One of the Seattle Seahawks’ biggest rivals delivered the first big shockwaves of the 2026 offseason.

Why Salk ‘blanched’ at a Seahawks Maxx Crosby trade proposal

Los Angeles Rams have agreed to a deal that would send four draft picks to the Kansas City Chiefs in exchange for All-Pro cornerback and former UW Huskies standout Trent McDuffie, according to a report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Wednesday morning.

McDuffie, who is entering the final season of his rookie contract, is expected to sign a long-term extension with the Rams, according to Schefter.

Shortly after the news broke, former NFL quarterback Brock Huard gave his reaction on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

“This feels like a direct move to match up with JSN and the Seahawks,” Huard said.

Widely considered to be the two best teams in the NFL this past season, the Seahawks and Rams squared off in three epic battles, capped by Seattle’s 31-27 win over Los Angeles in the NFC Championship.

Over those three games, the Rams’ shaky secondary struggled to contain NFL receiving leader and AP Offensive Player of the Year Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The Seahawks star wideout totaled 27 catches for 354 yards and two touchdowns across those three matchups, including 10 catches for 153 yards and a TD in the NFC title game.

Smith-Njigba also had a career-high 180 receiving yards and two touchdowns in an overtime loss to the Rams in 2024.

“It’s kind of like an old NBA world,” Huard said. “Like, alright, we know we’re gonna have to deal with Jordan or we’re gonna have to deal with Pippen or we’re gonna have to deal with Bird. Like, how do we match up? And (the Rams) know that that was the one area – in their back seven – that could not match up.”

Listen to the full Brock and Salk conversation at this link or in the audio player in the middle of this story. Tune into Brock and Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

Seattle Seahawks offseason coverage

• What Brock Huard makes of Seahawks’ Ken Walker situation
• A possible replacement if Seahawks don’t re-sign Walker
• Huard: Jobe is most likely free agent the Seattle Seahawks re-sign
• Report: Seattle Seahawks not tendering restricted FA Jake Bobo
• The Seattle Seahawks’ risks with Walker set to be free agent

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SAN DIEGO (CNS) – Military bases in San Diego County and nationwide have increased security measures due to last weekend’s U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran, prompting traffic delays near base entrances, enhanced ID checks and access restrictions.

The Naval Air Station North Island on Coronado ports three aircraft carriers, including the San Diego-based USS Abraham Lincoln, which led some of the first-wave attacks on Saturday.

Naval Base Coronado warned motorists of possible traffic delays at all base entry points due to the increased security measures.

Targets included Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields.

The U.S. operation, dubbed “Epic Fury,” and Israeli operation, “Raging Lion,” began striking targets at 1:15 a.m. Eastern Time Saturday.

As of Tuesday, at least six U.S. service members had been killed in action.

The strikes also killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who had been Iran’s supreme leader since 1989, making him the longest-serving head of state in the Middle East.

Iran’s offensive forces claimed to have struck USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles, but according to an X post from U.S central Command, “The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn’t even come close. The Lincoln continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM’s relentless campaign to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.”

Those with concerns regarding the heightened security can contact San Diego County’s Office of Emergency Services at 858-565-3490 or oes@sdcounty.ca.gov.

Copyright 2026, City News Service, Inc.

This is the beginning of the Iditarod spring, signaled by the burst of sun and what used to be the long wait for dog teams to pass under the arch in Nome, the finish line a thousand miles away from Anchorage. For old-timers, it’s the story of the way Alaska used to be. What once was a 30-day wait has become about 10 days for winners to celebrate and the rest of us to shout, “Well done.”

My story is about family that welcomed immigrants from all over the world to be among the last groups of Indigenous people in the country, a life of taking good care of dog teams, and of parents who taught their children how to live in a wild, rugged frontier.

I came to be in a different age, a time of dog teams that ruled the trails to mining camps and where the salmon ran strongest — before the introduction of the snowmachine that revolutionized rural and Native Alaska.

