The Seahawks head to Arizona this weekend looking to improve upon their 1-0 start to the season, and also to continue an impressive run of road success under head coach Mike Macdonald. They'll be facing an Arizona Cardinals squad that pulled off an impressive double-digit road win over the Chargers under first year head coach Mike LaFleur, an early-season result that served notice to the league, and to the NFC West, that Arizona, a three-win team last season, isn't going to be an automatic win on the schedule.

Here are five things to watch when the Seahawks face the Cardinals Sunday afternoon at State Farm Stadium:

1. What does Drew Lock do in his first Seahawks start since 2023?

Drew Lock, who first came to the Seahawks in the 2022 trade that sent Russell Wilson to Denver, left for one season to play for the New York Giants, but the Seahawks brought him back last year because they recognized that the former second round pick is one of the most talented backups in the league.

That move paid off last week when Lock, filling in for an injured Sam Darnold, posted a 113.3 passer rating, completing 16 of 22 attempts for 187 yards and a touchdown to help the Seahawks come back from a 10-point deficit. Now, with Darnold out this week due to his glute injury, Lock will be making his first start as a Seahawk since he led a dramatic comeback in a 2023 win over the Eagles.

Having seen what Lock can do not only in his limited chances in game, but also in practice over the course of multiple seasons, the Seahawks are fully confident in what Lock will give them on Sunday.

"We all have faith in Drew," defensive tackle Leonard Williams said. "We believe that he's the best second-string quarterback in the league. Since I've been here, before he went to the Giants, he stepped up big time. I remember that Eagles game a few years back where he stepped up and won us the game. He's done it and shown it multiple times now. That has instilled a lot of trust in his teammates and his team."

As well as Lock played last week, he should be able to operate significantly better this week after getting the full week of practice with the starting offense, a big departure from his usual practice week when Darnold is getting those reps.

"It's night and day different," Lock said. "Being able to get a couple reps of these plays under your belt. Not all of them are live; a big chunk of it goes back to walkthroughs, but being able to say, 'There isn't a call on this sheet that I haven't at least walked through,' is way different than what you get in a week. I'll walk through every play on a normal week, but being able to get those live reps, throw Jax (Jaxon Smith-Njigba) a go ball. Rip AJ Barner something, who knows. To be able to get those live reps is huge."

2. Do the Seahawks clean up some of the mistakes that cost them last week?

The Seahawks were flagged for 10 penalties for 98 yards in last week's close win over the Patriots, and it wasn't just the volume of penalties that stood out, but how costly they were. On defense, the Patriots got a touchdown after a pass interference penalty on an underthrown deep ball, and a field goal after a roughing the punter penalty turned a quick stop into a new set of downs. On offense, the Seahawks had a touchdown taken off the board for an illegal shift, had a red zone delay-of-game penalty turn second-and-1 into second-and-6, helping turn a potential touchdown into a field goal, had an offensive offside penalty erase a fourth-and-1 conversion, leading to a punt, and committed four false starts.

Penalties are a part of football and it's almost impossible to avoid them all together, but the Seahawks know they can eliminate some of them, especially the ones on offense that happen before the snap like the delay of game and illegal shift. While it's unfair to blame those penalties on Lock, having a new quarterback come into the game after not practicing with the starting offense can certainly make things harder on the offense as a whole when it comes to operating cleanly, so the fact that Lock got a full week of starter reps should help the offense run more smoothly.

"They're obviously all controllable," offensive coordinator Brian Fleury said. "There's the delay of games, the false starts. A couple of them are on me; getting the play in sooner, a couple of them were situational stuff. We had the (offside) call on the AJ Barner sneak—we have to coach that better in terms of how they're officiating that. We've been working on that. It's all stuff that we're able to address in practice. Luckily, they're all correctable."

3. Can Jadarian Price outshine former Notre Dame teammate and fellow 2026 first-round pick Jeremiyah Love?

In an odd quirk of the 2026 draft, the first two running backs selected, and the only two taken in the first round, happened to be college teammates, Notre Dame's Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price. Love went third overall to the Cardinals, and Price went 32nd to the Seahawks at the end of the first round, and since the two happened to be selected by NFC rivals, there will be plenty of head-to-head matchups between the two friends and competitors in the next few years.

Love's debut saw him rush for 41 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries while splitting time with Tyler Allgier, while Price gained 52 yards on 10 carries, including a 13-yard gain on his first career carry.

Because Price is a rookie who missed a bit of time in camp and did not play in the preseason, the Seahawks were, as Fleury put it, deliberate with his reps in the opener, and expect to add to his workload in the coming weeks. Love too missed time leading up to the regular season with an ankle injury, so there's a very good chance that both rookie backs get more playing time and touches this week.

"We were very deliberate about the reps that he was going to get, and how he was going to be used," Fleury said of Price. "He didn't play in the preseason. It was the very first NFL game, huge stage. We wanted to be cautious in terms of his workload. He earned more reps moving forward, and we'll continue to bring him along and develop him the right way."

When it comes to playing an NFL game against Love, Price said, "It'll be special. We even talked about it, how we want to maybe swap jerseys or something if we can. Because it'll be a very special moment, and I know that a lot of Notre Dame fans and Notre Dame people look forward to that moment. We'll definitely get a picture."

4. Do the Seahawks build on an impressive road record under Mike Macdonald, not to mention a long run of success in Arizona?

A big focus for the Seahawks last season was on getting back their homefield advantage after suffering too many losses at Lumen Field, and the Seahawks were able to do that, albeit after losing two of their first three at home, winning seven straight home games to close out the season, including a pair of playoff wins to get to the Super Bowl.

But what didn't need to change last season was the way the team played on the road. After going 7-1 on the road in Macdonald's first season as head coach, the Seahawks kept it up in 2025, posting an 8-1 road record.

The Seahawks are also trying to add to a long run of success in Arizona that predates Macdonald's tenure in Seattle by more than a decade. Dating back to Seattle's first Super Bowl-winning season in 2013, the Seahawks have an 11-1-1 record at State Farm Stadium, including five straight going back to the 2021 season.

5. Does a possibly short-handed secondary have answers for All-Pro tight end Trey McBride?

The Seahawks defense played very well last week despite some key absences in the secondary, with safeties Nick Emmanwori and Ty Okada both sidelined. Rodney Thomas II, filling in for Okada, stepped up and made big plays, as did other defensive backs like safety Julian Love and cornerbacks Nehemiah Pritchett and Josh Jobe, all three of whom had fourth-quarter interceptions, so the Seahawks will feel good about their secondary and their defense no matter who is on the field. That being said, possibly getting some reinforcements—Emmanwori, who was questionable for last week's game before not playing, practiced on a limited basis on Wednesday and Thursday—would be welcome as the Seahawks look to contain one of the NFL's top tight ends in Trey McBride.

A first-team All-Pro last season and a two-time Pro-Bowler, McBride has been one of the league's most productive pass catchers, not just tight ends, over the past few seasons, piling up more than 400 catches and 3,000 yards in the last three years, including last year's All-Pro campaign in which he had 126 catches for 1,239 yards and 11 touchdowns.   And McBride, who is off to a strong start this season with nine catches for 95 yards and a touchdown last week, has done plenty of damage against Seattle, like nearly every other team he has faced. Over the past two seasons, McBride has 35 catches for 382 yards in four games against Seattle, including nine catches for 127 yards and a score in the most recent meeting.

"They have multiple different ways (of getting McBride the ball)," defensive coordinator Aden Durde said. "He's an excellent player with the ball in his hands, and excellent route runner. He's a problem that we have to deal with and we're working towards that."