What happens when one of pro football’s best teams hosts perhaps the sport’s worst team in a stadium where the home crowd can make a prodigious amount of noise?
In the case of Sunday’s Jacksonville-Seattle game, you get oddsmakers making it very clear where the two teams stand in the sport’s pecking order.
According to multiple sites that monitor the lines of Nevada sportsbooks, unbeaten Seattle is favored by 20 points against winless Jacksonville at several books.
It is uncommon to see an underdog of this scope in a pro football game. Two seasons ago, Indianapolis was a 20.5-point underdog vs. New England. There have been no underdogs of this size since in regular-season or postseason play.
Pointspreads are tied to numerous factors, but they are unmistakably affected by how teams are perceived.
In the case of Jacksonville and Seattle . . . well, the linemakers have said it all.
