Seahawks 2023 schedule: Which QBs will Seattle face this season?

Geno Smith is the only guaranteed Week 1 starter in the division: Seaside Joe 1530

Just like the Seahawks did with their defensive line, let’s kick the elephant out of the room before we get started: You can’t predict a team’s schedule of starting quarterbacks with any hope of accuracy.

I feel like I do this exercise every offseason, and the NFL is announcing the schedule on Thursday so that explains the timing, but I know that this is not the slate of quarterbacks that Seattle will face in 2023. If we did this a year ago (and I might have but I can’t find any record of it), then these are the teams and quarterbacks I would have gotten wrong:

Week 2 49ers (Trey Lance was replaced midgame by Jimmy Garoppolo); Week 5 Saints (Andy Dalton/Taysom Hill instead of Jameis Winston); Week 13 Rams (John Wolford instead of Matt Stafford); Week 14 Panthers (Sam Darnold was Carolina’s third QB by then); Week 15 49ers (Brock Purdy instead of Jimmy G); Week 17 Jets (Mike White was the third QB); Week 18 Rams (Baker Mayfield instead of Wolford); and then in the playoffs, Purdy again.

Five of the last six games were against second or third-string QBs, or in the case of Mayfield, a player who wasn’t even on the team.

Only eight teams had the same QB start every game, and if memory serves me right, only Geno Smith and Jared Goff took every snap. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the worst record of those eight teams was 8-9 (by Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers), and the three QBs to start 16 games all went 9-6-1 or better (Bengals, Bills, Giants), whereas the Eagles went 14-1 with Jalen Hurts.

We might see Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, and Anthony Richardson be allowed to start games and lose, but it seems like patience (and offensive lines?) has never been worn down as thin as it is today. Whatever the case may be, we know that it’s going to be impossible to accurately predict which QBs the Seahawks will face in 2023—especially in December and January—and for some teams on Seattle’s schedule, we don’t even know who is starting in Week 1.

In fact, you could argue that we don’t know who a single Week 1 starter in the NFC West is going to be except for Geno.

Opponents — NFC West

I’ve gone over the Seahawks opponents a few times this offseason (like it or not, and I kind of don’t like it, a team’s schedule is one of the most vital ingredients to consider when assessing their chances of a playoff appearance, a division title, and a number one seed) and the division is pure lunacy right now.

I continue to live alone on this hill, but I am in shock by the universal belief that the L.A. Rams will employ Matthew Stafford this season, whether it’s true or not. If it’s true, that blows my mind; only two years ago, Stafford demanded a trade to get off of the Detroit Lions because he didn’t want to waste the end of his career by playing for a bad team. The Rams are much worse now than the Lions were in 2021, and Stafford is 35. If L.A. trades Stafford after June 1st (and sending him back to Georgia to play for the Falcons makes so much sense that I can’t believe I’m the only one who has thought of it) they will be able to swallow any cap ramifications.

The Falcons have a really good offensive line, they have Drake London, Kyle Pitts, and Bijan Robinson, they used their second pick on a guard, and yet they’re turning over their chance to win the NFC South to Desmond Ridder?

If the Rams don’t trade Stafford, there’s still a relatively high probability that when Seattle faces L.A.—especially if it’s in the second half of the year like it was in 2022—they will be matched up with rookie Stetson Bennett or free agent signee Brett Rypien.

The Cardinals won’t have Kyler Murray for at least half of the season, though some reports have been more optimistic.

We don’t know if the Seahawks will match up with Murray or Colt McCoy, while Arizona is currently the only team to employ five quarterbacks right now: Fifth round pick Clayton Tune, Jeff Driskel, and David Blough are also on the roster.

Maybe because an ACL is so common and elbow surgery isn’t, there’s a lot less optimism that Brock Purdy will play in 2023. The 49ers look to have a competition between Trey Lance and Sam Darnold, with some astounding proclamations out there this offseason that Darnold will be the next Geno Smith, only better.

This is not the first time that people have expected a breakout season from Darnold. It also happened in 2019, 2020, and 2021. Darnold threw 37 touchdowns and 37 interceptions over 37 games (which in itself is pretty sweet, if you’re just into aesthetics) in those campaigns, while his teams posted a 13-24 record.

NFC East

The projection as of May is that the Seahawks will face Hurts (who missed two games last season), Dak Prescott (who missed five), and Daniel Jones (who sat out the finale, but was healthy). The Eagles replaced Gardner Minshew with Marcus Mariota (who got a win over Seattle last season), the Cowboys retained Cooper Rush (who went 4-1 as a starter), and the Giants kept Tyrod Taylor.

