Patriots-Seahawks Week 1 Best Bets: SGP Picks, Odds And Predictions

The long-awaited start to the 2026 NFL regular season has finally arrived, and this year’s Kickoff Game fittingly features a Super Bowl LX rematch.

The Patriots pay a visit to the defending champion Seahawks’ Lumen Field, as is the season-opening tradition. New England aims to atone for February’s frustrating 29-13 loss and therefore begin its quest for a second consecutive shot at a Lombardi Trophy in style.

With kickoff imminent, let’s dive into a three-leg FanDuel Sportsbook same-game parlay that has the potential to get the new season off to a profitable start (odds listed are current at time of publish):

• Patriots Alternate Spread (+7.5)
• Rhamondre Stevenson 50+ Rushing Yards
• AJ Barner 20+ Receiving Yards

The Patriots are 3.5-point underdogs for Wednesday’s season-opening showdown, with oddsmakers and the betting public seemingly banking on New England adapting well after last February’s 16-point defeat.

The Pats were essentially dominated for the majority of the time the game was still winnable, but with a high-end coaching staff having had a full offseason to analyze what went awry, it’s understandable why a closely contested rematch seems like the likeliest outcome. However, given the power of Seattle’s 12th man and the Seahawks’ talent level, it’s certainly possible for New England to play much better this time around and still come up short.

Given the modest number of points the conventional spread is affording us, utilizing FanDuel’s Alternate Spread feature seems prudent. As such, we’re giving the Pats four additional points to work with and pushing past the key number of seven points in the process.

New England had the league’s second-best average scoring margin on the road last regular season (+10.0 points), and the Patriots went 8-0 straight up when traveling while going 4-0 against the spread as a road underdog with an ATS +/- of +8.5 points.

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Stevenson was already expected to play a typically robust role in the Patriots’ ground attack once again this season, but volume expectations have been boosted for Week 1 with the news that TreVeyon Henderson will sit out Wednesday’s game due to his ankle injury.

Stevenson averaged a modest 9.3 rush attempts and 35.5 rushing yards per game during the 2025 regular season, but that naturally was a direct byproduct of Henderson seeing 180 carries across 500 snaps in his own right. With the dynamic second-year pro out of the picture Wednesday and recent trade acquisition Corey Kiner the only other back expected to be active, Stevenson will be tasked with plenty of work.

Trying to run on the Seahawks is typically a grind, as evidenced by the stingy 3.5 yards per carry they allowed to running backs during the 2025 regular season. Yet, this is a bet that banks on volume as much as anything else, not to mention a potentially better overall performance by New England’s offensive line with the help of lessons learned in last year’s Super Bowl.

In games last regular season and postseason in which Stevenson logged double-digit carries, he went 5-3 to the 50+ rushing yards prop, and he hit that figure on eight occasions overall. Seattle conceded 72.9 rushing yards per game to running backs last season, and with Stevenson likely to handle all but a handful of carries Wednesday, this is a figure very much in play.

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The likes of Sam Darnold, Jaxson Smith-Njigba or even rookie Jadarian Price may make for more exciting Seahawks players to focus our final leg on, but we’re going the road less traveled with Barner.

The talented tight end had a mini-breakout season of sorts in 2025 and then thrived in the Super Bowl win, the latter development not completely unforeseen considering how difficult the Pats can be on outside receivers. Barner finished the regular campaign with career bests across his receiving line (52-519-6) and then closed out Seattle’s title-winning run with four receptions for 54 yards and a touchdown in the Super Bowl.

Barner averaged a modest 30.5 receiving yards per game during the 2025 regular season, but even that figure is well beyond what we need Barner to do Wednesday. Moreover, with the newly minted Christian Gonzalez likely to shadow Smith-Njigba throughout the night after that strategy proved highly effective last time out, Barner should see a nice increase in pass-catching opportunities over the course of the game.

Then, the Pats finished the 2025 regular season allowing an average of 57.1 receiving yards per game to tight ends, a figure that Barner nearly matched in his aforementioned Super Bowl performance. New England also conceded a solid 72.4% catch rate to the position, which renders targeting Barner an easier proposition than trying to complete passes against Gonzalez and Carlton Davis.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com