Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold had another limited practice on Friday.
He has not had a full practice since injuring his left oblique on Jan. 15.
Darnold, though, does not have an injury designation.
The Super Bowl teams are required to do injury reports on the off week between the championship games and the Super Bowl, and players are given designations based on the game being played Sunday instead of Feb. 8.
The Seahawks list backup offensive tackle Amari Kight (knee) as doubtful after he didn’t practice all week. He missed the NFC Championship Game with his injury.
Fullback Robbie Ouzts (neck), fullback Brady Russell (hand) and linebacker Chazz Surratt (ankle) received questionable designations. Ouzts and Russell were listed as limited all week. Surratt, who is in his 21-day return-to-practice window, was estimated as a full participant in all three practices.
The Seahawks added cornerback Josh Jobe (foot) to the injury report Friday as a limited participant.
Left tackle Charles Cross (foot) and tight end Eric Saubert (hamstring) did not practice all week, but did not receive a game status.
Seahawks Clips
Super Bowl LX won’t be played until Feb. 8. The Seahawks and Patriots, though, are required to release an estimated injury report with designations for this week, as if the game was played Sunday.
So, the fact that quarterback Drake Maye is listed as questionable with a right shoulder injury and an illness is not a big deal. It is next Friday’s injury report that will reveal more about his status.
The Patriots listed eight other players as questionable.
Running back Terrell Jennings (hamstring/cleared concussion protocol), linebacker Harold Landry (knee), offensive tackle Thayer Munford Jr. (knee/illness) did not practice Friday. Landry, Munford and Spillane did not practice all week.
The other four players who are questionable are defensive lineman Joshua Farmer (hamstring), tight end Hunter Henry (rest), wide receiver Mack Hollins (abdomen) and offensive tackle Morgan Moses (rest).
The fact that Henry and Moses are questionable tells you how seriously the Patriots took the report.
In response to the report that the Seahawks will go up for sale after Super Bowl LX, ownership has released a statement that doesn’t say much.
A statement attributed to a spokesman for the Paul G Allen Estate was released, noting that the plan has always been for the team to be sold but providing no clarity about when that will happen.
“We don’t comment on rumors or speculation, and the team is not for sale,” the statement said. “We’ve already said that will change at some point per Paul’s wishes, but I have no news to share. Our focus right now is winning the Super Bowl and completing the sale of the Portland Trail Blazers in the coming months.”
That statement may look like a denial of the report, but it isn’t. The report doesn’t say the team “is” for sale, the report says the team “will be” for sale after the Super Bowl.
When Allen died, he left the team under the control of his sister, Jody Allen, with instructions that she was eventually to sell the team and donate the proceeds to charity. It remains unclear when that will happen, but nothing in the statement suggests that it won’t happen this year.
Super Bowl LX may be the Seahawks’ last game under the ownership of the Allen family.
Jody Allen, who has controlled the team since the 2018 death of her brother, Paul Allen, plans to put the team up for sale, according to ESPN.
Paul Allen bought the team in 1997, and his will said his sister was to take control of the franchise and eventually sell it and donate the proceeds to charity.
Those proceeds will be several billion dollars. The last NFL team to sell was the Washington Commanders, who went for $6.05 billion in 2023, and as sports franchise values continue to rise, there’s no reason the Seahawks shouldn’t fetch even more.
Allen is also in the process of selling the Portland Trail Blazers for $4.25 billion.
Patriots rookie offensive tackle Will Campbell has faced plenty of criticism for his play, but head coach Mike Vrabel thinks the AFC Championship Game was a good sign of Campbell’s growth.
Vrabel said Campbell had a better game against a tough opponent in Broncos edge rusher Nik Bonitto, and he hopes to see more improvement against the Seahawks in Super Bowl LX.
“I thought he played better against a really good rusher. We’ll need to keep improving, and we’re excited he has another week to do it,” Vrabel said.
The Patriots took Campbell with the fourth overall pick in the draft and immediately made him their starter at left tackle, protecting Drake Maye’s blind side. He’ll be one of the most important players on the field in the Super Bowl, and his ability to keep Maye upright will go a long way toward determining whether the Patriots can beat the Seahawks.
The Vikings fired General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah on Friday and owner Mark Wilf held a press conference to discuss the move later in the day.
Wilf’s opening statement echoed the team’s statement saying that the decision was made after a lengthy organizational review found that it was in the best interests of the team to move in a different direction. Wilf said that the “totality” of Adofo-Mensah’s four seasons with the team led to the call ahead of what he called a “critical offseason.”
Wilf returned to the big picture when he was asked about the role the team’s 2025 quarterback moves played in the dismissal. The Vikings did not re-sign Sam Darnold, who will start in the Super Bowl for Seattle, or Daniel Jones, who had the Colts in first place before tearing his Achilles, in order to go with 2024 first-round pick J.J. McCarthy. McCarthy struggled on the field and with injuries, which led to Carson Wentz and Max Brosmer making starts during a 9-8 season.
