What the Seahawks hope to learn during joint practices with Titans

RENTON — The Seattle Seahawks returned to the practice field at the VMAC Monday following their preseason-opening 16-3 win over the Los Angeles Chargers in Inglewood, Calif., Saturday night.

But they won’t be home long.

The Seahawks hit the road again Tuesday afternoon to head to Nashville where they will hold joint practices with the Titans on Wednesday and Thursday at Tennessee’s practice facility, and then play Tennessee in a preseason game Saturday at Nissan Stadium.

Joint practices have become a common occurrence across the NFL over the past half-dozen years or so — every team but the Chiefs and Raiders scheduled joint practices this year.

But it was not something Seattle did under coach Pete Carroll, who said last season he simply didn’t see a benefit going against another team in practice and could get any evaluation he needed out of the preseason games.

New coach Mike Macdonald, though, had experience with joint practices during his time with the Baltimore Ravens.

He also has some relationships with some of the coaching staff of the Titans — notably, defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson, who last year was the defensive backs coach for Baltimore when Macdonald was the defensive coordinator.

And since Seattle was already making the long trip to Nashville — a trip for which it would have left for Thursday anyway — he felt joint practices made sense.

The plan is for both teams to get their starters a lot of game-like work in fully-padded and full-contact practices each day but with the benefit of being able to control the situations.

Controlling things includes quarterbacks likely remaining off-limits to contact as much as possible and also being able to create specific situations each team wants to assure practice reps with, such as red-zone or two-minute drills.

“One, the science behind it, to kind of callous the team to get ready to go for the long haul, so that’s number one,’’ Macdonald said of the advantages of joint practices. “And just looking for the competition within a structured setting. I think they’ve got a great team, a great coaching staff. So to do it in a tight manner, like right here instead of in a game and kind of control the environment. And then it’s an opportunity to evaluate a lot of the guys, where our starters are at going against their starters.’’

One domino effect of the two planned days of joint practices is that the Seahawks likely won’t play any of their starters in the game against Tennessee.

“The starters probably won’t play in the game,’’ Macdonald said. “They’ll get the majority of the practice reps. …. You shouldn’t see a lot of the starters on Saturday.’’

What each coach will also have to be cognizant of is managing the tensions that often arise in joint practices, which have often featured more fights than occur in games.

The NFL last month sent a memo to every team stating “fights and unprofessional conduct’’ at joint practices will not be tolerated, according to The Associated Press.

The league then earlier this month fined the Giants and Lions $200,000 each after multiple fights broke out during two days of joint practices.

Some teams have decided to cut joint practices from two days to one as a result, noting that fights have tended to happen more often on the second day (NFL rules allow teams to have four overall days of joint practices throughout the preseason).

And some of the Seahawks and Titans know each other well as Tennessee recently signed both of Seattle’s starting safeties from the last few years — Jamal Adams and Quandre Diggs.

Titans coach Brian Callahan said Sunday that Diggs, who signed on Aug. 4, should be fully into the rotation this week while Adams, who has been limited in practice due to issues with his knee, is expected to practice this week.

Macdonald said he and his staff will talk with Callahan and his staff after arriving to make sure everyone is on the same page about the parameters of the joint practice.

He also noted that Seahawks offensive passing game coordinator Jake Peetz, who worked with the Rams the last two years when L.A. held joint practices each year, has been heading up Seattle’s joint practice plan.

“Brian has been great, very open about how they want to operate,’’ Macdonald said. “We’re trying to do the same thing. Jake (Peetz) has kind of spearheaded that whole operation so he’s done a great job on our end. A lot of communication on how we want to operate. And then we will get together before the whole thing kicks off on Wednesday and make sure everybody is on the same page and that the expectations on both sides are congruent.”