RENTON — As they continue through their 50th season, the Seahawks may be part of team history Sunday at Tennessee before their game against the Titans kicks off.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Seahawks were listed by BetMGM as a 13.5-point favorite against the beleaguered Titans, who at 1-9 have the worst record in the NFL and at minus-130 also have the worst point differential.
If that spread doesn’t come down, according to Pro Football Reference, it will be the most points the Seahawks have ever been favored in a road game, and tied for 12th for the most points they’ve been favored in any game.
In the 392 road games they have played, the only time the Seahawks have been favored by 13 came in the Super Bowl-winning season of 2013 against the then-St. Louis Rams.
That game serves as proof of what defensive lineman Leonard Williams said Wednesday of the Titans, and as a cautionary tale for the Seahawks on Sunday.
“What I see is that they have great players, which is every team in the NFL,” Williams said. “Every team in the NFL has first-rounders, Pro Bowlers and All-Pros. I think if you sleep on any team in the league, they have potential to beat you.”
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That’s what almost happened the last time the Seahawks were favored by 13 on the road.
In 2013, a Seahawk team that had 11 days off after a win at Arizona that improved their record to 6-1 and was generally considered as one of the top favorites to win the Super Bowl almost got ambushed in St. Louis on a Monday night.
The Seahawks gained only 135 yards — 80 coming on one TD pass from Russell Wilson to Golden Tate, burned into team lore for Tate’s taunting penalty earned on his way to the end zone — and needed a last-play fourth-down stop to pull out a 14-9 win against a Rams team that was starting backup QB Kellen Clemens. The Rams infamously drove from their own 3-yard line to the Seattle 1 before the Seahawks stopped them twice, the last coming when Brandon Browner helped break up a pass in the end zone.
Showing how parity-filled the NFL usually is, that Rams game is one of just four times in team history the Seahawks have been favored to win a road game by 10 points or more.
The Seahawks have won them all.
Two others were surprisingly close — a 27-25 win at San Francisco in 2005 when the Seahawks were a 12-point favorite, and a 25-23 win, again against the 49ers, in the regular-season finale in 2016 against a team that was playing out the string on a 2-14 season in the only year for Chip Kelly as the 49ers’ coach.
The Seahawks blew out the Ravens in Baltimore in 2015 as an 11-point favorite, 35-6, against an injury-riddled team that was starting quarterback Jimmy Clausen — who was 1-13 as a starter in his NFL career. That’s he only other time the Seahawks have been favored by 10 or more.
In the wake of Sunday’s physically and mentally taxing 21-19 loss to the Rams — which dropped the them to second place in the NFC West at 7-3 behind L.A. at 8-2 — Williams and the Seahawks say what matters more than any opponent this week is addressing some of their issues.
“I think the major focus right now and this week is just focusing on how we can clean up those small details and how we can get better as a team,” Williams said. “We’re focused on us and getting better this week. We’re never going to overlook a team.”
The Titans have shown some signs of life under interim coach Mike McCoy, who took over when second-year coach Brian Callahan was fired following a 1-4 start.
Houston needed a last-play field goal to emerge with a 16-13 win in Nashville last Sunday and the Titans took to the Chargers to the wire in their previous game on Nov. 2 before LA prevailed 27-20.
You never know when Cam Ward — the former Washington State University standout who was the No. 1 pick in the 2025 draft — will have his breakout game.
Ward has just six touchdown passes, a passer rating of 73.8 and has been sacked an NFL-high 41 times in what has been a tougher start to his pro career than anyone may have anticipated.
He’s coming off one of his more efficient games against a Houston defense that has allowed the fewest points in the NFL, completing 24 of 37 passes for 194 yards, a TD and no interceptions, and a passer rating of 87.0 that is his second best of the season.
“Incredible arm,” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. “You can see why he was the No. 1 pick. He probably has more control over the offense than you would initially anticipate going into the week. Incredible arm talent. He makes a ton of throws, and from funky platforms.”
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The Seahawks have proved they can compete with anybody in the NFL when they are right.
Sam Darnold’s four interceptions were the major thing that went wrong against the Rams, and teammates continued Wednesday to say that they have faith he will bounce back.
“We’ve talked about Mike’s message to us from Day 1,” receiver Cooper Kupp said. “It is 12 as one. We’re all together in this thing.”
Macdonald is stressing that the Seahawks can’t let one loss linger and is switching things up some this week.
The last two weeks, they held a lighter practice on Wednesday than usual, in part because of a late return from Washington before the Arizona game, and deciding last week to stick to that plan since it worked well in a blowout win over the Cardinals.
“Just important to get some full-speed reps,” Macdonald said. “Excited to go out there and try to get better today.”
Macdonald said the change to going back to doing a full-speed Wednesday practice — as is the norm for most of the year — is to reinforce the importance of getting the rough spots smoothed out quickly with the Seahawks having no margin for error if they want to win the NFC West.
“We’ve changed a little bit of how we’re going to practice this week because of what we feel like the team needs to take the next step,” Macdonald said. “That’s going to be our approach. But the mentality, all those principles that we talk about, that will stay the same, and our goal is to continue to get better. … There needs to be a sense of urgency now because we’ve got to start playing our best football (as) we’re in the second half of the year going into the last quarter of the season.”
Bob Condotta: bcondotta@seattletimes.com. Bob Condotta is a sports reporter at The Seattle Times who primarily covers the Seahawks but also dabbles in other sports. He has worked at The Times since 2002, reporting on University of Washington Husky football and basketball for his first 10 years at the paper before switching to the Seahawks in 2013.