Over the next two days, the Seattle Seahawks defense will be tested by the top two tight ends in the NFL. In Week 9, they’ll be tasked with stopping Trey McBride at the heart of the Arizona Cardinals’ offense. It won’t get any easier in Week 10 when they travel to face Brock Bowers and the Las Vegas Raiders. As they cross the halfway point of the season on Sunday, they can get their system firing on all cylinders by shutting down McBride.

They’ve already limited top quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers this season. They held the Kansas City Chiefs offense, led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes II and running back Kenneth Walker III, out of the red zone entirely in Week 7. Tight end Travis Kelce tied as their leading receiver, albeit with just four receptions for 44 yards on eight targets. Once Seattle redrew the line of scrimmage and reset Kansas City’s expectations surrounding their run game, which hadn’t been stopped all season, their plan to keep hitting Kelce over the middle of the field went by the wayside as well.

The Seahawks have avoided that caliber of tight end other than their Week 2 matchup against McBride. In that game, he caught eight of his 10 targets, but only amassed 41 yards and a touchdown. The touchdown came with 14:57 left in the second quarter. After that, quarterback Jacoby Brissett only targeted him four times, of which he caught three for 13 yards. McBride might get going early against the Seahawks in Week 9, but they can keep the pressure on the offense to feed him the ball. That pressure kept McBride off the stat sheet in Week 2, and it can make life difficult for the Cardinals’ new starting quarterback, Gardner Minshew II, and their first-year play-caller, head coach Mike LaFleur.

They get a Week 11 bye, and it won’t even get easier in Week 12 when they face another elite tight end, George Kittle, and another NFC West rival in the San Francisco 49ers. This Week 9 matchup against the Cardinals is an opportunity to gain momentum on several fronts, but this is one of the most important schematic strengths this team can stake their identity on as the season progresses.

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