Jalen Milroe will get his time in the spotlight this weekend.

Via multiple reporters, Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald announced on Thursday that Milroe will start and play the entire preseason finale against the Packers on Saturday afternoon.

Milroe, a third-round pick in this year’s draft, is in line to be Seattle’s third quarterback in 2025 behind starter Sam Darnold and backup Drew Lock.

Milroe played 42 percent of Seattle’s offensive snaps in the preseason opener before taking 33 percent of the offensive snaps in last week’s matchup with the Chiefs.

In his two appearances, Milroe has completed 9-of-15 passes for 107 yards. He’s also rushed eight times for 56 yards.

Seahawks-Packers is set to kick off at 4 p.m. ET on Saturday. The game will be nationally televised on NFL Network.

Running back Kenneth Walker has rarely been on the field at Seahawks practice this summer as the team manages his sore foot in hopes of having him available for the regular season.

Balancing health with the need to prepare for the season is something that all teams do in the preseason and the time off seems to agree with Walker. Walker said he “definitely” feels a difference in his performance after the extended rest and head coach Mike Macdonald said “when he’s been out there, he’s been really good.”

Macdonald also noted that there’s a downside to the time Walker has missed.

“There’s a lot of walkthrough reps that need to be had, but at some point, to your point, you’ve got to do it on the field so you feel confident to go out there and execute at a high level and play your best football,” Macdonald said, via Brady Henderson of ESPN.com. “So that’s something that we’re working through.”

Zach Charbonnet has been the beneficiary of Walker’s absence and he’s shown Macdonald that he’s “just a stud” in his work this summer. That could lead to a bigger role early in the season while Walker is getting all the way up to speed and a bigger share of the offensive workload overall if he’s able to produce in a more run-focused offense than the Seahawks had last season.

Seahawks outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu passed his physical Sunday, the team announced. It clears the way for his return from the active/physically unable to perform list.

Nwosu, who battled multiple injuries last season, had offseason knee surgery.

His 2023 season was cut short by a pectoral injury. A year ago, Nwosu injured a knee in the preseason and then injured his thigh in his first game back.

Nwosu played only six games in 2023 and six games in 2024.

In his first season after signing with the Seahawks in 2022, he had 9.5 sacks, 12 tackles for loss, 26 quarterback hits, 66 tackles, four passes defensed, three forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries.

Once upon a time, my morning routine consisted of: (1) pouring a large bowl of Frosted Flakes; (2) adding milk; (3) opening to the sports page of the Wheeling Intelligencer; and (4) studying the current MLB standings and box scores while wolfing down the cereal before the flakes became un-frosted and saturated with milk.

Back then, the Houston Astros resided in the National League West. The Seattle Mariners didn’t exist. Nowadays, the two franchises share membership in the American League West. And they’re currently battling for the division title, with (as of Saturday) the Astros leading the Mariners by 0.5 games.

Also on Saturday, the Houston Texans hosted the Carolina Panthers in a preseason game. Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud arrived for the contest with a Mariners hat on his head.

It naturally created a stir for Houstonians who support both the local football and the local baseball team.

Sam Warren of the Houston Chronicle has the details. Here’s the video of Stroud walking in. The Mariners took notice. Texans/Astros fans did, too.

Stroud, who swapped out the baseball hat for a Texans toque when he took the field, also wore the Mariners cap to his post-game press conference. He laughed off a question about his headgear.

“I mean, I love hats,” Stroud said. “Like, I wear hats all the time. I probably have every team. But I support the Astros and the Dodgers because I’m from L.A. It’s kind of contradicting but I still love the Astros. But it’s all good. I understand. It’s all about the swag, baby. I’m just kidding.”

The Astros/Dodgers thing is definitely “contradicting,” given the sign-stealing scandal that put an asterisk on the Astros’ 2017 World Series win over the Dodgers, when Stroud was a 16-year-old student at Rancho Cucamonga High School.

While he can wear whatever hat he wants to wear, there’s a basic “when in Rome” quality that comes from being the starting quarterback for an NFL team. Local fans of the football team are also fans of the other local sports teams. Right or wrong, they expect the players to act accordingly.

Hat flaps are not unprecedented. Twelve years ago, for example, 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick created a stir by wearing a Miami Dolphins hat.

While Stroud didn’t show up wearing a Colts hat or a Titans hat or a Jaguars hat, Houstonians will be naturally sensitive to the sight of a Seattle Mariners hat on the head of the Texans’ starting quarterback. After all, fan is short for fanatic.

And players would be wise to at least factor that broader sense of fanaticism into deciding which hat from the collection should be donned to the stadium for a game. Is it worth inviting avoidable venom from fans who are fanatical about both the local baseball team and the local football team?

