The Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers will have one less day to prepare for their pivotal showdown with the NFC West title and NFC’s top seed for the playoffs on the line.
There’s a benefit to playing Saturday for Seahawks and 49ers
The NFL picked the battle between the division rivals as one of its two Saturday games for Week 18 with a 5 p.m. kickoff that will allow the nation to focus on what could rival Seattle’s wild overtime win over the Los Angeles Rams in Week 16.
With the Seahawks and Niners set to face each other a day earlier than usual, Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk asked head coach Mike Macdonald how it will impact his team’s week preparation.
“It’s a mix, right? There’s gonna be a blend here of how do we get as most prepared? How much time, as coaches, on the front end do we need? How much time do the guys need to recover? What’s the proper amount of reps that you need full speed versus walk-through?” Macdonald said on Monday. “I mean, those are things that we’re working through right now. I think we have a pretty good idea how we’re doing it, but the guys will be in tomorrow (Tuesday) in some capacity.”
Tuesday is typically an off-day for the Seahawks in a normal week.
Macdonald said the coaching staff would spend less time than normal reviewing their Week 17 win over Carolina, but it would have more time than before a Thursday game. He added that the late start on Saturday could allow for some preparation earlier in the day.
“There’ll be something maybe you do game-day morning, maybe some sort of light walk-through or something,” Macdonald said. “But it’s kind of like a combo of Thursday (and) Sunday games, but more slanted towards Sunday obviously cause you got six days instead of four.”
Brock and Salk also asked Macdonald about the importance of claiming the No. 1 seed for the playoffs, but he wasn’t ready to look ahead that far just yet.
“It kind of is what it is. It’s like, we got to worry about that after. … We can’t be worried about the result of this game right now,” Macdonald said.
Catch The Mike Macdonald Show during Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports 710 AM at 9:30 a.m. the day after Seahawks games. Find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.
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