Seahawks’ Week 7 matchup in Arizona flexed to Sunday Night Football
Oct 22, 2020, 1:05 PM | Updated: 1:21 pm
The Seahawks' Week 7 game with the Cardinals has been flexed to primetime. (Getty)
(Getty)
For the third time in six games, the Seahawks will once again be under the bright lights of Sunday Night Football in front of a national audience, as Seattle’s game against the Arizona Cardinals has been flexed to the primetime slot for Week 7.
Wassell: Hawks wouldn’t score as much as they are if they didn’t need to
Initially, the Seahawks and Cardinals were scheduled to face off at the typical West Coast start time of a 1 p.m. kickoff while the Sunday night game was initially between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Raiders are 3-2 and the Buccaneers are 4-2, so it wasn’t flexed due to a poor matchup, but rather “out of an abundance of caution to ensure that a game would be available for fans on Sunday Night Football,” a press release from the NFL said. This is stemming from Raiders offensive lineman Trent Brown testing positive for COVID-19, which resulted in Las Vegas sending other members of its O-line home.
Here’s the full release, which was posted on Twitter by NFL Vice President of Communications Brian McCarthy:
Scheduling update pic.twitter.com/yKH2NjEQTh
— Brian McCarthy (@NFLprguy) October 22, 2020
The Seahawks enter their sixth game of the year 5-0 after a Week 6 bye, while the Cardinals are 4-2 and are tied with the Los Angeles Rams for second place in the NFC West. The Cardinals opened the season with a win over the San Francisco 49ers, but for the Seahawks, this will be their first divisional game after beating the Atlanta Falcons, New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins and Minnesota Vikings to start 2020.
As noted, this will be Seattle’s third appearance on Sunday Night Football already this year, and the Seahawks still have two primetime games on the schedule (with chances for more games to be flexed), including against the Cardinals on Thursday Night Football in Seattle in Week 11 and a Monday Night Football matchup in Philadelphia against the Eagles Week 12.
Kickoff of Seahawks-Cardinals will be at 5:20 p.m. Sunday. Hear full coverage on 710 ESPN Seattle and KIRO Radio 97.3 FM beginning with the pregame show at 2 p.m.
Stadium a mixed bag for Hawks
State Farm Stadium, formerly known as University of Phoenix Stadium, has been an interesting venue for the Seahawks in recent years, to say the least.
Seattle has not lost to the Cardinals in the Glendale, Ariz., venue since 2012, but the team had a very strange 6-6 tie in primetime there in 2016 and, most notably, that field is the site of where the Seahawks lost Super Bowl 49 to the Patriots on a goal-line interception.
Additionally, University of Phoenix Stadium has been the site of many big injuries for the Seahawks, such as Kam Chancellor’s career-ending injury, Earl Thomas’ broken leg (and subsequent middle finger to Pete Carroll), and most recently Will Dissly’s torn patellar tendon in 2018.
Third matchup versus Kingsbury, Murray
The Cardinals went a different direction with their team last season, drafting Heisman-winning quarterback Kyler Murray from Oklahoma first overall and hiring former Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury as head caoach.
Murray and Kingsbury went 5-10-1 last year and Murray was Offensive Rookie of the Year. The duo split the season series with the Seahawks, as well.
The Seahawks handled the Cardinals in Arizona 27-10 in Week 4, but the Cardinals came up to Seattle in Week 16 and gave the Hawks a demoralizing 27-13 defeat while sacking Russell Wilson five times. Four of those sacks were by Chandler Jones, who is out for this season with a biceps injury.
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