Few things are as great as the NFL playoffs, and nothing is as great as football in the snow and freezing cold, so Seahawks-Vikings on Sunday should be awesome. What is clear is that the Seahawks will be missing a key piece for a playoff game. The Seahawks announced Friday night that Lynch would not play and said in a statement: “Following our final workout Friday he felt like he couldn’t play”.
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“But after practice Friday, one in which Lynch was listed as a full participant, Carroll said that “I don”t know really” if Lynch will play against the Vikings and added that the team will assess how he responds to a full week of work.
Lynch, a five-time Pro Bowl selection, has missed Seattle’s past seven games following hernia surgery.
“Everything, I think everything”, Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll answered when asked about what area of the game he fears the most.
The Vikings have a good pass rush and if they don’t feel threatened by the Seattle run game, they can remove defenders from the box to both guard against the pass and keep a spy on Wilson in case he decides he wants to take off from the pocket.
The Minnesota Vikings picked up their biggest victory of the Mike Zimmer era last week when they defeated the Green Bay Packers. In his last seven games he has passed for 24 touchdowns with only one interception. The future Hall of Famer has likely made the Vikings offensive line look better than it is.
2015 leaders: Seahawks: QB Russell Wilson 329-483 for 4,024 yards, 34 TDs, 8 INT; RB Thomas Rawls 147-830, 4 TDs; WR Doug Baldwin 78-1,069, 14 TDs.
If this turns into a low-scoring affair between two elite backs and defenses, Peterson and the Vikings can pull ahead. Give me $1,000 on the Seahawks.
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Looking ahead, the Vikings will face the Seattle Seahawks in Minnesota on Sunday, Jan. 10. Kirk Cousins of the Redskins finished the regular season on a strong note. The Seahawks posted a 10-6 record, outscoring opponents 423-277. When you have that guy, you need to win in the present, even if the Vikings’ best football – at least on defense – may be a couple years away. That could be put to the test in some frigidly cold temperatures Sunday. “He’s looked really good, and we’re hoping so, very optimistic about that”. He had just 233 total yards on the season, but when Thielen touches the ball, there’s always a chance he could make a huge, momentum-swinging play. Then in Week 17, Michael ran for 102 yards on just 17 carries against the Arizona Cardinals. He’s one of the toughest running backs to play in the NFL. But with temperatures forecast to be around zero in Minneapolis on Sunday, the Seahawks are preparing for a cold majority have never experienced with no easy way to replicate it other than standing in a storage freezer for an extended period of time. The coldest game ever, of course, was the 1967 title game at Lambeau Field – the “Ice Bowl” – where the Packers and Cowboys faced -13 degrees and a wind chill of -48. But the idea of trying to tackle Adrian Peterson or Marshawn Lynch in such conditions is not an enviable thought for anyone on defence.
