Thursday Night Football Betting: Our Model Likes the Over in This NFC West Clash

Tonight, the San Francisco 49ers travel to the Pacific Northwest to take on the Seattle Seahawks.

Per our power rankings, the 49ers are our sixth-ranked team, while the Seahawks are ranked 24th. San Fran is a 3.5-point road favorite in a game with a 43.5-point total.

Let’s dive in and see if we can uncover any interesting betting angles for this contest.

Breaking Down the Matchup

These two passers have been very unique -- although we obviously didn't expect Brock Purdy to be the starter when this season began.

After injuries to both Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo, Purdy has stepped into the job, and he's been outstanding so far. While it's a limited sample size, Purdy's mark of 0.20 Passing Net Expected Points (NEP) per drop back has been outstanding. Among passers with 70 or more attempts, Purdy ranks eighth-best in the league.

On the other side, Geno Smith has been a fantastic player in his own right. His 0.18 Passing NEP per drop back ranks 10th-best. Smith leads the league in Passing Success Rate (53.9%).

One area where both passers can improve is Intended Air Yards per Attempt -- Smith has been slightly better with a mark of 7.3, while Purdy's mark of 6.1 has been a bit poorer.

While Smith has been fantastic, the Hawks are expected to get Kenneth Walker III back tonight, which provides a massive boost to the ground game. Walker has rushed 138 times for 649 yards, but he hasn't been the most efficient runner. His Rushing NEP per carry of 0.03 sits around the league average.

The 49ers acquired Christian McCaffrey, and he's been dang good this season. His 0.08 Rushing NEP per attempt checks in eighth-best among the 39 runners with 100 or more carries.

Offensively, these are two strong squads. The 49ers are ranked ninth overall, and the Seahawks rank 12th.

Defensively, the Niners have a big edge. According to our schedule-adjusted numbers, the 49ers sit fourth in overall D while Seattle is fifth-worst.

The Seahawks' ground defense must improve. We rank them sixth-worst in the league versus the run, and they were gashed for an embarrassing 223 yards last week to the Carolina Panthers. That run D will surely get put to the test tonight.

The Betting Numbers

As I said at the jump, the 49ers are 3.5-point favorites, and the total has been set at 43.5 points.

San Francisco has been a solid bet so far against the spread (ATS) this season, rocking an 8-5 ATS mark this year. Seattle has been pretty mediocre ATS, with a 6-7 mark this season. San Francisco drubbed the Seahawks in te Bay Area, 27-7, earlier this season.

Our algorithm sees this as a tight contest, projecting a 25.1-21.1 win for the 49ers. That's pretty much right in line with the listed spread. We do see some value in the over, though, forecasting it to win out 58.1% of the time.

In the prop market, Geno Smith's passing yards prop at FanDuel Sportsbook is pretty spicy.

We project him to throw for 247.6 yards, and his passing yards prop has been set at 236.5 yards (-110 on both sides). You can even take a shot on Geno to throw for an alternate line of 250-plus yards, which is +128. Despite Seattle losing three of their last four games, Smith has passed for more than 260 yards in five straight games, including back-to-back 300-plus yard efforts in Weeks 12 and 13.

The public is backing the visiting 49ers. On the spread, 76% of bets and 65% of the cash is on the San Fran side.