My take! Seattle Seahawks 2012 schedule: love ‘em & hate ‘em

Love/Hate Relationship with Schedule Makers

I love prime time games as a fan. As a season ticket holder of the Seahawks and a share holder of the Packers I am very excited for the September 24th Monday Night Football game at Century Link Field.

Love ‘em

Prime Time

Ever since Mike Holmgren chose to leave the Packers to take over as Head Coach/General Manager of the Seahawks in 1999 the two teams have been very intertwined.

From the trade to acquire Matt Hasselbeck to the “call” in the playoffs and the Pick 6, to Anthony Hargrove signing with the Packers on March 29th of this year.

I know I’ll enjoy the underlying story-lines in this match-up: Matt Flynn faces his former team for the first time, John Schneider‘s team versus Ted Thompson’s (Schneider’s mentor) team, and Anthony Hargrove returns to Seattle, just to name a few.

Add Monday Night Football under the lights of Century Link and it only makes it that much more interesting as a fan.

John Schneider's team versus Ted Thompson's team should be fun.

The Seahawks also play a Thursday Night game in San Fransisco on October 18th. The short week is good for the 12th Man because that means less days we have to hear about Montana to Rice and Super Bowls that happened before most of those bragging about them were even born.

Location Location

I love not having any games early in the season in hot weather cities without a dome.

Traveling to Arizona to face the Cardinals early in the season used to be a difficult task for a team from the North (especially now that the Seahawks don’t have training camp in the hot weather of Cheney Washington) but now that they play in the new University of Phoenix Stadium with a temperature controlled, sun free environment to play football in it really doesn’t matter what time of year the team travels down there.

Home Sweet Home

I love the fact that the Seahawks play their toughest opponents at home. Seattle faces 3 non-divisional opponents who were in the playoffs last season, 2 at home and 1 away. The two teams they face at home are the Green Bay Packers (NFC #1 seed) on September 24th and the New England Patriots (AFC #1 seed) on October 14th.

The playoff team they face away is the Detroit Lions (NFC #6 seed).

The Bye

I love that the bye week is in week 11 (November 18th). It is tough for a team with playoff aspirations to have an early bye week.The team tends to wear down towards the end of the season if they have played 10 or 11 weeks in a row before the playoffs begin and that can factor in to the playoff success of the team.

Control Destiny…maybe

I love the fact that the Seahawks get to finish the season with 2 home games against divisional opponents, one of which they could easily be battling for the division title. The December 23rd game against 49ers could be the deciding game of the NFC West.

The Seahawks should be able to take care of the St. Louis Rams at home on the 30th and the 49ers should be able to defeat the Cardinals in Candlestick Park.

I love the fact that the Seahawks play their toughest opponents at home.

Hate ‘em

Streaking

I hate the streaks in the schedule. I prefer having one away game and then one at home before traveling again. Six times during the 2012 season the Seahawks will either have back to back home games or back to back road games.

The worst of the bunch are the back to back 10 AM road games against Miami and Chicago.

Sick of Wind

Speaking of playing the Chicago Bears, I am tired of playing them in Chicago the majority of the time. During the 15 games series history the Seahawks have been the road team 9 times.

The December 2nd match-up will be 4th time they have played this decade, not once in Seattle.

Early Bird

I hate having four 10 AM games on the schedule this season. Its always tough for teams from the West to travel to the East and play early games. I would like to see the games in the Mid-West changed to 1:00 PM PT kickoffs.

I’m not sure how I feel about the game being played in Toronto. Canada is a nice place and all, but Toronto? (I know its an indoor game)

I guess its better than the team traveling to Buffalo to play the Bills in December. Upstate New York can be a very cold, very snowy place in the middle of December.