Seattle Seahawks at San Francisco 49ers
Sunday, 9/11/11, 4:15 PM EST, TV: FOX
Opening Point Spread: San Francisco -3
Current Betting Line: San Francisco -5.5
Opening Total: 41
Current Total: 37.5
Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker
The San Francisco 49ers will begin the Jim Harbaugh era on Sunday when they host the Seattle Seahawks in a battle of NFC West teams. Last year, the Seahawks became the first team in NFL history to win their division with a losing record while the 49ers never recovered from a terrible 0-5 start and finished 6-10 under former head coach Mike Singletary.
Harbaugh is taking over for Singletary in San Francisco (-5.5, O/U 37.5) after he led Stanford to a 29-21 mark in four years, including 12-1 last season. The 49ers have not finished with a winning record since 2002, which is also the last time they made the playoffs.
San Francisco was picked by many experts to win the division a year ago, but poor quarterback play doomed the team like it has ever since the days of Jeff Garcia and Steve Mariucci. Alex Smith was supposed to be the answer as the top overall pick in the 2005 NFL draft, and he has failed to deliver so far. Smith did not even throw a touchdown pass in four preseason starts, as the 49ers went 2-2 both straight-up and against the spread.
Seattle also has a question mark at QB with Matt Hasselbeck moving on to Tennessee. The Seahawks re-united former Viking Tavaris Jackson with his old offensive coordinator in Minnesota, Darrell Bevell. Like Smith, Jackson did very little to impress in the preseason and his development remains a work in progress. Ironically, it was Bevell who brought in Brett Favre two years ago because the Vikings were not confident enough in Jackson.
Still, head coach Pete Carroll was somehow able to get Seattle to the postseason in his first year there after leaving USC. Carroll had a bit of a coaching rivalry with Harbaugh in the Pac-10, as Harbaugh was accused of running up the score on the Trojans two years ago when he opted to go for a two-point conversion late in the Cardinal’s 55-21 rout.
The duo’s past history might be the most intriguing part of this game, but the teams have played each other dead even over the past 10 meetings both straight-up and against the spread dating back to 2006. The host has won and covered the last four meetings after the road team won and covered four of the previous five. In fact, the team that has won has also covered the spread in each of the last 10 games in the series.
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