Seahawks 2024 schedule includes rarity they haven’t had since 1996

The Seattle Seahawks may have an extra home date in this 17-game schedule, but their Lumen Field appearances (at least in the regular season) will end a bit earlier than usual.

Seattle’s Week 16 matchup with the Minnesota Vikings on December 22 will be the team’s home finale. The Seahawks’ final two regular season games will consist of a short week road trip to the Chicago Bears on Thursday Night Football, followed by a divisional matchup at the Los Angeles Rams in the first week of 2025.

Closing out a season with consecutive road games is not uncommon in the NFL. It’s extremely uncommon for the Seahawks, however. In fact, this is only the third time in franchise history that Seattle will end the regular season with back-to-back road games. The previous time was 1996, when the Seahawks finished 7-9 and won the finale against the Oakland Raiders with 13 net yards passing. The trivia behind the first instance is eerie in its coincidences.

Back in 1987, a year infamous for replacement players and a cancelled week due to the NFLPA strike, the Seahawks started the season against... the Denver Broncos (albeit on the road, and obviously when Seattle was still in the AFC West). They played the Miami Dolphins at home in Week 3 (and prevailed 24-20 with the replacements). Their four NFC opponents consisted of what is now the NFC North but at the time was the NFC Central. They played at the Bears and Lions and hosted the Packers and Vikings. The penultimate game of the season was against the Bears (which the Seahawks won 34-21), followed by a divisional matchup versus the Kansas City Chiefs (which Seattle lost 41-20).

Chuck Knox’s group made the playoffs and lost in overtime to the Houston Oilers. It would be Knox’s second-to-last postseason game as Seahawks coach.

Seattle was an exceptional road team under Pete Carroll, compiling a record of 60-53-1 (.535) in regular season play. That might not sound like anything impressive until you realize that it’s the 6th highest winning percentage since 2010. The median road win percentage during that span is roughly 43 percent.

Coach Mike Macdonald has high standards to maintain in terms of the Seahawks’ success away from Lumen Field. In an ideal world, those Bears and Rams games won’t have much on the line for Seattle, because they would have already locked up the NFC’s No. 1 seed.