Written before the game and kept as published. Final: New England Patriots 10, Seattle Seahawks 13 — the graded call is above.
Week 1 is the widest-error week of the season for every model, ours included — nothing about 2026 is on tape yet, and the ratings are priors, not measurements. With that stated plainly: the Seahawks rate +3.9 (1st), the Patriots +3.3 (3rd), and the model opens on the Seahawks by 2.5, 57% to win. Every number on this page will move more between now and kickoff than it will in any week that follows.
Season-long, the model can barely split them: 10.2 projected wins for the Seahawks against 10.0 for the Patriots, favored in 15 and 13 of their 17 respectively. Two teams heading for the same neighborhood in the standings tend to produce exactly this kind of line. This game sits 8th-hardest on the Seahawks' schedule and 1st-hardest on the Patriots'. Nothing on the Patriots' schedule projects harder than this one.
No unit matchup in this game separates by even a point on our scale. The Seahawks grade +1.8 on offense (7th of 32) and +1.2 on defense (2nd); the Patriots +2.1 (5th) and +1.1 (3rd). Evenly-graded units on both sides of the ball is exactly the profile that produces a model line built from nothing but home field, though special teams does tilt to the Seahawks (+0.9, 1st).
Scheduling note: this is a Wednesday game — the only one on the schedule that day — so it sits outside the main Sunday slate.
One team has owned this series: the Seahawks are 4-2 in 6 regular-season meetings since 2002. They have also met 2 times in the playoffs. They last met in 2024: Seahawks won 23-20 in September. Over their last 4 meetings the Seahawks are 4-0. Worth saying plainly — the model does not know any of that. It reads 2026 ratings and nothing else, so a lopsided series is a story, not a number on this page.
Calibration check, because a near-even number is the easiest kind to overtrust: across 3266 walk-forward games (2013-2024) the model gave a side 55-60% in 797 of them, and those sides won 57%. The Seahawks at 57% are in that band. A margin that thin is why we would rather wait for a price than call it a lean.
Kalshi's KXNFLGAME-26SEP09NESEA contract implies 50% for the Seahawks against our 57% — a 7.5-point gap. That clears our 5-point threshold, which flags the Seahawks as the value side.
Prediction markets are not sportsbooks — you trade a contract that settles at $1 or $0, not a wager against a house line. Informational only; trade responsibly.