Now that the Rams' 2020 schedule is officially out, it's time to resume our offseason opponent breakdowns on theRams.com. Up next is Los Angeles' Week 10 home opponent and Week 16 road opponent, the Seattle Seahawks.
2019
The Seahawks won eight of their first 10 games en route to an 11-5 finish which secured them the first NFC Wild Card spot. Seattle defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 17-9 in that round, then fell to the Green Bay Packers 28-23 in the divisional round.
Changes
In March, the Seahawks traded a fifth-round pick in this year's draft to the Washington Redskins for cornerback Quinton Dunbar. However, most of the changes thereafter occurred on the other side of the ball.
On offense, Seattle overhauled its offensive line by releasing starting center Justin Britt and tackle D.J. Fluker. The day before trading for Dunbar, it signed center/guard B.J. Finney and tackle Cedric Ogbuehi. Finney entered the league as an undrafted free agent out of Kansas State who signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Ogbuehi was a 2015 first-round draft pick by the Cincinnati Bengals who played for the Jacksonville Jaguars last year.
From a coaching staff standpoint, there were no major changes but a few differences.
Head coach
Pete Carroll enters his 11th season as head coach of the Seahawks, compiling a 110-66-1 overall record (regular season and playoffs) through his first 10 years with the franchise.
What to watch for
Another sequence of close games?
True to form, last year's Rams-Seahawks matchups played out similarly to previous years. The Rams suffered a narrow 30-29 loss in Seattle in Week 5, then responded with a 28-12 victory in Los Angeles in Week 14.
Historically, though, the results have more closely resembled Week 5's result compared to Week 14.
In the Sean McVay era, four of the six games between the teams have been decided by six or fewer points. The exceptions were Week 14 last season and a 42-7 Rams win in Seattle in December 2017.
Even with the personnel changes on both sides, 2020 still figures to have at least one tightly contested game in store.
