For only the third time in NFL history, we have a Super Bowl rematch in Week 1 of the following season with the New England Patriots visiting the Seattle Seahawks in the annual NFL Kickoff Game tonight at 8:20 ET on NBC. But as I'm sure you knew by now, it's not being played on the typical Thursday night because that's when the 49ers-Rams opener will be played at 8:35 p.m. ET in Melbourne, Australia. This, then, marks only the second Wednesday game in the modern era to start a season after Dallas won at the New York Giants in 2012. That move-up 24 hours was precipitated by Barack Obama speaking at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday in primetime that week.
The Seahawks closed as 5.5-point favorites with a total of 45.5 in Super Bowl 60 from Santa Clara, Calif., back on Feb. 8, and they cruised to their second all-time title with a 29-13 victory for a 10th straight victory overall -- one shy of the team record. That top-rated Seattle defense held the Pats scoreless until the fourth quarter, sacked regular-season MVP runner-up Drake Maye six times and picked him off twice. Seahawks tailback Kenneth Walker III was the game MVP with 135 yards rushing and a couple of catches, but he left for Kansas City in free agency.
This time, Seattle is -3 with a total of 44.5. The only other Week 1 Super Bowl immediate rematches were Kansas City at Minnesota in 1970 and Carolina at Denver in 2016. In both cases, the Super Bowl winner (Chiefs and Broncos) won the rematch. Overall, it's the 10th Super Bowl rematch in a following season since the 1970 merger, and the SB winner is 8-2 straight up and against the spread in them.
It's the fifth time in the Kickoff Game for New England, which is 3-1 in the previous four. Seattle won its only Kickoff Game as the defending champion in 2014, a 36-16 home rout of Green Bay.
We'll take you through every aspect of the Patriots vs. Seahawks game that you need to know before you lock in your bets, including SportsLine expert picks, props, trends, DFS, injury information and everything else that will help you know which plays are worth making for the primetime matchup.
Who wins Patriots vs. Seahawks in the Kickoff Game? And what critical X-factor makes one side of the spread hit HARD? Join SportsLine right now to see everything you need to know to dominate your Wednesday Night Football bets, plus get expert picks, model sims, prop bets, DFS lineups, and more!
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