Moore Predicts: Seahawks will drop ‘trap game’ in Miami due in part to weather
Oct 2, 2020, 11:13 AM
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In contrast to previous seasons, I’m rolling along at 3-0 in picking Seahawks’ games thus far, including 3-0 against the spread. Sunday’s game at Miami is the trickiest one yet to figure out.
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The Seahawks are favored by 6.5 points for good reason: They’re the superior team. Their offense has been gangbusters. They’ve beaten three teams – Atlanta, New England and Dallas – that are better than Miami.
But as you might know, I’m a big believer in Human Nature. And if you can have all kinds of respect for weather and how that might impact a game, count me in for that too. Trap game, letdown spot, long plane trip – these are all adverse factors for the Seahawks.
Let’s start with the weather. It’s supposed to be 87 degrees with 76 percent humidity and winds up to 20 mph with a 40 percent chance of rain at kickoff. A heat index chart shows that when it’s 87 degrees with 76 percent humidity, it feels like 97 degrees.
And you don’t even need that scientific stuff. When someone from the Northwest goes to Florida this time of year, you feel the muggy conditions and start to sweat as soon as you go outside.
I get it, a lot of Seahawks players are from sweltering parts of the country, but I doubt that you all of a sudden go from cooler conditions in the Northwest to feeling perfectly fine in a southern sauna.
When I think about this game, I remember the Seahawks losing in the heat to the Titans in Nashville in 2017 and to the Chargers in San Diego in 2014.
I could be way off base with this, but I’m thinking the Dolphins will be much better equipped to deal with the weather than the Seahawks. This could be the game in which Seattle’s 58-0 streak when leading by four points or more at halftime ends, assuming the Seahawks might fade in the second half when temperatures hit their peak.
Again, this is just food for thought, maybe crumbs for thought, but there are other reasons why I think the Dolphins are going to pull off the upset:
• Letdown spot. After two big nationally televised games against New England and Dallas, the Seahawks face a lesser opponent on the road in a city where they haven’t won since 1996.
• They’re facing a Dolphins team getting three extra days of rest. They haven’t played since last Thursday night in Jacksonville.
• The Seahawks’ defense has been chewed up and spit out by every offense thus far, and for those who think that it has more to do with elite quarterbacks they’ve faced, Matt Schaub sliced ‘em up last year, and it’s not as if Ryan Fitzpatrick can’t do it too. Fitzpatrick threw for 328 yards against a Bills team with a much better defense than Seattle’s, and he went 18 for 20 in a 31-13 win over the Jaguars.
Most of the tangibles favor the Seahawks, and there’s a really good chance if all of those tangibles play out the way the stats say they should, I’ll be simultaneously wiping the egg off my face and eating crow on Monday.
But in every NFL season a really good team plays a head-scratcher, one in which the outcome makes no sense. That’s what I think will happen Sunday in Miami.
Prediction: Dolphins 27, Seahawks 24
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