Inside the Lines Seahawks-Cardinals TNF picks: Seattle a live dog, back Sam Darnold, fade Kyler Murray

The Inside the Lines team uses its proven NFL model to identify our best SportsLine player projections versus the best available odds to build our best bets.

By Stephen Oh

& Inside the Lines Team

Sep 25, 2025 at 10:16 am ET • 7 min read

Inside the Lines team

The SportsLine Projection Model was developed and powered by the Inside the Lines team. You can visit SportsLine for our model's main market bets (spread, total, money line) but if you are looking for ALL our personal best bets for free, check out our recently launched Inside the Lines blog. These are just a fraction of our best bets, which are all free on our new blog.

We will be providing our team's personal best bets for every NFL game during the 2025 season. We are coming off of a 23-13 +7.5 unit Week 3 in the NFL.

Here are our picks for Thursday Night Football, Seattle Seahawks at Arizona Cardinals.

Seattle +1.5 (-118 DraftKings)

DraftKings is charging -105 for the Seattle money line, which implies 51.2% and is basically the same as our 53.1% simulation win percentage. The +1.5 at -118 translates to 54.1%, and the model gives Seattle a 57% of covering that line, which makes the spread a slightly better value.

The model projects Arizona for 22 points, which is basically what the odds imply, but it has Seattle at nearly 23 points, which is solid value over their 21.3 implied team total. Sam Darnold is projected for 244 passing yards, which is why the Seahawks are live underdogs. Usually, the road team playing on Thursday Night struggles, but the Seahawks barely had to play after the first half versus New Orleans because they were up so much, so they should be as well-rested as you can be on a short week.

Sam Darnold Over 215.5 Passing Yards (-115 Fanatics)

Darnold averaged over 250 passing yards in Minnesota last season, but with his move to Seattle, his line is down to just 215.5 yards. But I think it's a great value because his lower per game average after three weeks (just 221) is down because he had only 23 pass attempts vs San Francisco in Week 1 and only 18 attempts in the blowout victory vs the Saints.

Darnold's passing yards per attempt is way up from 7.9 in Minnesota to just under 9 with Seattle. Kenneth Walker III rushed for 2 TDs but he only had 38 yards on 16 carries. Zach Charbonnet missed Week 3 and only had 10 rushing yards on 15 carries in Week 2.

Arizona's defense has dominated vs the run allowing just 76 yards and 3.8 ypc. This has forced teams to try to attack them through the air. Arizona's yards per attempt is fantastic at 5.8 ypa allowed but teams have been forced to be pass heavy (47 attempts per game) so Darnold may not have a great game on a per attempt basis, but he should still go over.

Tory Horton Over 1.5 Receptions (-165 BetMGM)

Horton has had 4 targets, 32 rec yards and 1 rectd in Week 2 and Week 3. We are still getting a slightly under the radar line on him and I think this will be the last week we get that. Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Cooper Kupp's combined rec lines add up to 10 and Darnold's completion line is a juiced over 19.5.

JSN and Kupp have 33 of 54 team receptions (61%) but have lines that are only 50% of Darnold's completions. The line is based on Horton's 9.3% of team receptions after 3 games, but he had none in Week 1. Since establishing himself as WR3 he's had over 13% of team receptions which is why we are projecting well over 1.5 (3.1 projection). We like Darnold for 23 completions which is why we are so high on his yardage over.

Trey Benson Over 60.5 Rushing Yards (-114 FanDuel)

Our projected rush attempts for Benson is actually slightly under his 14.5 line so it's quite notable that we are projecting him for well over 70 rushing yards.

It's definitely awful that James Conner is out for the season and perhaps Benson will not be able to hold up all season as RB1, but I like his superior per carry explosiveness (5.6 ypc in career vs 4.4 for Conner last few seasons). Backup RB Emari Demercado's line is around 13.5 and Kyler Murray's is around 28.5.

So this line implies right around 100 rushing yards for the team. Our model relies heavily on last year's stats early in the season and last season the Cardinals averaged 163 rushing yards per game at 5.5 ypc. Seattle allowed 123 yards per game on the road at 4.7 ypc. As a result we have Arizona projected for 140 team rushing yards which results in a lot of over value for Benson.

Kyler Murray Over 0.5 Interceptions (+110)

While Fanduel has this at -113 some smaller books do have it at +110. Our model would price this at -110 so this is only a good value at +$$$.

Murray has averaged more interceptions at home (0.8) than on the road (0.6) and his over% is 56.8% at home (vs 47.6% on the road). He has taken care of the ball well this season with just 1 INT but they have also scored just 21 pts per game which is a low number when you've played the Saints and Panthers.

Seattle has 5 interceptions this season (2nd most in the league) and they've been playing without elite CB Devon Witherspoon and 2nd round pick, Nick Emmanwori. If both are back then this line will probably cost you more so lock this in at a good price now.

Props Cheat Sheet

The table below was updated on 9/25 at around 10 am EST so the lines may not match what you see above. If you're not feeling the picks above these are the ones that have projection value vs the best line / price. The projected value is in [brackets] and the sportsbook with the best line is in (parentheses). The cover rate since the start of 2024 and the current season are displayed.

What makes a bet an "Inside the Lines Best Bet?"

These are ones where:

1) Best Projection: Our SportsLine Model's projection shows clear value versus the line and we love certain statistical trends, X's and O's and subjective supporting data that supports our side but isn't directly factored into the model. For example, say we love a running back to go Over 14.5 carries and his backup is projected for 5.5 carries, but the backup is questionable and there's a chance he can be ruled out, which surely will change our projection to 16.5 (third-stringer gets 3.5) and the line would likely go from 12.5 to 15.5. If we have value on a side and the only unknown factors that will change are in our favor, we'll consider it our "Best Projection."

AND

2) Best Price: There is an outlier best price that we should take advantage of before it steams in "our direction." In most of these cases, the best-priced book is using "standard odds making logic" to set the line, but our team has identified a unique situation where standard odds rules don't apply. For example, maybe a player is -110 to throw an interception, but in his last three seasons he has averaged just 0.4 interceptions on the road compared to 0.7 at home because the team plays on a fast track at home and averages 5+ more pass attempts at home.

Step 1 provides greater accuracy and Step 2, especially when combined with a nice Profit Boost or Promotion, significantly lowers the bar for being profitable ... which is why we like to feature our best line sportsbooks offer.