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Bears-Seahawks May Have Actually Exceeded the Hype in at Least One Country

Stephen Douglas

Michael Dickson punts during a Seahawks preseason game.
Michael Dickson punts during a Seahawks preseason game. / Casey Gower-Imagn Images
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The Seattle Seahawks beat the Chicago Bears in a low-scoring affair on Amazon's final Thursday Night Football broadcast of the season. Neither team ever got anything going and anyone tuning in hoping for a shootout was left disappointed.

Unless they were tuning in from Australia. In Australia, the Bears-Seahawks game was billed as a punting battle between Aussie bootsmen Michael Dickson and Tory Taylor. And boy did fans get what they paid for.

Dickson punted the ball six times and averaged 48 yards per kick. He pinned the Bears inside the 20 three times and Chicago punt returner Josh Blackwell only ran two back for 21 total yards.

Meanwhile, Taylor punted seven times for an average of 46.7 yards, pinned the Seahawks inside the 20 five times and the coverage team allowed zero return yards.

There's not much more you could ask for in a mate versus mate punt-off. Sure, this might have been a bit of a slog for American fans, but in Australia the only disappointing part of the game must have been when Bears coach Thomas Brown changed his mind near the end of the fourth quarter and decided to go for it instead of letting Taylor go out there one more time to show off his leg.

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Stephen Douglas
STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a senior writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has worked in media since 2008 and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Douglas spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and previously wrote for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.

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