My Week 7 Thursday Night Football Pick: Seahawks at 49ers

Of course Alex Smith can't ever win a Super Bowl! He lost last week!

During last week's Steelers-Titans game, a couple of my friends asked me why it always seems like Thursday Night Football is uglier than Sunday and Monday NFL games. I'm doing some number-crunching to see if that's in fact true, and I may post my analysis in tomorrow's picks column. But if you're hoping for more fireworks, tonight's battle between the Seahawks and 49ers is not the place to look. Statistics aside, these are the two best defenses in the league (I already raved about Seattle's D in my Seahawks-Panthers Week 5 review). 

I believe that the 49ers will win because Russell Wilson struggles when teams shut down the run (as the 49ers often do), and because I don't think that one ugly game wipes away all the progress Alex Smith has made in the past two seasons. ("Can the 49ers win a Super Bowl with Alex Smith?" is the type of idiotic, controversy-inducing question that has made Skip Bayless a rich man.) However, I'd be surprised to see more than two touchdowns tonight. Take the under.

The Pick: Seahawks (+8)

Update: There was some confusion because I wrote that I think the 49ers will win the game, but then picked the Seahawks. To explain: all my picks are against the spread ("+8" means that the Seahawks are eight-point underdogs). So in this case, I think that the 49ers will win, but by a closer margin than the 8 points they are favored by. If you want an exact score, I'll say 49ers 13, Seahawks 10. 

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Odds found here.

Image found here.