The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Seattle’s win last week, coupled with San Francisco’s win over the Rams, put the Seahawks into first place in the NFC West. It also moved them up three positions into the second seed for the playoffs. Only the New Orleans Saints are ahead of them with a 9-2 record. Being the top seed in the playoffs is more important than in past years with the expanded playoffs in place this year. Since seven teams in each conference make the playoffs this year instead of six, it means only the top seed will get a bye week in the first round.

The Seahawks opponent this week is the New York Giants. The Giants have won three straight games and are now at 4-7 this year and in a tie with Washington for first place in the NFC East. The Giants hold the tiebreaker in this scenario since they’ve won both games against Washington.

Daniel Jones is the Giants quarterback and top rusher for the team. Basically, Jones has been the Giants offense. He is unlikely to play in this week’s game as he suffered a hamstring strain on a running play in the third quarter of last week’s win. If Jones can’t play, that leaves Colt McCoy to take over at quarterback. McCoy, now thirty-four, has been a backup for most of his professional career. He hadn’t played a full season since 2011 when he started thirteen games for the Cleveland Browns. Since then, he has only played in twenty NFL games, including last week’s game.

Expect to see a lot of running plays by Wayne Gallman. He is the Giants’ primary running back and has scored all six touchdowns of the season in the last five games. Before his injury, Jones was averaging about fourteen carries a game. With Jones out, I’d expect him to get double that amount.

At the receiving position, Darius Slayton leads the Giants in reception yards with five hundred eighty-four. He had no receptions in last week’s game. To put that in perspective, Metcalf has 1,039 yards receiving, and Lockett has 771 yards receiving this year for the Seahawks.

One bright spot for the Giants this year is kicker Graham Gano. He is second in the league in field goals made with twenty-five out of twenty-six attempts. His only miss was on a field goal attempt of fifty-seven yards.

The Seahawks injury list continues to shrink in size but still contains some key players. The players listed as out for this week are Travis Homer RB, Brandon Shell OT, Jordan Simmons G, and Carlos Dunlap DE are listed as questionable. In what should be an easy win for Seattle, there is no reason to play anyone who is not fully healthy.