The Seahawks saw their three-game winning streak snapped last week, losing a high-scoring thriller against Tampa Bay on a last-second field goal, and now they'll head east looking to extend a franchise-record eight-game road winning streak. Getting that done won't be easy, however, with the Seahawks facing a tough opponent in the Jacksonville Jaguars, who under new head coach Liam Coen have won three straight games to improve their record to 4-1, matching their win total for the entire 2024 season.

"Got the great opportunity to go against a great football team again this week, playing great football," Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. "We're on the road. It's an east coast trip, 10 a.m. game, so we've got to be on our stuff… Jacksonville's a really good team, playing well in all three phases and playing complementary football. They've got a lot of really good players, they're coached well, so it'll be a great challenge for us."

Here are five things to watch when the Seahawks play in Jacksonville Sunday:

1. Can the Seahawks avoid turnovers against the league's most opportunistic defense?

Ball security is a big topic for every NFL team on a weekly basis, but for the Seahawks to function at their best on Sunday, they'll have to be especially on top of that element of the game when they face the Jaguars.

Jacksonville, which last year finished last in the NFL with nine takeaways, made a drastic improvement in that part of the game, recording an NFL leading 14 takeaways through five games. Last week, the Jaguars' lone takeaway was a huge one, with linebacker Devin Lloyd returning an interception 99 yards for a touchdown, and prior to that, the Jaguars had at least three takeaways in each of their first four games.

The Seahawks haven't been terrible when it comes to giving the ball away, but they do have at least one turnover in every game so far this season, and they know that they'll have to really be sharp if they're going to end that streak this week.

"They do a good job raking at the ball, do a good job of dropping into their spots and zones, so definitely something we're cognizant of," said tight end AJ Barner. "That's every week, obviously taking care of the football, but, when you're playing a team like this, definitely a point of emphasis. Getting into contact, definitely want to put a seatbelt on it, put two hands on it. Really just like any other week, but they do have a talented defense, and they are good at taking the ball away."

Said quarterback Sam Darnold, "They do a great job when ball carriers are out in space of punching the ball out, just attacking the football. You see them all over the tape tying their pressures in with their coverages, understanding where passes are, where they're more vulnerable as a defense with their pressures. And I feel like their DBs, and linebackers do a really good job of getting into those certain spaces. So, they've been doing a really good job, like you said, of taking the ball away, and we're just going to continue to do our part to limit those turnovers."

2. Can Seattle's defense slow down a dangerous Jaguars rushing attack?

The Seahawks are looking to bounce back from a tough outing on defense in last week's loss to the Buccaneers, and if Seattle is going to have success against Jacksonville's offense, that's going to have to start with a dangerous Jaguars rushing attack.

Led by former first-round pick Travis Etienne, the Jaguars are rushing for 137.0 yards per game and averaging 4.9 yards per carry, numbers that rank fifth and sixth in the NFL, respectively. The Seahawks will counter with one of the league's stingiest run defenses, one that is allowing just 83.0 rushing yards per game, ranking third in the NFL, and 3.3 yards per carry, which ranks second. Prior to last week, when the Bucs had two rushing touchdowns, the Seahawks were the only team in the league to not allow a rushing score through four weeks.

Etienne comes into the game having rushed for a team-leading 443 yards while averaging 5.2 yards per carry, and making his play all the more impressive is the way the Jaguars are able to generate explosive runs.

"He does everything well," Macdonald said. "He's an explosive runner. He's got great balance. I think he's seeing it well right now. He finishes runs well. There's an explosive element to their run game too where they've popped off a few long runs. Normally you see a long run and there's 17,000 guys on the line of scrimmage, and maybe a guy misses a tackle, and now it's to the gate. These runs are like running through angles, breaking tackles and different waves of defense. It's impressive what he's doing, but he's a great back. We see great backs every week. We've got to bring our A game every week. We have to play our style of football to be able to play our best game, to put ourselves in a chance to win. We respect him. He's a great player, but we've got to play Seahawk defense."

3. Can Sam Darnold and Jaxon Smith-Njigba continue to thrive on downfield throws against a defense that's great at stopping them?

Through five games, Sam Darnold and Jaxon Smith-Njigba have emerged as one of the NFL’s elite quarterback-receiver duos, with both players ranking at or near the top of the league in several statistical categories. And one area in which that duo has really shined has been the downfield passing game.

According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Darnold is 32 for 45 for 700 yards, six touchdowns and one interception on downfield throws, defined as throws 10-plus air yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Darnold's passer rating of 143.8 and completion percentage (71.1) on downfield throws are both the highest in the league. Smith-Njigba, meanwhile, leads the NFL with 17 receptions for 419 yards on downfield throws.

The Jaguars will counter with a defense that has allowed only 28 completions on 68 downfield pass attempts, and have a league-high seven interceptions those throws, giving them a league-best 46.2 passer rating allowed on downfield throws.

4. Will either team's pass rush be able to get to two of the league's least-sacked quarterbacks?

Playing without outside linebacker DeMarcus Lawrence for all of last week's game, and without fellow edge rusher Derick Hall for part of the game as well, the Seahawks struggled to generate enough pressure against Baker Mayfield last week. Hall seems unlikely to return this week seeing as Macdonald described him as week-to-week with an oblique injury, but Lawrence was able practice fully on Thursday, indicating he has a good shot to get back. And regardless of who is available, the Seahawks know they need to do more to affect the quarterback than they did last week.

Getting that pass rush going won't be easy for Seattle, because the Jaguars have allowed only six sacks this season, tied for fourth fewest sacks given up this season. And the other team tied in that spot? That would be the Seahawks, who have had two sack-free games in the past three weeks, meaning it's going to be a challenge for either defense to generate pressure and sacks.

"The communication that they've been having up front, to be able to hear that as a quarterback, it's very comforting," Darnold said of his pass protection. "There's kinks that we're going to work through every single week, but to be able to work through those kinks during the week and not on Sunday, I think that's the key. To be able to see every single look with every single protection that we have and be able to figure out the issues and the problem that we might have with the defense that we're playing. We go through all that with a fine-tooth comb and we're just going to continue to do that as an offense. Their relationship with one another is really the key thing that I see with everything is just those guys in that room are so close, and the closer that they get, the better that they're going to continue to play."

5. Will the Seahawks be road warriors, once again?

Nobody with the Seahawks is happy about the team's lack of success at home the past two seasons, having won only four of their last 12 at Lumen Field, but the flip side of that has been an incredible road record under Macdonald.

Building off the momentum the team had on the road under Pete Carroll, Macdonald's Seahawks have thrived in hostile environments, winning seven of eight road games last season, followed by two road wins to start this season. Seattle's eight-game road winning streak is the longest current streak in the league, and Macdonald became the fifth coach in NFL history to win nine of his first 10 road games to start his head coaching career, joining San Francisco's George Seifert, the Rams' Sean McVay, Baltimore's Don McCafferty and Cleveland's Paul Brown.

And after winning in the early kickoff time in Pittsburgh earlier this season, the Seahawks are now 28-11 in their last 39 games kicking off at 10 a.m. PT, and they've won 61 total road games since 2013, the second most in the NFL. So again, road success is nothing new to the league's most geographically isolated franchise; they've just taken it to another level in the past two seasons.

"Just keep it going," defensive lineman Leonard Williams said. "Wherever we are finding success, we want to continue with that and wherever we're lacking we want to grow in that. We obviously want to build on winning at home a little better. But if we're winning on the road and that's working for us, let's just make sure that continues working."