Seahawks vs. Washington: The best player prop bets for MNF

Two teams that have underwhelmed this season lock horns on Monday Night Football, and hopefully can reignite some post-turkey hangover excitement. Seattle are 3-7 and are 1-5 in their last six games, but they have bags of talent and should be able to turn it on for primetime.

Washington is 4-6 but building some momentum, having come off the bye to shock Tampa Bay 29-19 before beating the Panthers in Carolina 27-21. There’s barely anything to choose between these two sides, with the Seahawks holding slight favoritism, so we’ve dug through the numbers to pull out the three best prop bets for the game.

Taylor Heinicke: Over/Under 242.5 Passing Yards

Heinicke is fresh off the back of one of his best games for Washington, as he threw three touchdowns and completed 72.7% of his passes in last week’s win over the Panthers. Though he only managed 206 yards in the air, the Washington signal caller had cleared 250 yards in his previous three games straight.

That game against Carolina also ended Heinicke’s streak of six games on the spin where he had attempted at least 32 passes, and completed at least 20 of them. In that run from Week 4 to Week 10, Heinicke averaged 36.8 passes, 23.7 completions and 252 yards per game. And it’s that level of performance we can expect to see on primetime on Monday.

That’s because the Seattle defense has huge problems in the secondary, and ranks 30th against the pass, giving up almost 280 yards per game. Half of the quarterbacks they've faced this year have thrown for more than 300 yards on them, and that includes Cardinals back-up Colt McCoy, who stepped up last week to throw for 328 yards on Pete Carroll’s team.

Washington have won back-to-back games since coming off the bye, and in those two games, Heinicke has completed 78% of his 54 passes for an average of 8.6 yards per attempt. In a game where he should be back to throwing 30 or more attempts, and given Seattle’s troubles, take the Over for Heinicke back at FedEx Field.

Pick: Over 242.5 Passing Yards (-115)

Russell Wilson: Over/Under 242.5 Passing Yards

Wilson has the same passing yards line as Heinicke, but the vibes are significantly less positive. "Robot Russ" does not miss many games, but a finger injury put him on the shelf this season, and since returning it has not been pretty.

In the two games since he's been back, he’s thrown for a combined zero touchdowns and two interceptions, and completed just 52% of his pass attempts. He mustered just 161 yards on the road at Green Bay, and didn’t do much better at home against the Cardinals when he posted just 207 yards.

Wilson has won on all three of his trips to Washington dating back to 2014, but his passing yards are a long way short of this line. He managed 201 yards here in 2014, 187 yards in 2006, and then just 121 in Week 15 last year.

While the Washington pass defense is ranked 28th in the NFL, giving up 270 yards per game and an average of 7.4 yards per attempt, they have improved in recent weeks. Before the bye, they held Aaron Rodgers to just 247 yards, and the Broncos to 190. Then in the last two weeks, they kept Tom Brady in check to the tune of 220 yards, and last week held the Panthers to just 186.

That’s an average of only 211 yards per game in the last four matches, and Washington can frustrate an out-of-sorts Wilson on primetime.   

Pick: Under 242.5 Passing Yards (-115)

Antonio Gibson: Over/Under 10.5 Receiving Yards

Gibson has had two big performances since Washington came off the bye, carrying 24 times for 64 yards against the Bucs, and then 19 times for 95 yards against the Panthers. Positive game script is rare for this Washington team, but Gibson benefitted from it in the last two weeks, and he produced the goods when the team needed him. His 24 carries against Tampa Bay was a season high, as were the 95 yards against Carolina.

However, all this good stuff is coming on the ground. His involvement in the passing game is still next to nothing. A glance at his stats suggests he’s good for a couple of catches and 15.8 yards per game this year, but that’s skewed massively by his 73-yard catch and tear against the Bills in Week 3. Remove that anomaly, and his average is 8.5 receiving yards a game.

J.D. McKissic is the pass-catching back that Washington trusts, and he’s out-targeted Gibson 48 to 23. That trust is arguably well-placed, as Gibson has already dropped four of those 23 targets this season – a whopping 17.4%.

The Seahawks have allowed the most receiving yards to running backs per game in the NFL this year (72.6) and give up 8.7 yards per reception to backs. That’s great news for McKissic, and an argument could be made that Gibson will get a rub off that. But he wasn’t targeted once against the Panthers, and I don’t have faith that he’ll see much action through the air here either.

Pick: Under 10.5 Receiving Yards (-113)