For the Blatchford family, it is a recognition that some things will always stay the same and everything else changes. All four of my grandparents were noncitizens. My mother Lena’s parents of Elim were Alaska Natives, as was my dad Ernie’s mother, Mae, of Shishmaref. The name Blatchford comes from his father, the Englishman who was born in Cornwall and arrived in Nome during the gold rush. His brother, William, was one of the early immigrants, and by 1899 there was a creek just outside Nome named after him. He discovered gold. My grandfather, Percy, found gold, too, but it was a different kind of wealth, a finding that he had found home and never left.

I was born in Nome, delivered by an Iñupiaq Eskimo midwife in a one-room cabin where the frozen Bering Sea met the treeless tundra’s permafrost. Dad had a dog team. I like to think that the dogs were anxious for me to be born because it was hunting time for Dad to hitch them up and mush out to where the sea mammals, snowshoe hares, ptarmigan and other game thrived in the winter. My earliest memories are of dogs; all of them working as a team to bring home the game so we could have a fine meal cooked by Lena. In the Arctic, dogs were essential for family survival. If you didn’t hunt, you didn’t eat.

There are several memories that remain strong. I suppose I can call them lessons of the Arctic.

The first is to take care of the dogs and treat them well. Dog lovers all over the world know very well that a dog, whatever the breed, is loyal and will die to protect the one who feeds and pets it. If you don’t feed a husky, it won’t pull, and it could mean a long time before the family eats. When a dog team is hungry, it will race back home to be fed a healthy meal. Mother Lena must have been a great cook because Dad said the dog team always raced back to the edge of Nome, where Lena was waiting beside the propane stove. For Mike, Tom and me, our job was to take the rifle, shotgun and .22 into the cabin to be cleaned and oiled. Once that was quickly done, we unhitched the dogs and then fed the team.

All three of us boys had special responsibilities to Tim, Buttons and Girlie. Tim, the lead dog, was brother Mike’s pet; Tom had Buttons, and I had Girlie. We made sure they were healthy and well cared for. Dad would often comment that “Papa,” our grandfather Percy, the Englishman, took good care of his dog teams, being kind to the dogs and feeding them. Dad was the oldest of a large family that lived in Teller and later Nome.

“Papa” Percy was a prospector, fox farmer and a contestant in the All-Alaska Sweepstakes, the dog team race from Nome to the mining camp of Candle, a 400-mile race. He didn’t win, but he finished well, very well. The stories of the Sweepstakes have remained with the family for over a century. At a memorial service in Palmer for “Doc” Blatchford, Aunt Marge, without a question or a prompt, said that Papa took good care of his dogs.

Percy Blatchford was a legend in the Alaska Territory. As a teacher of Alaska newspapers, I would find headlines similar to one in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that blazed on the front page: “Blatchford Wins Solomon Derby.” There was even a story in The New York Times.

There’s probably no other sport in Alaska that brought Alaskans together like dog mushing. When old-timers would visit over strong coffee, dogs and dog team racing would come up. In the territory, there were few high schools and fewer gymnasiums, so the only team sport was dog mushing. It was something to talk about that was unique to Alaskans.

I used to travel in rural Alaska quite a bit. In the smaller communities, I would see the teams and would wonder how long they would power the engines that brought the mail and the foodstuffs down and up the trails. When I think of dog teaming, I think of the Iditarod and wonder, and then come to know, what the strength of the story would mean for bringing generations together from Papa Blatchford to his eldest son Ernie and to the fourth generation of Blatchfords in Alaska.

There are times when I think that old-time Alaska is gone. But then my faith and confidence in the old-time spirit are ignited when I see what others in the Lower 48 see. When I was walking in downtown Philadelphia, I looked up and saw on an ancient federal building a stamped concrete sculpture of a dog musher leaning into a blizzard. Such is the way I think of the Iditarod and the lessons I learned growing up with the dog team, preserved in my memories.

Edgar Blatchford is former mayor of Seward, Mile 0 of the Iditarod Trail.

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