A most intriguing Seahawks preseason game is more than Pete Carroll. It’s Jalen Milroe

This is the Seahawks’ most interesting preseason opener in more than a dozen years.

Because of a coach. Because of a quarterback. Because Seattle finally drafted one.

Jalen Milroe will make his NFL debut Thursday night. He may play the majority of the snaps when the Seahawks host the Las Vegas Raiders in an NFL preseason game at Lumen Field (7:00 p.m., KING-5 locally).

Milroe has been looking forward to this — and feeling belief from his Seahawks coaches — since the night they drafted him in the third round, in late April.

“The Seahawks knew I was the best quarterback in the draft. They emphasized that,” Milroe said.

“(It’s) number one, words of affirmation. Number two, the belief system of everyone there. That’s all it takes. You walk differently, you play differently and you have an army behind you. And that’s what I have.”

Asked if he has a message to teams that passed on drafting him 91 times this spring before the Seahawks took him 92nd overall out of Alabama, Milroe said: “Belt to ass.”

The Raiders are other reason for the intrigue Thursday night. They are now coached by Pete Carroll. He took that job a little over a year after Seahawks chair Jody Allen and vice chair Bert Kolde chose general manager John Schneider’s path forward for the franchise over Carroll’s. They fired the 73-year-old head coach after Carroll’s 15 years running the team.

Carroll made news in Nevada this week when reporters new to covering him took his comments that every player on his roster is “live, everybody’s ready to go” as meaning quarterback Geno Smith and Raiders starters are playing. Carroll always used that language and played coy to Seattle media talking about playing time for any game from 2010-24 — especially preseason ones when he rarely played starters, especially quarterbacks.

So the return of Smith to the stadium where he led the Seahawks for three years after they traded Russell Wilson may be only to watch backups Aidan O’Connell and Cam Miller play quarterback for Las Vegas Thursday.

There’s enough cachet for this unique Seattle exhibition that the game is a national telecast, live on NFL Network.

Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald has been clear: His starters are not playing. The exceptions are the first-string rookies he wants to see in their first NFL game action. They are the team’s top for draft picks from this spring: new starting left guard Grey Zabel, second-round picks Nick Emmanwori at safety (plus outside linebacker) and tight end Elijah Arroyo.

And it is Milroe. He will likely enter after veteran number-two quarterback Drew Lock plays into or past the second quarter.

“There’s so much to get out of these games,” Macdonald said beginning his second year as Seahawks coach. “There are a lot of position battles that you want to see. You want to see how guys handle live and in color schemes that they haven’t been seeing the last x amount of practices.

“Going against other people is really exciting. Being in front of the 12s is going to be a lot of fun. And we want to win the game. That’s how we’ll call it, and that’s how we’ll handle all the situations, but getting our guys great reps as well.

“We want to get our guys an opportunity to go show what they’ve been practicing and training to do.”

Jalen Milroe’s time

Macdonald said new quarterback Sam Darnold and the starters will play next week in the Seahawks’ second preseason game, against Kansas City at Lumen Field Aug. 15.

That exhibition against the Chiefs plus the Seahawks’ joint practice at the Green Bay Packers Aug. 21 in Wisconsin will be the the starters’ rehearsals before the opener Sept. 7 against the San Francisco 49ers in Seattle.

So Thursday’s game and the Seahawks’ final preseason game Aug. 23 at Green Bay will be Milroe’s most extensive work all year, if this season goes according to plan for the Seahawks.

What is Macdonald looking for from Milroe in these exhibitions?

“Keep doing what he’s doing,” the head coach said. “You don’t have to reinvent quarterback play. Just do all the things that you’ve been trained to do. Go let it rip. Be decisive and be the quarterback and person that we drafted you to be, and that he’s becoming out there every day.

“There’s a lot of progress, a lot of things to be excited about, and there’s a lot of things we want to work on, too, so I can’t wait. I can’t wait to watch it.”

Milroe is just the third quarterback Schneider has selected in 16 Seahawks drafts. That alone makes him more than the curiosity of forgotten seventh-rounder Alex McGough, the last QB the GM drafted in 2018.

Heck, this is the most intrigue around a Seahawks rookie quarterback for preseason games since Wilson, another third-round pick and the other QB Schneider had drafted, was in the process of taking veteran free-agent signing Matt Flynn’s starting job in Seattle during August 2012.

Jalen Milroe’s progress

Thursday is Milroe’s chance to show what he’s been improving on in practices.

The 6-foot-2, 216-pound quarterback was a bulldozing runner in college. He trucked linebackers. He had 32 rushing touchdowns his final two seasons at Alabama.

He will run in these preseason games, on designed QB rushes Kubiak calls. The offensive coordinator wants to get Milroe ready for the packages of plays Kubiak likely will give him for regular-season games, including the opener against the 49ers.

The Seahawks wouldn’t mind that getting on film this preseason for the league to see and then have to prepare for when they play Seattle this season.

The knock on Milroe is the reason he wasn’t a top quarterback selected earlier in this year’s draft: His throwing accuracy.

He has markedly improved that in his three months working with new Seahawks quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko and new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak. Janocko came with Kubiak from New Orleans’ staff last season when Seattle hired Kubiak to install his offense of outside-zone run blocking with play-action and bootleg passing.

“Playing sound and key to my reads, that’s when I’m at my best,” Milroe said when the Seahawks drafted him. “I understand that and I know that I’m going to be in the best situation with this coaching staff.

“I’m super excited.”

These preseason games will be the more extensive tests to see Milroe’s progress in a system that appears to be fitting him better each week of training-camp practices.

“There’s a lot of progress, a lot of things to be excited about,” Macdonald said of his rookie quarterback. “And there’s a lot of things we want to work on, too.

“So I can’t wait. I can’t wait to watch it.”