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The Seattle Seahawks (3-2) and Denver Broncos (3-2) battle tonight in the Week 6 edition of NFL Thursday Night Football. Kickoff is set for 8:15 p.m. ET from Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, Colo. The game will stream on Prime Video.
The Seahawks are 2.5-point favorites over the Broncos on the spread, the with the over/under set at 40.5 points. Seattle is a -148 favorite on the moneyline and Denver is a +126 underdog.
Let's get into my Seahawks vs Broncos predictions for Thursday Night Football.
My Seahawks vs Broncos Prediction
- Seahawks vs Broncos pick: 1st Half Under 20.5
My Seahawks vs. Broncos best bet is the first half under. Make sure to find the best odds by checking our live NFL odds page.
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Seahawks vs Broncos Odds
| Seahawks Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
-2.5 -118 | 40.5 -115o / -105u | -148 |
| Broncos Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
+2.5 -104 | 40.5 -115o / -105u | +126 |
- Seahawks vs Broncos Moneyline: Seahawks -148, Broncos +126
- Seahawks vs Broncos Total: 40.5 (-115o / -105u)
- Seahawks vs Broncos Spread: Seahawks -2.5 (-118), Broncos +2.5 (-104)
Seahawks vs Broncos Thursday Night Football Preview
When the Seahawks Have the Ball
The Seahawks offense this year has looked pretty similar to the one that won the Super Bowl despite Klint Kubiak leaving to become the head coach of the Raiders.
Scoring has dipped a little from 29.2 points per game to 26.8, which I mostly expected between natural regression and losing Kubiak, but the passing game still runs almost entirely through Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who is having another monster season. That’s why the ankle injury he suffered in Week 5 is worth mentioning even though he’s off the injury report and good to go tonight.
Smith-Njigba picked up the injury late in the game against the 49ers and it definitely looked like it bothered him on a pretty uncharacteristic drop near the end of the game. While there’s no concern about him playing, it's fair to wonder whether he's truly 100% on a short week.
That matters because there may not be another receiver in football whose offense is more dependent on him right now.
Denver’s secondary injuries help Seattle's cause. Patrick Surtain II and Talanoa Hufanga are both out with ankle injuries while Riley Moss is questionable.
With Surtain and Moss out last week, a Denver defense that normally loves playing man suddenly used zone at one of its highest rates of the season. Hufanga has also been much better in coverage than against the run, so his absence gives Sam Darnold a boost.
But even with the matchup getting easier through the air, I’m not sure Seattle wants this game to turn into a high-volume passing game if Smith-Njigba is even a little less than 100%.
The Seahawks' run game is also much different now. Emanuel Wilson has become the clear lead back and is more of an early down grinder who is probably going to stack up a bunch of 3-4 yard runs rather than rip off explosives the way Kenneth Walker could.
Without Walker and Zach Charbonnet, who could potentially make his season debut next week, the run game just doesn’t have the same juice as last season. First-round rookie Jadarian Price also struggled early before landing on IR.
The good news is Denver’s run defense has taken a step back and has become more of a run funnel. If Smith-Njigba is even a little bit hampered, I could see Seattle staying patient, leaning on Wilson and playing into what already looks like a close, lower-scoring TNF game.
When the Broncos Have the Ball
The Broncos side is probably even more interesting because Sean Payton took back playcalling duties last week after letting offensive coordinator Davis Webb handle it early in the year.
Denver had been fairly pass heavy at +2.9% Pass Rate Over Expected (PROE), but in Payton’s first game back calling plays that nearly flipped to -2.6% PROE.
Basically, he took the ball out of Bo Nix’s hands a little bit.
Maybe that was just matchup specific against the Chargers, but Nix’s biggest superpowers in his career have been avoiding sacks and turnovers — it almost felt like Payton decided the best way to help him was to simply ask him to do less and lean on the defense more.
Nix has also become a much more conservative passer. His 6.0-yard aDOT is a career low, only 8% of his throws have gone 20+ yards downfield (also a career low), and he hasn’t been scrambling as much either.
