Game-by-game capsules for Seahawks’ 2015 schedule

The leading story lines for all 16 games on the Seahawks’ 2015 regular-season schedule, which was announced Tuesday:

Week 1: at St. Louis. Expect a close one. Of Seattle’s last three games in St. Louis, none have been decided by more than six points. Also, expect a fair amount of trickery as the Rams have executed a fake field-goal, a fake punt and a fake punt return (yes, a fake punt return) over their past three home games against the Seahawks.

Week 2: at Green Bay. A rematch of the NFC Championship Game, which Seattle won by scoring two touchdowns in the final 3 minutes of the game and then winning in overtime on Russell Wilson’s throw to Jermaine Kearse. Seattle has lost four consecutive games in Green Bay if you include the postseason loss in January 2008. Not only that, but three of those four Packers victories were by more than 20 points.

Week 3: vs Chicago. This will be the fourth time the Seahawks have played the Bears under Pete Carroll, but the first time that Seattle will be at home. The last time the Bears played in Seattle? That was Week 3 in 2009, a game best remembered for Seattle’s day-glow green uniforms and the fact that Jim Mora bemoaned Olindo Mare’s lack of accuracy after the Seahawks’ loss.

Week 4: vs. Detroit. This game will be a Golden opportunity. Golden Tate, that is. And either it will be an opportunity for Tate to remind Seattle of what it lost when the Seahawks allowed him to leave as a free agent or for the Seahawks to show Tate what he’s missing here in Seattle. This will probably be the only time all season that Calvin Johnson isn’t the most scrutinized of Detroit’s receivers.

Week 5: at Cincinnati. Seattle gets a look at the path not traveled in this game, playing against Andy Dalton for the second time. Dalton was a quarterback the Seahawks strongly considered with their first-round pick in the 2011 draft. Instead, Seattle chose James Carpenter and while he certainly didn’t turn out to be a better player, you have to wonder if the Seahawks still would have drafted Wilson a year later were Dalton already on the team.

Week 6: vs. Carolina. This will be the fifth time in Carroll’s six seasons in Seattle that the Seahawks have faced Carolina. The past three meetings have all been in Charlotte, though. Seattle won each of those three meetings, none by more than five points. Expect the scores to be low. Neither team scored more than 16 points in any of the past three meetings.

Week 7: at San Francisco. The Seahawks wiped their feet off on the welcome mat of the 49ers’ new stadium on Thanksgiving last year, notching their first road victory against the 49ers since 2008. They also swept the regular-season series against the 49ers for the first time since 2007.

Week 8: at Dallas. The Seahawks have lost four of their last five regular-season games against the Cowboys and they haven’t won in Dallas since 2002. In the last three games in Dallas – all of which Seattle lost – the Cowboys have outscored the Seahawks by a combined total of 95-39.

Week 9: BYE

Week 10: vs. Arizona. The Cardinals are one of two teams to win at CenturyLink Field since Wilson became the team’s starting quarterback. Arizona has also supplanted San Francisco as the Seahawks’ chief rival within the division as Bruce Arians has led Arizona to 10 or more wins in consecutive seasons.

Week 11: vs. San Francisco. What was the best rivalry in the NFL over the past three years has been diluted by Jim Harbaugh’s departure to Michigan. The 49ers still have Colin Kaepernick, though, and with the Seahawks having won five the of last six games in the series (including the playoffs) there still going to be plenty of fire in this rivalry.

Week 12: vs. Pittsburgh. It’s been 12 years since the Seahawks scored a point against Pittsburgh, and while that span constitutes only two regular-season meetings, still, Seattle was shut out by the Steelers in 2007 and again in 2011. Both those games were in Pittsburgh, though. Now, the Seahawks are hosting the Steelers for just the second time in 20 years.

Week 13: at Minnesota. All the subplots between these franchises seem to have diminished. Any bad blood lingering over Steve Hutchinson’s free-agent contract dried up over the past 10 years. The Seahawks cut bait with Percy Harvin a year ago, eliminating that drama. It’s just another meeting between two teams from different divisions who played in Minnesota only once in the previous 10 seasons.

Week 14: at Baltimore. The Seahawks have never won a game in Baltimore. They lost the only two times they played the Ravens on the road (1997 and 2003) and never played the Colts on the road prior to that franchise’s moved to Indianapolis in 1984.

Week 15: vs. Cleveland. It’s a rematch of the worst game ever played. OK, that might be an exaggeration, but not much of one for the game the Seahawks played against the Browns in Cleveland in 2011. Neither team scored a touchdown in the Browns’ 6-3 victory. Red Bryant blocked two field-goal attempts before being ejected for head-butting an opponent, but the Seahawks were really kicking themselves over Charlie Whitehurst’s performance.

Week 16: vs. St. Louis. The Seahawks haven’t lost at home to the Rams in a decade. Seriously. It has been 10 years. And the Rams have scored more than 14 points in only one of those 10 consecutive losses in Seattle. The Seahawks have hosted the Rams in the regular-season finale in four of Carroll’s five seasons as Seahawks coach.

Week 17: at Arizona. This site isn’t most memorable for the two prime-time victories the Seahawks had in Arizona over the past two seasons. It’s not even about the rough start in this building as the Seahawks were beaten four of the first five times they played in the Cardinals’ new stadium. This is a return to the site of the Super Bowl and the yard Seattle failed to gain in the final minute of a gut-wrenching loss to the Patriots.

Related

49ers WR Mike Evans will miss 2nd straight game, but Bosa is backEven with injuries, it’s a ‘no excuse’ game for Seahawks vs CardinalsMariners hiring Washington native Tanner Swanson as bench coachInjury Report: Seahawks rule out 7 players vs CardinalsSeahawks LG Quenton Nelson to undergo ‘minor’ knee procedureReport: 4-star QB Titus Huard visiting UW Huskies this weekend