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Game Day
Eleven Straight. Number Twelve Is the Franchise Record.
Seattle kicks off in Glendale this afternoon with an eleven-game winning streak in hand, playoffs included, and CBS Sports notes that ties the longest run in franchise history, set back in 2005. Win today and this team owns the record outright. Nobody in the building has said a word about it all week, which is exactly what you’d expect from a Macdonald operation and also slightly maddening for those of us who count things.
11
Consecutive wins including the playoffs — tied for the most in Seahawks history, matching the 2005 team.
The streak against Arizona specifically sits at nine, and Seattle has taken 13 of the last 16 meetings dating to 2018. That is the kind of ownership that gets a rivalry demoted to a scheduling formality. The Cardinals would very much like a word about that, having just gone into SoFi and dismantled the Chargers as the biggest underdog on the Week 1 board.
So the setup is almost unfair to the people holding the record. Sam Darnold is out with the glute. Drew Lock starts. Anthony Bradford got ruled out Saturday afternoon. Tory Horton plays his first football in 318 days. Rodney Thomas II is starting again after being elevated off the practice squad for the second week running. That is the roster being asked to protect a twenty-one-year-old franchise mark, on the road, in a stadium where the air conditioning is the only thing keeping anyone upright.
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Streaks are fun until somebody asks you to protect one with your backup quarterback and a guard making his first career start.
And of all the places to go chasing history. Field Gulls ran through the ledger: this is the building where Quandre Diggs’s leg went in the 2021 finale, the last game Russell Wilson ever played in a Seattle uniform, and the site of Super Bowl XLIX. State Farm Stadium has taken more from us than it has ever given back. Today it can settle up.
SOURCES →
Offensive Line
Christian Haynes Waited Two Years for a Start. He Got Four Hours’ Notice.
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Haynes was a third-round pick in 2024, 81st overall out of UConn, and he has spent two full seasons as a guy whose name comes up in August and then goes quiet until the following August. Now he draws a divisional road game, a hostile home opener, a defensive front that just held the Chargers to 3.4 yards a carry, and a quarterback behind him who has taken exactly one week of first-team reps.
There is no version of this that is gentle. SI’s read is that Beau Stephens isn’t ready, which leaves the interior of Seattle’s line held together by a third-year man who has never taken a first snap and a left guard spot that already lost Mason Richman to injured reserve for the year. Ten penalties in the opener, three of them false starts, and now a new voice in the middle of the line on the road. I would love to be relaxed about this.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Rodney Thomas II was elevated from the practice squad for the second straight game Saturday. He started the opener, tipped the ball that became Seattle’s first interception, and still has to get called up every week like a temp worker with a lanyard. Seahawks.com
The defending champions drew a late regional window on FOX rather than a national broadcast. Ten months removed from a Super Bowl and most of the country gets somebody else. Fine. We watched this team in the Kingdome. We can handle a coverage map. Field Gulls
Seattle opened as a 5.5-point road favorite and was listed at 4.5 by Saturday. The market watched Arizona beat the Chargers, watched Darnold get ruled out, and quietly moved a point toward the home team. Money is rarely sentimental. Bleacher Nation
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
Sean McVay announced Saturday that Puka Nacua would not practice and is questionable for Monday night against the Giants with a groin injury, a second straight day sidelined. Los Angeles is 0-1, hosting a prime-time game, and the best receiver on the roster spent the weekend not practicing. The Australia trip keeps producing gifts.
NINERS
ESPN’s Seth Walder made his bold Week 2 call on San Francisco: “The Dolphins won’t record a single QB hit against Brock Purdy.” That’s the prediction. Not a win, not a blowout. Nobody will touch him. Somewhere in Santa Clara that got printed out and pinned to a wall, and honestly, good for them.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This linebacker was Seattle’s second-round pick, 47th overall, in the 2012 draft out of Utah State, and led the entire NFL in tackles in 2016 with 167. Who is he?
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Bobby Wagner. Seattle found a decade of All-Pro middle linebacker play in the middle of round two, which is the kind of pick that buys a front office about fifteen years of benefit of the doubt.
THIS DAY IN SEAHAWKS HISTORY
2020
September 20, 2020
Cam Newton Gets Stopped at the One
Sunday night at CenturyLink Field, Seattle beat New England 35-30 when Cam Newton was stopped at the 1-yard line on the final play of the game. Russell Wilson threw five touchdown passes and still needed his defense to make one stop with the clock at zero. Six years later Seattle opened this season against the Patriots again, and again it came down to the defense in the final seconds.
Got a Question? Feed It to the Rooster.
Contract math, depth-chart grievances, or a theory about why this team only plays well when we’re all miserable. Send it in. The good ones run, the unhinged ones run first.
Eleven in the bank. Go take the record. — The Rooster