This is just a much more conservative version of Nix than we’ve seen before, and ultimately he may be the root cause of some of Denver’s offensive struggles.
The Broncos' run game hasn’t exactly bailed them out either despite having one of the better offensive lines in football.
And now they get Seattle.
The Seahawks have been stout against both the run and pass and rank second in pressure rate, which is a pretty brutal matchup for Nix considering he ranks 27th out of 31 qualified QBs against pressure this year.
Leonard Williams and Drake Thomas are both questionable with ankle injuries, so there are a couple outs here. Williams being out would obviously make life easier on Nix, while Thomas being out could help the struggling run game a bit.
But it’s hard for me to suddenly project a Broncos offensive breakout here.
If anything, on a short week against the reigning champs and arguably the best defense in football, I think Payton is even more likely to stick with the conservative approach and lean on his defense.
Seahawks vs Broncos Prediction, Betting Analysis
Seahawks -2.5 would be my lean on the spread because I think they’re the better team on both sides of the ball right now, but Jaxon Smith-Njigba is so important to the offense that even the possibility that he's not 100% on a short week makes me less interested in laying points.
The under is cleaner, and I specifically prefer the 1H Under 20.5.
Both offenses have been sluggish early this season. Seattle is averaging only 10 first-half points, which ranks 20th.
That might actually be one of the areas where losing Klint Kubiak has shown up the most.
Seattle ranked sixth in first-half scoring last year — Kubiak took over a Raiders offense that ranked dead last in first-half scoring last year and now has them 13th. I don’t think that’s all coincidence.
First-half offense is more scripted and can be more influenced by the offensive coordinator/playcaller than what we see after halftime once teams start adjusting.
The Broncos been even worse. They rank last in first-half scoring at 4.6 points per game.
Last week, they showed some improvement with Sean Payton calling plays, but it was still only 10 first-half points against a winless Chargers team. Seattle is a much tougher test.
I also like isolating the first half because if one team gets down multiple scores, the second half could get much more volatile. And in what should be a close, lower-scoring game, overtime is probably a little more likely than your average matchup too. The first-half under avoids that risk completely.
But there’s one other part of this handicap I’m probably way too excited about: the punters.
Sometimes you can cap both offenses perfectly, they struggle exactly like you expected, and the under still gets torched by a random special-teams TD or a huge punt return setting up a free score. That matters tonight because Marvin Mims Jr. and Rashid Shaheed are two of the most dangerous punt returners in the NFL. Both ranked top five in yards per punt return last year — Mims is still top five this season.
Fortunately, they’re facing maybe the perfect punters to neutralize them.
Seattle had coverage issues last season, so Michael Dickson actively changed his punt angle to create more hang time at the expense of distance. He’s taken that to an extreme this year and has also gotten ridiculously good at angling punts out of bounds or having them downed. The result is an absurd 15% punt return rate, by far the lowest in the league.
And somehow, the three punts that have actually been returned against him have produced ZERO return yards. I went back and watched a handful because I couldn’t believe it. He’s basically painting corners out there like prime Greg Maddux, but obviously no one is talking about it because he’s a punter.
That matters because it lowers the chances Mims provides the random explosive return that suddenly gives Denver’s struggling offense the spark it hasn’t been generating on its own.
Broncos punter Jeremy Crawshaw gets there in a different way.
He kicks it lower and longer, but he’s still been one of the best punters at preventing returns and has allowed the second-lowest yards per return, largely because he angles kicks out of bounds at the highest rate in the league. You can’t return the punt if it’s landing out of bounds.
So in a game where I expect both offenses to be conservative and struggle, we also have two elite punt returners potentially getting taken out of the equation by two punters who are specifically great at preventing returns.
It’s a weird angle, but those are exactly the types of little things I’m looking for when betting a low total.
I like the full-game under too, but 1H Under 20.5 is the cleaner play for me.
Give me the sluggish starts, conservative playcalling, two good defenses and the punter masterclass we could see on TNF.
Pick: First Half Under 20.5 (-115)
