by Aaron Fischman
Follow @aaronhartf on Twitter

Sunday Night Football - NFC West's Best

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San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks

Last Sunday night was nothing short of thrilling.

With the 49ers leading 31-3 and on the verge of stealing the first December road win in Gillette Stadium since Dec. 22, 2002, Tom Brady and the Patriots went crazy, scoring 28 points in less than 15 minutes to tie the score. Ultimately, the Patriot comeback attempt would fall short, but it was a game for the ages.

This Sunday night, the 49ers make another appearance and venture into another hostile environment, Seattle’s CenturyLink Field, a place where a road team has not won all season. Frustrated opponents include the Packers (the “Touchception” game) and Patriots, who lost by a combined three points.

Colin Kaepernick, making just his fifth career start last week, become the first quarterback in a decade to get a win in December in Foxborough. He threw for four touchdowns and committed just one turnover to help San Francisco stay in first place in the NFC West.

Despite not being a high-scoring team all year, the Seahawks have dropped at least 50 points in two straight games. Like the 49ers (who have lost once in their last eight games), the Seahawks are red-hot having won five of their last six games.

In the Seahawks’ most recent victory over the Bills, rookie Russell Wilson rushed for 92 yards and three touchdowns, threw for 205 more yards and another touchdown, and did not commit a single turnover. Wilson has been careful with the ball all season, turning it over just 12 times and only once over the last four games. Kaepernick is also turning the ball over at a rate of fewer than once per game (three turnovers in five starts for the 49er QB).

This match-up pits the two best scoring defenses against each other, as each team allows just 15.6 points per game. More than 10,000 AccuScore simulations project a slightly higher average score of 22.3-21.7 with the slight edge going to the road 49ers. Of all those simulations, San Francisco emerged victories 52.7 percent of the time.

In the first meeting between these teams, San Francisco won a 13-6 game in which only one touchdown was scored (a 12-yard pass catch by TE Delanie Walker). Alex Smith was the starter back then. Neither team got its passing game going, but the 49ers led with 175 rushing yards. Frank Gore darted for 131 yards on 16 carries for an average of 8.2 yards per run.

According to the projections for this week, almost nothing separates these two teams and that should not come as a surprise considering how each team has performed statistically this season. Let’s take a look:



For the first time this season, I’m picking against AccuScore’s projections. Seattle will win a close game, probably around 24-20. San Francisco’s veteran kicker, David Akers, is struggling badly. In a close game (as this one is expected to be) kicking miscues could easily decide the outcome.