and the yards per play battle by 1.27. Common sense would suggest that the more recent of the two matchups between these teams holds more predictive value and it is true that when two teams that split the season series meet for a third time in the post-season the team who won the more recent matchup tends to win more often than not, but maybe not as often as you would think, as teams are just 14-9 in that spot and just 11-12 ATS.

That alone isn’t a reason to pick the 49ers to cover, but I think this spread is a little inflated based on the recent matchup between these two teams, with the Seahawks favored by 7 points, after being favored by 2.5 points week 18. This game is in Seattle rather than San Francisco, but that much of a little movement is more than just the location change. The 49ers won’t have George Kittle for this game and the Seahawks will have left tackle Charles Cross, who didn’t play in the previous matchup, but the 49ers also get back left tackle Trent Williams, who is much better than Cross and more important to this offense than Kittle, and Kittle was not 100% in the previous matchup either. On top of that, the 49ers are likely to get back wide receiver Ricky Pearsall, who didn’t play in the previous matchup, though the loss of starting safety Ji’Ayir Brown does hurt them. Overall, I have this line calculated at Seattle -6, so we’re getting some line value with the 49ers, but not nearly enough for them to be worth betting.

Seattle Seahawks 20 San Francisco 49ers 14

Pick against the spread: San Francisco +7

Confidence: Low