Seahawks starters ‘probably won’t play’ vs. Titans, says Mike Macdonald

Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald does not intend to approach the second preseason game against the Tennessee Titans like he did versus the Los Angeles Chargers.

With Seattle set for its first joint practice since 1991, Macdonald told reporters after Monday’s practice that the starters will most likely sit out the Titans game and get most of their work in during the two scrimmages, which is tentatively slated to be full pads.

“We’ve talked about this before, of why we’re doing it,” Macdonald said. “But one, the science behind it, to kind of callous the team, get ready to go for the long haul, so that’s number one. And just looking for the competition within a structured setting. [I] think [the Tennessee Titans] got a great team, they got a great coaching staff, so to do it in a tight manner like right here and instead of in a game and kind of control the environment. And then it’s an opportunity to evaluate a lot of the guys, where our starters are at, going against their starters, and then where the guys, 79 through 80, how those guys fit into the equation.

“The starters probably won’t play in the game,” Macdonald added. “They’ll get the majority of the practice reps, we’ll get threes out there as well. So, there’s a method behind the madness, but you shouldn’t see a lot of the starters on Saturday.”

This is not particularly surprising news given Titans head coach Brian Callahan effectively said the same thing on Sunday.

“I’ll officially give you some more play time information at the end of the week,” Callahan said (via Titans.com). “But the starting point (for the starters) will be to play a little bit less, if at all, depending on how the two practices go against Seattle since it will be such heavy load on those guys. The emphasis will be for the 1s to get a lot more reps (in the joint practices) and the 2s and 3s play a lot more in the game.”

Let’s just hope the inevitable skirmishes and physical practices don’t spiral out of control and cost both teams money, which is what happened with the Detroit Lions and New York Giants.