As for the Moons, they keep saying that 2022 fifth rounder Sam Howell is “their guy”, but that feels a little suspect to me because Ron Rivera (22-27-1 in three years) has to assume that the new ownership is going to push him out and find their own head coach if Washington misses the playoffs.

Would the Moons make a play for Stafford? I don’t want to put them in the same box that the Seahawks were put in last offseason when everyone was saying that “Of course, Seattle’s not going to start Geno Smith or Drew Lock!” but it just seems like there’s a fuse lit in Washington that’s not going to be stopped by Howell or Jacoby Brissett.

AFC North

Barring injury: Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson, and Kenny Pickett. The backups are Trevor Siemian, Tyler Huntley, Josh Dobbs, and Mitch Trubisky, respectively.

The Rest

The Seahawks should get their opportunity to face number one overall pick Bryce Young, there’s no reason the Panthers should hold him back from starting in Week 1. If durability concerns prove worthy, the backup is Dalton, which was bad news for Seattle in 2022.

Seattle has a rematch with Jared Goff and the Lions; the Seahawks allowed a season-worst 45 points in that game. If Detroit’s breakout season is an early disappointment, I wouldn’t be shocked to see them turn to third round pick Hendon Hooker when he’s healthy.

Finally, the Seahawks 17th game comes against the Tennessee Titans, meaning that even if they passed him on twice (three times if you include not trading up in the second round), Seattle may yet see Will Levis again this year. But more likely, it will be Ryan Tannehill. The Titans are probable to trade Malik Willis, just one year after this went into the tweet Hall of Fame:

Random QB opponent generator

What if we just randomly select 17 names with varying levels of probability? Seattle’s 2023 schedule of QBs might look something like this: Matthew Stafford, Sam Darnold, Colt McCoy, Bryce Young, Jalen Hurts, Tyrod Taylor, Sam Howell, Dak Prescott, Joe Burrow, Mitch Trubisky, Will Levis, Lamar Jackson, Josh Dobbs, Nate Sudfeld, Kyler Murray, Stetson Bennett, Brock Purdy.

It’s not impossible! Only knowing the answer is impossible.

Xs and Os

As most of you know, I have non-negotiable daily habits (such as this newsletter) that have helped improve my life immensely over the last four years. I have about a dozen things that I do every day, either routines or practices to get better at a skill, and one that I recently added was 10 minutes of football Xs and Os study because I’ve always been ashamed of my deficiencies in that area. For the last couple of months, I’ve watch a lot of videos by J.T. O’Sullivan, many I’ve shared here already, but one account (now defunct) that I came across that’s really good is called Pure Football.

Very easy-to-follow foundational principles of the game. It’s a shame he only made a handful of videos five years ago. If you want to follow along with me, I’m sharing the first video in the series above and there are only 12 total, so it could be done in literally one day.

Do you have any non-negotiable daily habits or Xs and Os resources you want to share?

Thank you!

Thanks to everyone for your kind words of encouragement and testimonials of what you like about this place in response to Tuesday’s article about what makes Seaside Joe different than other writers, newsletters, blogs, and websites. Not only that cover the Seahawks or the NFL, but in general.

I spent three years writing this newsletter on a daily basis before I moved it over to Substack and started accepting paid subscriptions with premium content for the first time. Prior to then, I was paying a service called Mailchimp a monthly hosting fee for the right to send a newsletter and I’m grateful that I got a few years of underground trial and error before going “public”, but it’s all too common to see others assume that they can just start a paid newsletter and get a million subscribers from day one because “I exist and I started a newsletter!”

Photo by David Suarez on Unsplash

We’ve become so accustomed to this idea that “content creators can become millionaires” that the entire industry has fallen into the realm of being a get rich quick scheme. Yesterday, I looked up who had the most followers on TikTok and it was this guy doing videos that probably took five minutes of planning and five minutes of filming for :30 second clips that go out to 157 million people. Who wouldn’t be drawn into the fantasy of getting paid that much to do that little?

But it is a scheme or a scam. It’s not going to happen. You’re not going to get rich quick. I don’t have the exact math, but it’s possible that I was paid less than $10,000 for my first 10,000 articles. I’m just grateful that you have stuck around and allowed me the opportunity to keep writing about the Seattle Seahawks for you, whether it’s for money or no money, because I’m going to keep doing it either way.

Thank you!

Several more of you did sign up for the $120 Regular Joes club, so I would be remiss and a liar if I didn’t start creating a series exclusively for that tier. I will give you all more warning shots before it starts and coming up with ideas for it; I think that next season’s Vision Board articles will also be in the $5/month or $55/year level, just to be clear.