Category Archives: Schedule

Schedule

Still looks like a 10-win season for the Seahawks

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As the Seahawks (3-2) get ready to embark on the final two-thirds of the season, they are sitting in the driver’s seat in the NFC West and are viewed as the likely winners of the division.

After Sunday’s games, FiveThirtyEight gives them a 56 percent chance to win the division and 66 percent chance to make the playoffs. Those numbers basically match what Football Outsiders had entering the weekend. Both models put the Hawks at about 10 wins, which is where we had them to start the season and where we still think they will end up.

Let’s take a look at the rest of their schedule:

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Schedule

After Green Bay, schedule is not bad

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2017 skedAside from a rough opener in Green Bay, the Seahawks got as good a schedule as they could have asked for as the NFL slate was announced Thursday.

They have no cold-weather games, only one 10 a.m. game and no back-to-back road games. They also play three of their four prime-time games at home and have a decently placed Week 6 bye.

The Seahawks will start the season with a very familiar foe as they head to Green Bay to play the Packers for the sixth time in six years. This one will bring a new twist as Eddie Lacy faces his old Packers teammates to open the season.

The Seahawks have not fared well in Green Bay, losing seven straight there by an average of 18.9 points, including a 38-10 blowout last December in which Russell Wilson played perhaps the worst game of his career.

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Schedule

Five prime-time games in pretty friendly schedule

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The Seahawks will have a chance to get off to a fast start before playing a host of night games at midseason and finishing with four West Coast games in the final five weeks as the NFC is decided, according to the NFL schedule released today.

The Seahawks tied 2015 with a team-record five prime-time games: at Arizona in Week 7, home vs. Buffalo in Week 9, at New England in Week 10, home vs. Carolina in Week 13 and home vs. the Rams in Week 15. They have three home night games for the first time since 2006.

They have just two 10 a.m. starts: at the Jets in Week 3 and at New Orleans in Week 8. The Seahawks are 8-8 in 10 a.m. starts since Russell Wilson became QB in 2012.

The Seahawks also have just two possible cold-weather games: at New England on Nov. 13 and at Green Bay on Dec. 11.

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Free agency, Schedule

Pre-draft look at 2016 opponents

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2016 opponentsIn the NFL, April is draft month. But it also has become schedule month.

Word is the NFL will release the schedule April 19-21, a week before the April 28-30 draft.

We already know their opponents, of course. Based on 2015 results, the Seahawks have the fifth-toughest schedule next season. There’s nothing new about that, though: Their 2015 schedule ranked fourth and their 2014 slate was sixth.

But those preseason rankings don’t reflect changes teams have made since the last season ended.

As we transition from free agency month into draft month, let’s see how Seattle’s opponents have changed since last season.

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Schedule

Seahawks will face Packers again next year

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Seahawks at Packers helmetsThe Minnesota-Green Bay game on Sunday night did more than settle Seattle’s playoff destination: It determined which NFC North team the Seahawks will face in 2016.

The Seahawks will play a second-place schedule next season, which means they will once again face the Green Bay Packers, who finished second to the Vikings in the North.

The Packers and Philadelphia Eagles were the only unknowns entering Week 17. The Hawks already were set to face the NFC South, AFC East and, of course, NFC West.

The Seahawks and Packers will face off for the fifth time in five years (assuming the teams don’t meet in the NFC title game again this season — a safe assumption considering how pathetic the Packers have become). Like this year, that game will be in Green Bay.

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Schedule, Super Bowl XL, Week 12: Pittsburgh

Here’s why Big Ben has never played in Seattle

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Big Ben SteelersA lot is being made of the fact that Seattle is the only place Ben Roethlisberger has not played in his 12-year career, but the fact is he and the Steelers were supposed to come in 2011. And then the NFL changed the scheduling rules.

Starting in 2010, teams from the East no longer had to make two trips to the West in a season. The Steelers were slated to go to San Francisco and Seattle in 2011, but the NFL swapped Seattle out for Arizona, and the Seahawks ended up going to Pittsburgh.

The Seahawks have played in Pittsburgh twice since the infamous Super Bowl XL, getting shut out both times — Mike Holmgren’s Super Bowl remnants lost 21-0 in Mike Tomlin’s first year leading the Steelers in 2007, and Pete Carroll’s rebuilding club lost 24-0 in 2011.

