Silver lining? Last-place finish means Seahawks get a last-place NFL schedule for 2022
For most of the last decade the Seahawks have gotten the more challenging end of the NFL’s system of parity-by-scheduling.
Next season they get what is designed to be the easier end.
After its first losing season since 2011, a first-to-worst year in the NFC West, Seattle’s opponents for 2022 will be dotted with teams that also just finished in last place and out of the playoffs with the Seahawks.
Seattle’s schedule for next season will have just three of 11 games outside the division against teams that are entering the playoffs this month. They are Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Las Vegas.
The Seahawks’ schedule of 11 non-division games for the 2021 season coming off their division title had seven playoff teams from the previous year on it.
Finishing last in the NFC West means the Seahawks host the New York Jets, the last-place finishers in the AFC East, as their 17th game in 2022. Seattle and all NFC teams get an extra home game next season for a total of nine home dates. That’s part of the NFL’s alternating of its new, interconference, 17th game between AFC and NFC stadiums each year.
This past season the the 2020 NFC West-champion Seahawks had to play at Pittsburgh, the AFC North champions from the previous year. Seattle lost that game in overtime, one of three Russell Wilson missed following surgery on the middle finger of his throwing hand in October.
That was one of five games the Seahawks (7-10) lost by three points or fewer this past season.
“We’ve been so close throughout the whole season. The biggest difference that everyone had to suffer through was the close games that we didn’t win because we’ve been winning those games for years,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said.
“I think we were 7-1 in similar score situations at the end of the game last year, and we were 0-5 (this season). That’s the whole season, that’s it. You can look at all the millions of things, criticize this and that. That’s where it really went to.”
The Seahawks are playing the entire NFC South next season. But instead of playing the top teams from 2021 from the conference’s other two divisions, NFC North and East, in 2022, Seattle gets the last-place New York Giants and Detroit Lions.
That sure beats a seemingly annual game against the excellent Green Bay Packers most of the last decade, including this most recent November. That was the return game for Wilson from surgery. It became his first career shutout loss, 17-0.
The Seahawks’ opponents for the 2022 season, with dates and times to be announced by the league this spring:
HOME
Arizona
Los Angeles Rams
San Francisco
Atlanta
Carolina
Denver
Las Vegas
New York Giants
New York Jets
AWAY
Arizona
Los Angeles Rams
San Francisco
New Orleans
Tampa Bay
Kansas City
Los Angeles Chargers
Detroit
This story was originally published January 12, 2022 at 7:23 AM.
