Huard: Why facing Wilson and Broncos in Week 1 helps the Seahawks

The Seahawks open the 2022 season with one of the more notable games on their 17-game schedule when they face off with former quarterback Russell Wilson and his new team, the Denver Broncos.

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For the first time in his soon-to-be 11-year career, Wilson will be in a new uniform and he and his new team will open a season filled with high expectations against the Seahawks on Monday Night Football in Seattle.

Former NFL quarterback Brock Huard discussed the Week 1 matchup during the latest Brock and Salk Podcast for Seattle Sports 710 AM, and he thinks the Seahawks are facing Wilson and the Broncos at the perfect time.

“I think huge advantage for the Seahawks. Huge advantage to play Week 1 in that building where it will be full throat, where the tickets are impossible to get,” Huard said.

Not only do the Seahawks have an edge because of the great homefield advantage Lumen Field provides, but they know Wilson “inside and out,” Huard said, and it will be the first game for Wilson and first-time head coach Nathaniel Hackett.

“You have Russell and Nathaniel Hackett (together for) the first time doing the rodeo together, riding together,” Huard said. “First-time head coach in that environment, Russell coming back into that environment, they’ve got to learn each other.”

Huard noted that the Broncos, in their first year with Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning, struggled to the tune of a 2-3 start at the beginning of the 2012 season, and that was with a longtime NFL head coach in John Fox running the show.

“Nathaniel Hackett is going to be learning on the job,” Huard said. “Russell knows the game. He’s healthier than Peyton Manning was when he came back from his neck injury. So there’s that little caveat to it. But yeah, I think it is a huge, huge advantage.”

While many of the defenders Wilson will be facing are his former teammates, the defense will be different looking due to a change in the coaching staff.

That could help the Seahawks against Wilson because it’s not what he’ll be used to seeing from those players, as well as because there will be no real film on that new-look defense to that point.

“What Russell knew of the Seahawks both from personnel but even more so from the scheme is very, very different from what he is going to see. Huge unknowns in that way,” Huard said. “I think advantage to the Seahawks. The Seahawks don’t really know who they are or aren’t and have not struggled, have not had some losses, have not had some tough bumps in the road … I think all the way around the league did the Seahawks an enormous favor scheduling that one (Week 1) in Seattle with all of those unknowns.”

Listen to the full Brock and Salk Podcast at this link or in the player below.

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