There's good news, and there's bad news for the Minnesota Vikings. The good news? They won the NFC North in improbable fashion by going on the road and upsetting Green Bay in Week 17.
The bad news? Their reward is a home game against the one team in the league that no one wanted to see at this juncture, the Seattle Seahawks.
NFL Odds at BookMaker.eu
Seattle Seahawks -5
Minnesota Vikings +5
Over/Under 42.5
ODDS ANALYSIS
We've seen road favorite before in the opening round of the playoffs, but it isn't often that you see a team favored by five over a division champ. In fact, only twice in the last decade has a team been favored by more than four on the road in a playoff game. Seattle was prominently involved in one of those games when it upset the Saints to really start this run of dominance a half dozen years ago.
Live bettors need to remember that no home underdog has been beaten as an underdog of this magnitude in the playoffs since the league expanded to 32 teams, though the Seahawks are going to be perceived as the exception to a lot of rules.
The total of 42.5 is a run-of-the-mill figure this time of year.
WHEN THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS HAVE THE BALL
The Seahawks did whatever they wanted against the Vikings a handful of weeks ago in a 38-7 victory. They're expected to get Marshawn Lynch back from his hernia surgery for this game, and that should only help out a ground attack which has gone limp over the course of the last few weeks without both he and Thomas Rawls in the backfield.
However, it's all about Russell Wilson. Wilson has been the huge catalyst for the offense down the stretch, and what he and his mates have been able to do is out of this world. The last five games of the season all ended with Seattle outdoing its foes by at least 107 yards, and only in one of the five games did the Seahawks not have both more rushing yards and more passing yards.
Seattle averaged 32.0 points per game in its last eight games of the regular season as well.
Stopping mobile quarterbacks has always been a problem for Mike Zimmer's defense, and Wilson probably won't be an exception to that. The offensive line seems to be all fixed up now, and Wilson finished the regular season with 553 yards on the ground and 4,024 more as a passer. If he's got it going, the Vikings could get steamrolled once again.
WHEN THE MINNESOTA VIKINGS HAVE THE BALL
The good news for Minnesota is that this day can't possibly be as bad as the first meeting of the year was when it managed just 125 total yards of offense and was only not shutout because of a Cordarrelle Patterson kick return for a touchdown in the second half.
Teddy Bridgewater isn't going to be asked to do all that much in his first playoff game, as there's going to be a lot of pressure put on Adrian Peterson. Peterson has been here and done this before, and the rushing champ knows what it's like to have to put a bad offense on his back.
However, there isn't a rush defense you're going to find in these playoffs much stingier than Seattle's. The Seahawks allowed just 3.6 yards per rush and 81.5 rushing yards per game, and we can't see them allowing Purple Jesus to really get going.
In a tight game, Bridgewater is going to be asked to make some plays, and we aren't sure we can count on him to do so against the Legion of Boom and a defense which has been together for a long time and has won a lot of games like this in the second season.
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Mobile betting lines are updated by the minute, so click here to start gambling on thrilling live action at BookMaker Sportsbook! The Week X matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and Minnesota Vikings will take place Sunday, January 10, 2016, at 1:05 p.m. ET at TCF Bank Stadium. The game will be televised on NBC.
