Seahawks to face string of weak quarterbacks

The Seattle Seahawks won’t face another top-flight quarterback until week 17, and maybe not even then.

The Seahawks defense may be getting a break, at least over the next four week and possibly the rest of the regular season. After facing seeing the likes of Andy Dalton, Cam Newton, Carson Palmer and Ben Roethlisberger to this point, the list of quarterbacks they’ll be facing over the last four weeks looks a lot less intimidating.

And week 17 might not turn out to be so bad, either.

Here’s a look at the signal-callers the Hawks will face over the next month, with TD/INT ratio and passer rating.

• Teddy Bridgewater, Minnesota: 8/7, 85.4
• Matt Schaub, Baltimore: *yet to play this year, career 89.5 passer rating*
• Josh McCown, Cleveland: 11/4, 95.2
• Case Keenum, St. Louis: 1/0, 75.2 (0r) Nick Foles: 7/9, 72.0

Schaub will make his first start tonight in place of the injured Joe Flacco. The Ravens are facing Cleveland, who has turned back to McCown after previously committing to Johnny Manziel as the starter the rest of the season. That was before Manziel was demoted to third string for upsetting Browns management with his behavior during the team’s bye week.

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The Rams had turned to Keenum in place of the ineffective Foles, but he suffered a concussion and had to be held out against Cincinnati yesterday. Foles was terrible in his return to the starting job, throwing three interceptions against the Bengals.

By the numbers, the best of the bunch is clearly McCown. But that game will here at CenturyLink field, and the Browns aren’t exactly loaded with scary offensive weapons.

This run of getting to face mid-tier (or lower) QB’s comes just as the Hawks may be getting things figured out in their secondary. Jeremy Lane is finally back from his gruesome double-injury in the Super Bowl, and made some plays in limited time against the Steelers. Having him back is huge. And DeShawn Shead looked good in his first game as the new starter at RCB opposite Richard Sherman. Nickle CB Marcus Burley injured his ankle against the Steelers, and his status will be closely monitored this week.

And then there’s the week #17 matchup against the Cardinals in Arizona. The odds of Carson Palmer playing may hinge on whether the Cards are in a battle for the #2 seed and the bye that comes with it. At this point it doesn’t appear there’s anyone else who has a chance to push them for that spot, barring a total collapse by Arizona. In the event he doesn’t play, Drew Stanton would start in his place.

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But depending on how things go over the next four weeks, against four less-than-star-quality QB’s, the Seahawks might just have everything wrapped up by that time. In that case, they might just be starting a backup quarterback of their own (Tarvaris Jackson) against the Cardinals.