Our guess is that, moving forward, Stroud’s Mariners hat will remain on the shelf, unless and until he’s the starting quarterback of the Seahawks.

Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald was pleased with his team’s performance in Friday night’s win over the Chiefs, at least on one side of the ball.

“Offensively it’s about how you script it. Defensively I thought we would have played a little better,” Macdonald said.

Macdonald was impressed with how smoothly the offense ran, both with the starters in the game and with the backups.

“Right now our offensive operation, I’m very pleased with. How we take the ball, our decisiveness in how we move and shift, we called our targets right,” Macdonald said. “Every back, today, I thought ran the ball hard.”

Macdonald called starting quarterback Sam Darnold “really sharp” and said there was no reason to leave him in the game after he went 4-for-4 on the opening drive.

“I’m pretty sure he wanted to keep going but he showed what he can do. Really great drive,” Macdonald said.

Macdonald said backup wide receiver Dareke Young is a player who has worked particularly hard this offseason and is showing it on the field in the preseason. On Friday night Young caught all three passes thrown to him, for 52 yards.

Sam Darnold got his feet wet, playing 10 plays on one possession in the Seahawks’ second preseason game.

The quarterback, who signed with the Seahawks in the offseason, did not throw the ball down the field with air yards of minus-5, minus-1, 1 and 4 yards on his four attempts. But he was perfect.

Darnold went 4-for-4 for 34 yards, connecting with four different receivers. Fullback Robbie Ouzis caught one for 13 yards, tight end Elijah Arroyo one for 9, wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba one for 7 and tight end AJ Barner one for 5.

Zach Charbonnet ran for 45 yards, including a 15-yard touchdown, on five carries on the 81-yard drive that gave the Seahawks a 7-0 lead over the Chiefs.

The Seahawks faced only one third down and sent rookie quarterback Jalen Milroe out for the quarterback sneak with Darnold lined up at running back. Milroe gained 2 yards.

Drew Lock replaced Darnold on the second possession.

Darnold did not play in the preseason opener.

The Seahawks added another fullback to their roster on Thursday.

The team announced the signing of Wesley Steiner. They waived linebacker Michael Dowell to create a spot for Steiner in Seattle.

Steiner played linebacker while at Auburn and Washington State and he played there during a short stint with the Raiders after going undrafted this year, but he will be switching sides of the ball in his bid to make it with the Seahawks.

Fifth-round pick Robbie Ouzts is listed at the top of the fullback depth chart heading into his rookie season. Brady Russell is listed as the second fullback and he’s also seen time at tight end this summer.

The Seahawks haven’t seen Sam Darnold on the field in game action yet. That looks like it will change Friday.

Coach Mike Macdonald said the plan is to play the starters against the Chiefs.

“Might be a couple of guys that will vary based on whether they get out there or not. We’re still kind of working through it right now for guys who are going to sit the game out,” Macdonald said, via video from Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times.

It’s not clear how long the starters will play but at least a series.

“I don’t think we need to, but I think it’s the best thing for us,” Macdonald said.

Geno Smith, the starting quarterback for the Seahawks last season, did not play until the third preseason game. He saw five snaps.

The Seahawks rested 30 players in the preseason opener against the Raiders.

Paul Allen’s estate has a deal in place to sell one of its most valuable assets.

Via Shams Charania of ESPN.com, Allen’s sister, Jody, has agreed to sell the NBA’s Portland TrailBlazers to Tom Dundon, at a valuation of more than $4 billion.

Dundon, who owns the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, was involved in the ill-fated AAF, six years ago.

Jody Allen has no deadline for selling the TrailBlazers or the bigger property in the portfolio — the Seattle Seahawks.

What are the Seahawks worth? Ignore those clickbait, semi-educated guess valuations. They’re worth whatever someone will pay for them. And that number is always more than the amount that the teams are supposedly worth on paper.

If the Seahawks were for sale, what would they fetch? At a minimum, $10 billion. And that number will only keep rising.

The Chiefs are breaking camp on Wednesday at Missouri Western State and head coach Andy Reid shared some plans for preseason playing time on Friday in Seattle.

Via multiple reporters, Reid said in his press conference that there’s a “good chance” quarterback Patrick Mahomes will not play in the game. Other starters are likely to rest as well.

This is a bit of a change for Reid, who usually gives starters plenty of playing time in the team’s penultimate preseason game.

Mahomes was on the field for just three snaps in last week’s preseason opener, tossing a 1-yard touchdown pass to receiver Jason Brownlee.

For his part, Mahomes noted that he has no problem playing in the final exhibition contest against the Bears in the final preseason contest.

“I always want to play and be out there,” Mahomes said, via Nate Taylor of ESPN. “I trust in coach Reid and his process fully.”