Week 2 is upon us! After a Week 1 victory over the New England Patriots, the Seattle Seahawks now travel to Glendale for the first divisional rivalry game versus the Arizona Cardinals. In this battle of the birds, who will come out the victor? Will the Seahawks set a franchise record and get their 12th straight win? Or will the Cardinals end their losing streak against the Seahawks? Let’s try to predict this game!
Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks in their home opener scored 13 points while holding the Patriots to 10
points in the Super Bowl rematch. It seems as though, defensively, the Seahawks have not missed a beat. They struggled a bit offensively, but between Sam Darnold going down five snaps in, and having a first time play-caller calling their first regular season game, that is to be expected. In 2025, they scored an average of 29 points per game, while allowing and average 17 points per game. Averaging the points for comes out to 21 points, while averaging the points allowed comes to 14 points.
Per FTN’s DVOA, the Seahawks are the ninth ranked team in total DVOA. They were the 20th ranked offense per DVOA, the fifth ranked defense, and the fourth ranked special teams. It’s worth noting that DVOA takes several weeks into the season before it becomes a more stable metric. There’s also no accounting for Seattle having Drew Lock come into the game due to Sam Darnold’s injury.
Per Sumer Sports, the Seahawks were the 14th ranked offense in total EPA and EPA per play. On defense, they were the 11th ranked defense in total EPA and the 12th ranked defense in EPA per play.
Arizona Cardinals
The Cardinals put up 26 in their upset road win over the Los Angeles Chargers. They held Justin Herbert and the Chargers offense to just 14 points. Arizona looked good in its first game of the season, and it seems first-year head coach Mike LaFleur has the team buttoned up. Last season, the Cardinals averaged 22 points a game while allowing opponents to score 29 points. Their overall average points for is 24, while their averaged points allowed is 22.
Per DVOA, the Cardinals were ranked the 13th best team in the NFL after Week One. They had the sixth ranked offense per DVOA, 20th ranked defense, and 18th ranked special teams.
Per Sumer Sports, the Cardinals have the 10th ranked team per total EPA on offense as well as EPA per play on offense. They were also the fifth ranked team per total EPA on defense and fifth in EPA per play on defense.
Calculating the Score
Now for some fun math:
Seahawks 21 + Cards opponents 22 = 43 / 2 = 21.5 Points for Seahawks, but since you cannot have half a point, lets round up to 22.
Cards 24 + Sea opponents 14 = 38 / 2 = 19 Points for Seahawks
Seahawks score 7 more points on average than opponents. 19 – 4 = 15.
Initial score prediction: 22 – 15, Seahawks win
However, to make this score work, the Seahawks would need to go for a 2-point conversion, and that doesn’t make a ton of sense, so let’s make some adjustments.
Three touchdowns for the Seahawks make sense. I think Jaxon Smith-Njigba and AJ Barner are likely to get one apiece, and I think Jadarian Price will get his first touchdown in this game. Add those points together with some Jason Myers extra points, and we get 21.
Final Score Prediction: 21 – 15, Seahawks Victory
Deep Dive
I went into more detail on the matchup over on The Hawks Eye Podcast. Be sure to check it out here:
How do you think the matchup will turn out? Comment down below, and let’s have a discussion. Go Hawks!
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