Week 17 preview and prediction: Seahawks at 49ers (in Arizona)
They say all good things must come to an end, and such is true for the 2020 regular season. The newly minted NFC West champions, the Seattle Seahawks, will wrap up the regular season with a Week 17 game against the San Francisco 49ers.
Interestingly, the Seahawks will make a return to Glendale, AZ to play the Niners, as Santa Clara County in California has banned football activity due to COVID-19 restrictions. Now, Seattle has a chance to avenge its Week 7 loss to the Cardinals in Arizona with a win over the Niners.
The Seahawks also have a chance to get revenge on San Francisco winning in Seattle in Week 17 last season to clinch the division title and the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoff picture.
Speaking of the No. 1 seed, the Seahawks still have an outside chance of earning a first-round bye. They will need help from Chicago and Carolina, however, to defeat the Packers and Saints respectively. Green Bay recently lost star left tackle, David Bahktiari to injury, and New Orleans will be without its entire running back stable due to COVID-19.
Although, should the Panthers and Bears pull off monumental upsets, it won’t mean anything if the Seahawks don’t take care of business against the 49ers.
San Francisco will be once again ravaged by injuries, including its top receivers, linebacker Dre Greenlaw and former Seahawks star Richard Sherman.
Of course, the Seahawks shouldn’t be expecting a cakewalk against an opponent deciding to lie down, waiting to enter the offseason. The 49ers still play hard and are still incredibly well-coached. San Francisco managed to upset the Cardinals last week to damage their playoff prospects and would love nothing more to stick it to the rival Seahawks one last time.
Prediction: Seahawks over 49ers 24-21
The Seahawks love to make things more complicated than necessary and have struggled to beat coach Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers twice in one season in recent years. In fact, the only time Seattle has swept Shanahan’s Niners was in his debut season of 2017, splitting with him in 2018 and 2019.
The Niners know Seattle well, and State Farm Stadium has become somewhat of cursed ground for the Seahawks of late.
The Seahawks should win in the end, but they should expect a tough fight to help prepare them as they look forward to the postseason . . . and higher aspirations.
