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Game Day
The Banner Goes Up at 5:20, and Then Nobody Is Allowed to Mention It Again
Football is back tonight on a Wednesday, which should feel wrong and somehow does not. Seattle raises its second Super Bowl banner into the Lumen Field roof, and then plays the team it beat 29-13 to earn the thing. Kickoff is 5:20 p.m. PT on NBC. Drake Maye gets to stand on our grass and watch the ceremony first.
Mike Macdonald has spent the week aggressively refusing to enjoy any of this. “It’s business as usual,” he told reporters. “That’s really our directive to our team, the way we want to train, the way we want to play games.” He went further: “There is a lot of circumstance that comes around with this game, as did our last game, but our focus has to stay on who we are and how we play ball.” Business as usual, on the one night of the year when the entire sport is watching your building. Sure.
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You cannot raise a banner and pretend the ceiling is empty. Everyone in the building is going to look up. The trick is what happens after they look back down.
The captains for tonight are Sam Darnold, Ernest Jones IV, Leonard Williams and Brady Russell, and Macdonald rotates that group every week rather than naming them for the season. A fullback walking out for the coin toss of the opener is not an accident. Brian Fleury’s offense wants a lead blocker on the field, and Macdonald just put one at midfield in front of a national audience before a single snap.
Seattle opened as a 3.5-point favorite and the line has not moved. The over/under sits at 44.5. Both of those numbers feel small for a team that went 14-3 and won the division last year, which tells you exactly what oddsmakers think of a Patriots roster that spent the offseason shopping.
3.5
Seattle’s point spread against New England, unchanged since the line opened.
SOURCES →
Injury Report
Seattle Rules Out Its Starting Safety on the Night A.J. Brown Comes to Town
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Safeties on Seattle’s 53-man roster without an injury designation for tonight.
The bench behind him is a phone list. A.J. Finley, D’Anthony Bell and Maxen Hook are all sitting on the practice squad waiting to be elevated, and Bell has been taking first-team reps for weeks precisely because everyone saw this coming.
Now the fun part. The Patriots offense that shows up tonight is not the one from February. New England traded for A.J. Brown and added Romeo Doubs this offseason, and Drake Maye said it is hard not to be excited about the group. He is not wrong, and I do not love that he is not wrong.
The consolation is that New England is banged up too. Defensive tackle Christian Barmore, center Ben Brown and running back TreVeyon Henderson all sat out practice, and Henderson has been downgraded to out. Opening night arrives with both Super Bowl teams handing each other a shortened roster and calling it a rematch.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Jadarian Price makes his NFL debut tonight as the first running back Seattle has taken in the first round since Rashaad Penny in 2018. That comparison is doing nobody any favors, so let’s all agree to never say it again after this sentence. Yahoo Sports
New England ruled out running back TreVeyon Henderson, who has not practiced since August 24 with an ankle injury. Their most explosive back watches the opener in a hoodie. We will take it, and we will not ask questions about karma. Boston.com
Josh Jones, the lone listed backup at both tackle spots, was limited all week with a knee and no longer appears on the injury report. Seattle’s entire offensive tackle insurance policy is one guy, and this week he passed his physical. Small mercies. Yahoo Sports
Mike Tomlin makes his regular-season broadcasting debut on NBC’s kickoff show tonight, with Maria Taylor hosting alongside Jason Garrett and Devin McCourty. A man who spent eighteen years refusing to say anything interesting into a microphone now gets paid to say interesting things into a microphone. NBC
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
Sean McVay confirmed Tuesday that Aaron Donald will not play in Melbourne, and more specifically that he is not getting on the plane at all. Los Angeles talked a 35-year-old out of retirement in August and he will spend the season opener in a completely different hemisphere from his teammates. Myles Garrett, meanwhile, will play through the knee that cost him most of camp. One superstar defensive tackle is inactive, the other is available, and the Rams open their Super Bowl push at 10:35 in the morning local time.
NINERS
San Francisco flew to the other side of the planet, settled into Melbourne, and then made its big pre-opener roster move: promoting long snapper Jon Weeks to the active roster and waiving a tight end to do it. Eight thousand miles, nine days of acclimation, an entire continent of buildup, and the headline transaction is the guy who touches the ball twice a game. Hope the flight was comfortable.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
Seattle’s general manager spent two fourth-round picks to move up nine spots in the second round of the 2005 draft for an undersized USC linebacker, who then made the Pro Bowl in each of his first three NFL seasons. Who is he?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
Lofa Tatupu, taken 45th overall. Tim Ruskell got roasted for trading up for a linebacker some teams graded below the second round, and Tatupu led the Seahawks in tackles all three of those Pro Bowl years and made first-team All-Pro in 2007.
THIS DAY IN SEAHAWKS HISTORY
2018
September 9, 2018
Von Miller Ruins the Opener in Denver
Seattle opened the 2018 season at Denver and lost 27-24, largely because Von Miller sacked Russell Wilson three times, forced two fumbles and recovered one of them. It was Case Keenum’s debut as the Broncos quarterback, and Seattle spent the afternoon watching its franchise passer get chased around a stadium a mile above sea level. The Seahawks recovered well enough to make the playoffs that year, but the opener was a reminder of what happens when the pass protection has a bad Sunday.
Yell Your Question Into the Void
The mailbag is open and the season is finally real. Send your questions about the safety room, the running back rotation, or whatever you plan to be irrationally angry about by halftime tonight.
It starts tonight. Try not to lose your voice before halftime. — The Rooster