Will ‘Hard Knocks’ be distraction for Seahawks? | Analysis

PHOENIX — The NFL’s annual meeting wrapped up here Tuesday.

Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, general manager John Schneider and the rest of the team contingent who attended were scheduled to head back and begin concentrating on the next big event on the league’s calendar — the draft, set for April 23-25 in Pittsburgh.

Here are some thoughts on three Seahawks-related questions that arose here.

Will Hard Knocks be a distraction?

The league and the Seahawks officially announced Tuesday morning what was first reported Monday night — the Seahawks will appear on the HBO sports documentary show “Hard Knocks” this year for the first time in their history.

The league announced there will be five episodes with the first appearing at 6 p.m. Aug. 11 on HBO and streaming on HBO Max.

The news broke after Macdonald and Schneider met the media earlier Monday, so on-the-record thoughts from anyone with the team will have to wait.

Indications are the Seahawks knew for a few weeks this was in the works, and that they understood it was their turn as they were eligible to be called on because of rules changes made last year, and were one of 16 teams that had yet to appear on the show.

The NFL revealed that the Patriots will be on “Hard Knocks” during training camp in 2027, meaning each of the Super Bowl combatants from February will get the docuseries treatment.

And with the NFL adding an in-series Hard Knocks focusing on specific divisions the last two years, the Seahawks were almost certainly going to be featured on the show at some point soon.

So why not now?

True, no team that has appeared on Hard Knocks has won a Super Bowl, but only one of 32 teams wins a Super Bowl in a season anyway. And hey, someone’s got to be the first.

The news of “Hard Knocks” may not have made Macdonald the happiest he has been this calendar year — coaches haven’t typically embraced it with enthusiasm.

But the guess is he’ll approach it as he has everything else in his time in Seattle — focusing on controlling what he can control.

As for worries of opponents being able to figure out some of Macdonald’s secrets, it’s hard to figure that the weekly game film coaches watch doesn’t tell them more already.

One of Macdonald’s secret sauces is his ability to tinker with game plans until just an hour or so until kickoff. It’s hard to imagine a few glimpses of training camp practices on Hard Knocks in the preseason would show much to endanger that.

As for it being an undue distraction, there are already going to be plenty as reigning Super Bowl champs, so maybe in that sense it’s best to just go ahead and pile on another one and get them all over with at once.

This feels like a good avenue for some of the Seahawks’ current and emerging superstars — defensive lineman Leonard Williams, receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, cornerback Devon Witherspoon and safety Nick Emmanwori, to name a few — to announce themselves on the national stage even more.

Going through the Super Bowl media crunch, they should be more prepared for it than ever.

One interesting subplot is that the Seahawks appear likely to hold a joint practice during training camp and could do so again on the road. They will have two preseason road games, though opponents have not been set.

That could give Hard Knocks some good viewing (last year’s couple of tone-setting “dust-ups” during the joint practice at Green Bay would have been fun to break down).

And if the Seahawks don’t repeat, everyone can just blame Hard Knocks.

Will Devon Witherspoon get a new contract by training camp?

After Smith-Njigba signed a new deal last week making him the highest-paid receiver in league history (in terms of the average per year of the new money on the deal at $42.15 million), the last piece of major offseason business for the Seahawks to complete is signing Witherspoon to a similar extension.

It may not happen immediately and might get done closer to what has been their usual timeline for extensions near the start of training camp if not right at the beginning of it (hey, more programming for Hard Knocks!).

But the template for the deal appears set.

The Seahawks picked up the fifth-year option on Smith-Njigba’s contract for the 2027 season and tacked on four more years, meaning he has a six-year contract paying him up to just over $195 million overall, or roughly $32.5 million per year.

A similar structure for a deal for Witherspoon is possible, potentially giving him a new money average that would make him the highest-paid corner in the league (which would mean topping the $31 million average of former UW standout Trent McDuffie of the Rams) over the same four years as Smith-Njigba got.

That would sew up two foundational pieces through the 2031 season.

During his session with the media Monday, Macdonald seemed to foreshadow the deal getting done while noting each player’s age — Witherspoon turned 25 in December, Smith-Njigba 24 on Valentine’s Day.

“I think what gets lost is like what their role is as a leader on our team and how young they are,” Macdonald said. “And that’s a unique combination of their impact on our team but also they’ve only been here for three years, so the opportunity there to really lay a great foundation for the next 10 years is there, which is really exciting.”

Could the Seahawks have an international game in 2026?

There was no clarity on this front here this week as the league made no announcements.

But the Seahawks are still candidates for two games — against Washington in London and against the 49ers in Mexico.

The Seahawks are a road opponent this year for each team.

The Washington game in London is set for Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in October and the 49ers game in Mexico City at Estadio Banorte, a game that has been set for Week 11.

As defending Super Bowl champs the Seahawks would be an attractive foe for either.

The last game in Mexico City was in 2022 and also featured an NFC West matchup — the 49ers, who were the visiting team, against Arizona.

The 49ers are giving up a home game and some might argue they wouldn’t want to do that against the Seahawks, though who knows how much say the designated home teams have in picking the opponent.

Maybe the 49ers wouldn’t be opposed to playing the Seahawks in Mexico City and denying them the chance to return to the scene of their Super Bowl win (and the regular-season finale win against the 49ers on the same Levi’s Stadium field).

The NFL has been dripping out bits and pieces of the schedule along the way to the full release sometime in May.

But at the meeting this week the league indicated that it may wait until May to settle on all of the international matchups.

If it doesn’t happen this year, it will surely happen soon, and likely next year with the NFL playing nine international games this season with a goal to get to 16 and eventually just about every team playing an international game every season.