Seahawks vs. Raiders: Jon Ryan previews Week 10 matchup

Here to preview this weekend's game is former Seahawks punter John Ryan down in L.A. John, good morning. Good morning. Good to see you. Good to see you, too. So the Seahawks are 5-4, sitting in second place in the NFC West. They've been battling injuries at quarterback and running back. What's your take so far on this season? I think at the start of the season, if you had said we're going to be 5-4, I'd be a little disappointed. I think it'd be more like 6-3 or 7-2. But having our quarterback go down the first quarter of the first game, most teams lose their starting quarterback because the season's pretty much over. And Drew Locke has stepped in. He's done a great job when called upon. Go on. Our run game hasn't been great with all the injuries, but we have the greatest football player in the world right now in JSN. He can make a lot of things right, and then obviously with that defense. So I think you're really going to see the team take off over these last eight games. All right, let's talk about Fernando Mendoza. The Raiders traded away their starter, Kirk Cousins, this week, and now Mendoza, the number one draft pick, is getting his first start in the NFL against the Seahawks D this weekend. What was that very first start like for you, and what is going to be challenging for him coming up on Sunday? It's really exciting, you know, it's your lifetime dream, your family's dream to play in that first NFL game. You know, my first pro game was 22 years ago, and I still remember it like it's yesterday. Unfortunately for Mendoza, his first start is going to be against that Seahawks defense. I think early on, they're going to try to get him comfortable, have a lot of short runs or a lot of runs, a lot of short passes. And then I think if the Seahawks get up and they have to air it out, I think it should be a really, really long day for Mendoza. I love the guy. I'm going to be a huge fan of Mendoza starting Monday. I'll do it. Yeah, I think that's a good plan. Now, Seahawks punter Michael Dixon has been getting some attention for putting some wicked spin on some of his punts this season. It's made things tough for returners. You did this too. So how does this work to slice the ball or knuckleball it? How does that work? Yeah, there's a lot of ways you can manipulate a football, just by different drops, different swings. It's really easy for a returner to stand under a spiral kick and catch it. But overall, it's one of the hardest jobs in the world is to try to catch a punt. When you're doing all these knuckleballs and you're doing these banana kicks and end-over-end kicks, and the returner doesn't really know what's coming, it makes his job very difficult. So right now, we have the best in the league in Michael Dixon, so I'm very happy that we have him. I always tell my friends when I'm watching a football game that punt returning has to be the worst job in all of sports because you have all these guys barreling down on you while you're trying to look up and catch a ball. Oh, exactly. You're looking straight up in the air, and there's 10 guys barreling down on you, and you have to kind of make that decision real quick whether or not to call a fair catch. So I've never envied those guys. Yeah, kicking and punting are so specialized jobs in the NFL. Of course, you run with special teams during practice, but there's also a lot of solo work that you guys do. So what does a day at practice entail for a punter? Yeah, a lot of things that we do as kickers and punters and long snappers are kind of on our own and not really seen by the others. We always started practice at, I think, 1:15. But the very first thing in practice was special teams. So I'd take about a five-minute lunch break, and then I'd start to stretch. Then I'd go on the field about 30 minutes before and start to warm up. And so a lot of our work isn't seen by others, which is fine. That's how we like it. That's how we've done it all our life. So it's just a lot of things that the others don't see and we're all kind of out on our other field and it's just a little bit different from what everyone else is doing. You're about to pack your bags. You and Jordan Babineaux are going to be hitting up the Seahawks rally in Las Vegas this Saturday. So for those Seahawks fans that are heading down there, what do they have to look forward to? Yeah, we're having a little fan fest at, I believe it's called Flanker's Bar at the Mandalay Bay on Saturday. Thank I attended the same event in Denver last month. It was a lot of fun. We kind of did a little sit-down interview, and then we just kind of mingled with fans for a few hours, signed autographs, took pictures, told old lies, just whatever. But I'm really looking forward to it, and I always have a lot of fun getting back to the 12s. All right. It's going to be great to see you down there, John. you. Former Seahawks punter John Ryan, thanks so much for joining us this morning. Anytime. Go Hawks. All right. Go Hawks.