Seattle Seahawks: 3 Bold predictions for Week 1 vs. Bengals
By Samuel Teets
With the regular season less than a week away, we can look forward to how the Seattle Seahawks will perform in Week 1.
In the first week of the regular season, the Seattle Seahawks will kick off the year in front of their home crowd against the Cincinnati Bengals. Coming off of a surprising 10-6 season where they were eliminated in the Wild Card round, expectations have been raised for Pete Carroll and his team.
The Bengals are a good opponent to open against because they only went 6-10 last season and are in the first year of a new coaching regime. Cincinnati has some talented individual players, but things have no clicked for them as a team we probably won’t see significant improvement from the Bengals until late this season or early next season. This is a soft game in a difficult schedule that the Seahawks should take full advantage of.
That being said, I’m setting some high predictions for the Seahawks. The team is well-coached and led by some of the best veterans in the league. It’s okay to set high expectations for them against a team like Cincinnati.
3. Seahawks rush for over 200 yards
The Seahawks led the NFL in rushing yards per game last season, averaging an even 160 per contest. I expect the team will get off to a hot start this season by immediately going for over 200 on the ground against Cincinnati.
Even with Russell Wilson at quarterback, the Seahawks have built their offense around running the ball. That’s the focus and feature of the offense and it allows Seattle to control the pace of games and grind down defenses. With the players on their roster, the Seahawks should have no problem gauging the Bengals for chunks of yardage.
Last season, the woeful Bengals finished 29th in the NFL in run defense, allowing 137.8 rushing yards per game. That’s not close to the 200 yards I’m predicting, but it shows how vulnerable Cincinnati can be to that kind of attack.
For Seattle to have a legitimate shot at reaching 200 rushing yards, Chris Carson and Rashaad Penny will both have to be in their best forms. Last year, both players got off to a slow start. However, the depth chart is more set going into this season and Penny is no longer a rookie. Throw in a few runs from Wilson and the Seahawks could run the Bengals out of town.