I choose to write my Seahawks preview today because I’ve got more important fish to fry for tomorrow. Vegas Fish.

You know how – when you look at a team’s schedule before the season, and you start counting off the wins and losses for the whole set of 16 – there are those teams later in the year where you say to yourself, “That’s gonna be a tough matchup for our little Seahawks.” Well, by and large, they ALL looked like that this year, but there are always one or two teams that subsequently fall apart by the time December rolls around, and those games don’t look NEARLY as ferocious as they once did.

This is one of those games.

The Panthers started a little rocky this season, but really came on in the middle portion, their zenith being a 5-3 record. Sure, Cam Newton went out injured, but they somehow looked BETTER with Kyle Allen at the helm! Whether that’s actually true or not, I suspect some recency bias, but there were nevertheless people who advocated for keeping Allen and getting rid of Newton on merit alone!

Not for nothing, but there are still people advocating for the change, but mostly due to concerns over Newton’s injury and his vast potential for more injuries in ensuing years. You don’t play his style of ball without breaking down extraordinarily early respective to other quarterbacks of his calibre (who actually know how to avoid contact and protect themselves).

Anyway, Kyle Allen looks like a flash in the pan, and somehow that’s Ron Rivera’s fault, as they shit-canned him a couple weeks back. Seems rash and short-sighted – Rivera was the best head coach in franchise history – but what do I know? I’m not there. Maybe they just needed a change of scenery for all parties involved.

Since that 5-3 start, the Panthers have lost five straight, and this isn’t a matter of their schedule getting more difficult. Two losses to the Falcons and a loss to the Redskins are in that stretch. It’s also not a matter of the Panthers losing a bunch of unlucky nailbiters; they’ve lost by a combined score of 156-91 (or an average of 31.2-18.2). This is a team that – through their first 8 games – played everyone really tough (aside from a 49ers blowout; who hasn’t been there?). Their defense has completely fallen apart, and their offense – aside from Christian McCaffrey (who always gets his) – can’t really muster much of anything.

So, I fully expect the Seahawks to go into Carolina and have their way with the Panthers. Sure, on any given Sunday and all that, but come on. One team is vastly superior to the other – who is falling apart at the seams and properly tanking as a byproduct – and if we don’t come away victorious, then there should be serious concerns for the Seahawks the rest of the way.

I don’t want to waste the braincells on what might be at stake here, because the Seahawks are just going to win and that’ll be that. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

I’ll be watching from a sportsbook in Vegas. I hope to be earning many hundreds of dollars in the process.