This meeting comes on the 10-year anniversary of the Super Bowl XL season, and the Steelers had a reunion of that team a few weeks ago. Four players — Roethlisberger, tight end Heath Miller, linebacker James Harrison and long snapper Greg Warren — remain on the Steelers from that Super Bowl team.

Roethlisberger joked to Seattle media, “That’s how you know you’re old — when they’re doing reunions and you’re still playing.”

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Schedule, State of the team, Week 9: Bye

Second half starts and ends with Arizona

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Seahawks-Cardinals logos Way back in April, we said a 4-4 start would be the worst case for the defending NFC champions. Well, unfortunately, here the Seahawks are.

Pete Carroll understatedly called their record “nothing to be shouting about.” Hell, it’s barely anything to whisper about.

“But,” he pointed out, in his oddball way of speaking, “it did put us in a position where we have a second half to really go forward. We have all of the matchups in the games that we need to play in the division to settle issues and go for it and take it as far as we can.”

He has to hope that is farther than the last time the Hawks started 4-4. In 2012, they rallied to finish 11-5 and had to hit the road for the playoffs, where they beat Washington and lost agonizingly in Atlanta (kinda like they have lost some of their games this season).

It’s just how Carroll’s slow-starting team typically does it. Since Russell Wilson became quarterback, the Seahawks have gotten better as the season has progressed. They are 20-12 (.625) in the first half and 20-4 (.833) in the second.

Last year, they rallied from 3-3 to finish 12-4, and Carroll thinks they are in a similar spot this year.

“I don’t think it feels much different than it did last year,” he said. “I think it’s very similar. It’s unfortunate that it takes us a while, but I think this is an opportunity to observe what it’s like to be where we’ve been and to come back.

“If we’re able to put the second half together like we plan on, then we’ll be really proud of that.”

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Schedule, State of the team, Week 6: Carolina

Odds look bad, but Hawks can still win NFC West

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“This league drives you to 8-8.” — Seahawks general manager John Schneider.

John Schneider has said it more than once: The NFL is built for parity and staying on top is a tough task.

Well, at a stunning 2-4, the Seahawks have a long way to go just to get to .500, and their playoff chances, based on history, do not look good. Since 1990, just 14 of 168 teams to start 2-4 have reached the playoffs (per NFL Stats). That’s an 8.3% chance.

But, the Seahawks are a team that has been made for rallies, and Pete Carroll and the players are optimistic they will figure out how to close out opponents and get it going. Plus, the NFC West is still very much within reach.

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Schedule

This schedule is much better than 2014

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Chris Matthews comes down with the onside kick amid several Packers (Seahawks.com)So, apparently if you lose a Super Bowl in agonizing fashion, you get a much friendlier schedule the next year.

For a team with the fourth-toughest schedule in the league (based on 2014 records), the Seahawks pulled as amenable a schedule as they could have requested Tuesday when the NFL released the full slate.

With a team-record five prime-time games, three straight contests at home in November, a perfectly placed midseason bye, no bad-weather games and a friendly final two months, the Seahawks have a much better setup than they faced in 2014. (Plus, they get Al Michaels calling games three times and we have to suffer through Jon Gruden just once.)

Last year, the Seahawks were among the first set of byes in Week 4 and finished with five rugged division games in the final six weeks — and they still claimed the top seed in the NFC for the second straight year.

Despite a tough early schedule, they are in good position to win the NFC for a third straight year.

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Schedule

Schedule coming April 23: Prime-time opener?

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Marshawn Lynch runs against the Packers in the NFC title game (Seahawks.com)
Will Marshawn Lynch and the Seahawks open at Green Bay on Sunday night?

The NFL schedule will be released next week, with April 23 the expected date — which leads to the question: Will the Seahawks open in prime time?

Because they blew the Super Bowl and lost the right to open at home on Thursday for the second straight year, Sunday night seems like a distinct possibility.

It’s not automatic that the Super Bowl loser gets the Sunday night slot to start the season (e.g., Denver did last year, but the 49ers did not in 2013). But Seattle at Green Bay — a rematch of the stunning NFC title game — would be a heckuva way to cap the first Sunday slate on Sept. 13. It would be the second straight year the Hawks and Packers opened the season against each other — but this time it would be in Green Bay.

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