Seattle going for 1st 5-0 start
SEATTLE — Throughout their franchise history, the Seahawks have never started a season 5-0.
Not in the years Seattle was a contender in the old AFC West. Not after it moved to the NFC. Not even the year the Seahawks won their only Super Bowl.
Then again, the Seahawks have never had a quarterback playing as well as Russell Wilson has in leading Seattle to a 4-0 record heading into a Sunday night matchup against the Vikings.
“I think we’re playing at the highest level that we’ve ever played,” Wilson said.
While the Seahawks are looking for a bit of franchise history before their bye week, the Vikings (1-3) are seeking validation that they can still be contenders for a playoff berth after a disappointing start. The Vikings have given up more points and yards than the norm for a Mike Zimmer team and struggled with turnovers the first few weeks.
But Minnesota did get its first win last week — a 31-23 victory at Houston. The Vikings do have the league’s leading rusher in Dalvin Cook. They have familiarity playing in Seattle for the third straight year and facing the Seahawks for the fifth time since 2015. And they’ll get a break as CenturyLink Field will be silent outside of what gets piped through the stadium speaker system.
“Before when we played there, that crowd noise definitely had an impact on what we had going on,” Cook said. “And today’s society is different without fans, so we’ve got to get used to that, and I think it might help us, going against that type of environment.”
Wilson’s start to the season has put him firmly in the MVP conversation at the quarter mark of the season. He tied Peyton Manning’s record with 16 TD passes in the first four games. He’s completing 75% of his passes, has only two interceptions and has topped 300 yards in three of the four games. Perhaps most impressive are the big shots Wilson has taken and completed. He already has 16 completions of more than 20 yards and is averaging 9.4 yards per attempt.
“They’ve changed a little bit,’’ Zimmer said. ‘‘They’re obviously letting Russell Wilson be more explosive. I think they’re No. 1 in the league in pass average. They’ve got terrific receivers; they’re all fast.’’
One of the bright spots for Minnesota has been Cook’s start to the season. He leads the league with 424 rushing yards and is averaging 5.7 yards per carry.
He’ll be facing a Seattle defense that ranks third in the league in rushing yards allowed but hasn’t necessarily been tested. Todd Gurley in Week 1 and Ezekiel Elliott in Week 3 both had 14 carries against Seattle. That’s the most by any running back against the Seahawks this season. If Minnesota can stay with the running game, it could be the first significant test to see if Seattle’s run defense is very good.
“It’s definitely fun to watch him run the ball,” Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner said. “It’s going to be fun to play against him and get into the backfield and really just tackle him.”
The Vikings have shown their share of vulnerabilities over the first quarter of the season, but they’ve been at their best near the end zone on both sides of the ball. The offense is tied for eighth in the NFL in goal-to-go touchdown rate (87.5%) and fifth in inside-the-20 touchdown rate (76.9%). The defense is seventh in goalto-go touchdown rate (58.3%) and second in inside-the-20 touchdown rate (41.2%).
Last week at Houston, the Vikings turned all four of their trips inside the 10-yard line into touchdowns. Defensively, they limited the damage to a field goal after a first-andgoal situation from the 8 in the third quarter and prevented the Texans from scoring late in the fourth quarter after they had secondand-goal from the 1.