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The Seattle Seahawks are set to take on the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL’s divisional round of the playoffs on Saturday, January 17, at Lumen Field.
The playoff game is at 5 p.m. Pacific time, 8 p.m. Eastern time, which is a good timeslot, but now, the NFL is getting criticism for their decision on this particular game.
The Seattle Seahawks just came off a Week 18 win over the 49ers in Santa Clara, but that doesn’t mean all of the Hawks‘ game plans against the 49ers have been used. On Monday, January 12, Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said the team has plenty more plays up their sleeves.
“There’s things in the game plan [from Week 18] that we didn’t get to,” Macdonald told reporters. “I’m sure there’s things in their game plan they didn’t get to and to use the game declaring itself type thing. You don’t know how these games are going to go.”
He added, “And so this game is going to play out. There’s about a 99.999 percent chance it’s going to play out way different than the last one. And you got to do a great job of recognizing it and making the adjustments and doing all that type of stuff.”
In a Monday, January 12, feature for SI, Dan Viens sounds off on the Seahawks and 49ers schedule. He makes the point that top seeds usually get to play on Sunday, so they get an extra day to rest. But, that hasn’t been the case for five years, according to NFL research, and it’s not happening this year.
“The 1 seeds have gotten the Saturday division round games for five straight years now,” Josh Dubow of the AP noted in a post on X. “That’s often a perk of 1 seed, making sure an extra day before conference title game.”
In his piece, Viens says that it may appear that Seattle is “being slighted by being given the Saturday spot instead of Sunday which is widely viewed as the more attractive national television stage.”
That’s true, in that fewer people will be watching the game, and that gives both teams the short end of the stick. But, Viens also makes the good point that it also means the 49ers, who just came off a 23-19 win over the Eagles, won’t have as much time to rest up for the Seahawks game. That will help Seattle.
“By placing the Seahawks/49ers game on Saturday it gives Kyle Shanahan’s 12-5 49ers one less day to recover and prepare after their bruising 23-19 win in Philadelphia over the Eagles,” he notes in the piece.
Plus, on Sunday, January 11, after the 49ers’ win, coach Kyle Shanahan made it clear that he wanted a Sunday game, so he didn’t get his wish, and he and the 49ers are likely pushing back on that call. “Glad we’ve got another shot (against the Seahawks),” he said. “If the NFL is cool and understanding, they’ll make it Sunday.”
That didn’t happen. So, while fewer people will be watching the game on Saturday, it does give the Seahawks a small advantage.
Saturday’s game at Lumen Field will mark the Seattle Seahawks’ first home playoff game of the season.
