Seahawks’ 2020 schedule released

RENTON — The Seahawks have three of their first five games at home, then an early bye in week six before finishing with three of their last five games at home—and with two NFC West biggies: home against the Rams, then at the 49ers in the finale.

That’s the crux of Seattle’s 2020 schedule. The NFL on Thursday became the first American sports league with a certified plan to play games after the coronavirus pandemic fully arrived in this country.

Now playing all 16 of those games? Many scientists and public-health officials believe that will dependent on our nation dramatically increasing its testing capability by September, to ensure enough people are not spreading the COVID-19 virus to safely conduct sports events and all the travel, logistical and in-stadium support that goes into them.

There’s the possibility the games go on as scheduled but without fans, if states such as Washington continue with social-distancing orders prohibiting large public gatherings.

The Seahawks have four primetime, television-showcase games in 2020: home to the Tom Brady-less New England Patriots on Sunday night, Sept. 20; week 5 at home against Minnesota on another Sunday night; week 11, a Thursday night home game Nov. 19 against the division-rival Arizona Cardinals; and the following week, Nov. 30, at the Eagles in a Monday-night rematch of January’s NFC wild-card game won by the Seahawks in Philadelphia.

The Seahawks are 27-7-1 in prime time under coach Pete Carroll since he began coaching the Seahawks in 2010. That’s the best such record in the NFL in that span.

The Seahawks had five primetime games in 2019. Their last regular-season primetime game last year was the finale that got “flexed” into an evening start, the NFC West division title game against San Francisco Dec. 29.

Once again, the NFL will have flex scheduling possible from weeks 5-17. Games currently scheduled to be Sunday-afternoon kickoffs could move to Sunday at 5:15 p.m. on NBC if they become more attractive then. Games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (six days for the final week 17).

If all goes according to plan in the NFC West, there’s a good chance the Seahawks-49ers regular-season finale on Jan. 3, 2021 again gets flexed into prime time.

Seattle’s bye is early, in week six. That means unless the Seahawks secure the number-one seed in the NFC playoffs with the conference’s best record, they would play 15 consecutive games without a week off to win the Super Bowl for the second time in franchise history.

The Seahawks not having a division game until Oct. 25 comes with the hope the pandemic’s restrictions will have eased even more by then, and enough to ensure teams play those key games to decide who’s in, and who will host in, the playoffs.

This season, that playoff race gets bigger and, in theory, better. The league has expanded the playoffs to include one additional team in each conference, to seven per NFC and AFC, and 14 total in the NFL. The top seed (the team in each conference with the best record) gets the lone first-round bye. The other six seeds play each other in the wild-card round in early January. The other three division winners who are not the top seed will host the last three seeds, the wild cards, in the new first-round playoff games.

The league did not do as expected and front-load all schedules with the interconference games—each team has four NFC-versus-AFC games per season—into the first weeks of the season. That would have allowed a uniform cutting of games that theoretically have the least impact on division-championship races, if the pandemic necessitates a shorter NFL season. Sixteen games could easily have become 12 if the season must begin in mid-October, by eliminating those cross-conference games.

The league did, however, build a couple escape plans into the front end of the schedule in the event it needs to cancel games.

Every game in the second week has teams playing each other that have the same bye week. So if that week’s games have to be scrapped by the coronavirus, they can easily be rescheduled to the week those teams were scheduled to be off.

In weeks three and four, the NFL made sure there are no division games. And each of the 32 teams has one home and one away game in those two weeks. So if one of both of those September game are canceled, the effect will be same competitively for each team.

Seattle is playing the AFC East in 2020, per the league’s annual rotation of divisions versus divisions.

The game at Buffalo in week nine, Sunday Nov. 8, if it happens, will be the Seahawks’ first there since Sept. 7, 2008. That Buffalo game also will mean Russell Wilson will have played in every NFL stadium.

Up to now he’s never played in Orchard Park, N.Y. in the Bills’ home New Era Stadium (formerly Rich Stadium). The Seahawks played a “road” game against the Bills during Wilson’s rookie season of 2012. But Buffalo got paid to move its home game against Seattle to Toronto. The Seahawks routed the Bills 50-17 that day.

“It’s one of my favorite parts of playing in the National Football League, is the traveling and playing in all these different venues,” he said in September, before checking Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field and Cleveland’s First Energy Stadium off career list for the first time last season. “I love playing on the road.”

Seattle’s preseason opponents and order are set for August into early September, with exact dates and times to be determined:

Home against the Las Vegas Raiders at Houston

Home against the Los Angeles Chargers at Minnesota (likely Thursday, Sept. 3)

Seahawks’ 2020 regular season schedule

Sunday, Sept. 13 at Atlanta, 10 a.m. FOX

Sunday, Sept. 20 NEW ENGLAND, 5:20 p.m. NBC

Sunday, Sept. 27 DALLAS, 1:25 p.m. FOX

Sunday, Oct. 4 at Miami, 10 a.m., FOX

Sunday, Oct. 11 MINNESOTA, 5:20 p.m. NBC

Oct. 18 BYE (week 6)

Sunday, Oct. 25 at Arizona, 1:05 p.m. FOX

Sunday, Nov. 1 SAN FRANCISCO, 1:25 p.m. FOX