“It’s not necessarily a fair thing to talk about any one decision and that’s the way we approach it,” Wilf said. “It’s a body of work. It’s a cumulative set of decisions. It’s four years of where we’ve been and we as ownership — and I know our fans feel it and our entire organization — feels we need to get to a better place.”
Head coach Kevin O’Connell talked about bringing in competition for McCarthy at his end of season press conference. Executive V.P. of football operations Rob Brzezinski will be leading the personnel department through free agency and the draft, so it will now fall on his shoulders to navigate bringing in that competition and addressing other needs on the roster for 2026.
The Patriots closed out the practice week without quarterback Drake Maye.
Maye was limited with a right shoulder injury on Wednesday and Thursday, but was off the field entirely on Friday. Head coach Mike Vrabel said at a press conference that an illness joined the shoulder as the reason why Maye did not participate.
Vrabel said that Maye’s shoulder has responded “favorably” to the practice work that he’s done this week and that he would have participated in Friday’s session if not for the illness. Vrabel also said Maye was at the facility and taking part in meetings despite not being able to practice.
The Patriots will head to California this weekend to continue their preparations for facing the Seahawks in Super Bowl LX. Maye’s health will continue to be something to watch through those sessions.
Last year, no seven-figure wagers were reported regarding Super Bowl LIX. This year, there are already two of them.
Via David Purdum of ESPN.com, wagers of $2 million and $1.2 million have been placed on the Patriots, who are 4.5-point underdogs in the upcoming game against the Seahawks.
Despite the big bets, some analysts believe the Super Bowl handle will drop this year, given the absence of superstar players, the lack of the Taylor Swift angle, and the rise of prediction markets, which are siphoning cash away from sportsbooks.
The American Gaming Association, in contrast, predicts a 27-percent jump over last year. Which means that someone is going to be wrong, perhaps dramatically.
The AGA expects $1.76 billion to be wagered legally through sportsbooks. Sports betting currently is permitted in 39 states and the District of Columbia. Which means that, in more than 20 percent of the states, there’s still only one way to bet — know a guy, call the guy, and hope you can pay the guy before the guy’s guys show up unexpectedly as you’re pushing a cart of groceries to your SUV.
Kenneth Walker III will finish his rookie contract in nine days, at Super Bowl LX. He’ll then have only four weeks until becoming eligible for the open market.
The Seahawks hope to bring him back.
“Ken has been awesome,” G.M. John Schneider told reporters on Thursday. “Explosive. I would say maybe a little bit more decisive the last month and a half. He’s a free agent. We’d love to have him back.”
In 2022, Walker rushed for 1,050 yards as a rookie, averaging 4.6 yards per carry. He finished second in the voting for Associated Press offensive rookie of the year.
His next two seasons didn’t go as well. This year has, with another 1,000-yard performance — and another 4.6 YPC.
Walker had 100 yards on only 11 carries in the Thursday night overtime classic against the Rams. He added 97 in the Week 18 win over the 49ers that clinched the top seed in the NFC.
In the divisional-round rematch against San Francisco, Walker rushed for 116 yards on 19 carries, with three touchdowns. Against the Rams in the NFC Championship, he had another 19 carries, for 62 yards.
He’ll be a key piece of the Seattle offense in the Super Bowl, especially since the passing game thrives on play-action that sets up shots down the field. And especially since Zach Charbonnet is out with a torn ACL.
The challenge becomes putting the right value on Walker’s potential for 2026 and beyond. With each week in the postseason, he’s performing for more and more teams that are making their offseason plans. That could make it expensive for the Seahawks to keep him. Possibly, more expensive than they’re willing to pay.
The key play in Sunday’s NFC Championship happened with 4:59 to play, the Rams trailing by four, and L.A. facing fourth and four from the Seattle six. The Rams went for it, and quarterback Matthew Stafford’s pass to the end zone fell incomplete.
After the game, Rams coach Sean McVay explained that the Seahawks basically got lucky.
“They kind of lucked into having two guys peel on Kyren right there,” McVay said at the time. “I know that that can’t be part of their design, so . . . fortuitous bust by them. . . . I can’t imagine that’s what they were really trying to do.”
While that may not have been the plan, Seahawks linebacker DeMarcus Lawrence improvised in the moment.
“The back was too fast,” Lawrence told reporters on Thursday, via Brian Nemhauser. “You know, if it was a regular design and the back wasn’t [Stafford’s] ‘hot’ [route], the back would have, you know, waited to see if [safety] Julian [Love] was going to rush first and then flare it out. But he didn’t wait, you know, so that was definitely an indicator, like, a ‘oh shit’ moment, you know? The back is flaring out that fast, that means that’s his ‘hot.’ So he’s going to the back first and, you know, playing football as long as I’ve played, I ‘ve seen so many formations and schemes. Like, you know, you start to pick up on those things.”
We broke down the play on PFT Live, in the attached video. Williams runs past Love, who abandoned his blitz, grabbed at Williams, and retreated along with Lawrence.
As Simms noted, however, Williams still looked to be open, even with two men covering him, or at least trying to. But they did enough to get Stafford to move to his next read — and to ultimately thwart what could have been a go-ahead touchdown pass.
