2014 Thanksgiving NFL preview: Seattle Seahawks at San Francisco 49ers

The last of the three Thanksgiving NFL football games this year is between the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers at 8:30 p.m. on NBC. If this game were a Thanksgiving food, it would be the roast pork, baked salmon, or Turducken that someone brings to the meal. It’s not traditional but damn, is it good. Tradition aside, you’re going to grab a few extra servings of it on top of that dried out token piece of Turkey breast you eat out of obligation.

Thanksgiving is the ultimate American holiday. Its focusses are family, food, and football. To celebrate the first two, it helps to know about the third. To that end, we’re offering a free copy of our Guide to Football for the Curious in addition to publishing previews about each of the three Thanksgiving NFL football games.

Plot

Unlike the two day games, this game does not have a set host city and team, so the league is free to pick what they think the most entertaining matchup will be each year. Before this season started, the matchup of the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers must have seemed like a slam dunk. The Seahawks won the Super Bowl last year and the 49ers have been to at least the conference finals (the game right before the Super Bowl) for the last three years. Both teams are in the NFC West division, and if that weren’t enough to create a rivalry, their head coaches, Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh share a mutual disdain from their days coaching in college against each other. Before the season started, this game must have seemed like the perfect choice for Thanksgiving night because it was a heated rivalry of two very excellent teams. The schedule makers lucked out — it is a compelling game but for very different reasons than they thought before the season.

The first half of the NFL season for these two teams has proven that something can always go wrong. Both teams have struggled to win games, largely because their dominating defenses from the previous years have been anything but dominating this year. Nor have things been nice and easy in the dressing room. Seattle traded one of its most explosive players mid-season and as he left the city the team’s leadership spread rumors that he was unmanageable and violent towards his teammates. San Francisco has been beset by rumors that their team can’t stand their coach. It’s fairly common in sports for teams to dislike their coaches, but these rumors have suggested that the situation for the 49ers is worse than normal.

 

On Thanksgiving, both Seattle and San Francisco find themselves 7-4 (seven wins, four losses) and a full two games behind the Arizona Cardinals for the division lead. Assuming neither team can catch Arizona, these two teams will be fighting with each other and a couple of other extremely good teams for the two available wild card playoff spots. Between real animosity for the opponent and a clear need to win the game for playoff positioning, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if this were the best game of the day.

Characters

Jim Harbaugh, Coach of the San Francisco 49ers

Jim Harbaugh is a pain in the ass. That seems to be the consensus of everyone who has every played with or for him. He’s intense, emotional, almost childlike in his inability or unwillingness to control himself on the sidelines. He also wins. A lot. He’s known as a “quarterback whisperer” or someone who is able to mentor young quarterbacks to make the most of their potential. This year has been an interesting one about him, if not for him. His contract ends after this season and it’s unclear whether the 49ers will want to retain him, despite his winning record. There have been well documented reports of power struggles between him and the general manager of the team as well dissension among the players.

Colin Kaepernick, Quarterback on the San Francisco 49ers

Kaepernick is the young, talented quarterback being whispered to by Harbaugh. Kaepernick is an unusual sight on the football field. He is tall and slender but freakishly fast and strong. Once a well-regarded professional prospect as a baseball pitcher, Kaepernick retains an element of foreignness to his game. His arm strength is second to none and when he decides to run with the ball, he’s a threat to run by, around, or over defenders. For all his talent though, he can look as bad at any moment as he looked good during a previous play. He’s not particularly consistent and his decision making is questionable.

Chris Borland, Linebacker on the San Francisco 49ers

For the past three seasons, the San Francisco 49ers football team’s character was epitomized by its two amazing inside linebackers, Patrick Willis and Navorro Bowman. The 49ers were a strong, no nonsense, physical team and those two guys were their team’s leaders, role models, and muse. This year, they are both out with injuries. Who steps in? This guy, Chris Borland. Borland is a rookie who won Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year last year in his Senior season. He was drafted by the 49ers in the third round of the NFL draft. Since stepping into a starting role, he’s been a defensive leader on the team and has quickly become a rising star.

Pete Carroll, Coach of the Seattle Seahawks

Pete Carroll is a charming trickster of a coach. It’s no surprise that of all the coaches in the NFL, he’s the one who became a robber baron in this .gif. He’s a rogue. He left his last college job at USC right before the school was sanctioned seriously by the NCAA for basically flagrantly paying star running back Reggie Bush. Now that he’s in the NFL, Carroll’s team has been among the league leaders in PED or performance enhancing drug suspensions. No matter where he goes though, he wins. Last year, he took the Seahawks all the way to the Super Bowl where they routed the Broncos early and won easily. He and Harbaugh hate each other as they have since they were rivals in college at USC and Stanford.

Marshawn Lynch, Running Back on the Seattle Seahawks

Marshawn Lynch is an extreme running back. He’s known as Beast Mode for his powerful and unyielding running style. If you want to know what I’m talking about, watch this. He also famously loves Skittles. The Seattle fans love him, so now when he scores at home, Skittles rain down from the stands. He has one year left on his contract after this year but is rumored to be leaving Seattle sooner than that. He has not been happy there this year. One of his friends/allies, Percy Harvin was traded during the year, and Lynch has reportedly been misbehaving behind the scenes. Of course, it’s hard to know the truth because the team has an incentive to sell the misbehavior story if they want to get rid of Lynch without their fans going crazy. What we do know is that last week after the game, Lynch decided to stonewall reporters in a half comic, half tragic way.

Russell Wilson, Quarterback on the Seattle Seahawks

Russell Wilson was the toast of the NFL for his first couple years in the league. He came in as a somewhat unheralded rookie and immediately beat out his competition in training camp so thoroughly that he was given the starting job. He didn’t disappoint. In his first two years, the Seahawks made the playoffs twice and won the Super Bowl once. Wilson became one of the most well respected quarterbacks around, succeeding despite being short for a quarterback. This year, like most of the team, Wilson has struggled a little bit on and off the field. On the field, his quarterback rating has dropped a little compared to his first two years. Off the field, he’s been accused of being both too close to management and “not black enough.”

Richard Sherman, Cornerback on the Seattle Seahawks

Richard Sherman was launched into the broader public consciousness when he allowed (or if you’re more cynical, decided to) his in-game passion to roll over into a post-game interview after last year’s playoff game against (you guessed it), the San Francisco 49ers. Sherman was briefly labeled as some kind of stereotypical football playing mouthful half-wit before people remembered that he’s every bit as much an intellectual achiever as an athletic one. This year, Sherman hasn’t played quite as well as he has in past years but I imagine he will be on top of his game for this one. He certainly has been on the top of his press conference game, as he showed in this light-hearted yet biting satirical rebuttal to the NFL’s fine for Lynch after his “Yeah” conference.