CHICAGO—The Seahawks started their Christmas in Seattle and finished in Chicago, part of a short week to prepare a Thursday night game against the Bears.

"It's an unorthodox week," Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. "It's not a normal cadence to the week obviously with all the stuff going on, but the guys have done a great job."

With a short week that includes a long flight east, Macdonald said one key in preparation this week is to "keep it simple, and throw our fastball, that's the mentality," he said. "But you've got to do your homework too and get the prep in, so you can't overcook it, but there's a balance there about doing the right prep and counter what the Bears do as well."

Before the Seahawks and Bears kick off their Week 17 clash, here are five things to watch in Thursday night's game:

1. Can the Seahawks take care of the task and end, then worry about what else Week 17 brings.

Thanks to their back-to-back losses to the Packers and Vikings, the Seahawks are no long in in control of their own playoff destiny, but they do still have a couple of paths to winning the NFC West, some of them rather clear cut, some of them rather convoluted, but before any of the games that can help or hurt Seattle's playoff chances take place, most notably Saturday's game between the Cardinals and Rams, the Seahawks first need to take care their own business against the Bears.

"We all understand what situation we're in, the focus is on going to win this football game," Macdonald said. "So do what it takes to do that and play our best football, that's what we're focused on right now."

Quarterback Geno Smith, meanwhile, called this week "Business as usual" despite the uncertainty about their playoff chances.

"Got a lot of pros in that locker room and guys are going to go about it the right way," Smith said. "Guys are focused and dialed in and preparing for a short week to go on the road and travel on Christmas. You know, going out there and try to get a win.

2. Can the Seahawks end an impressive streak for rookie quarterback Caleb Williams and win the turnover battle?

Preaching the importance of winning the turnover battle is one of the most tried and true coaching cliches in the game because, well, the turnover battle is really darn important.

One needs to only look at this Seahawks season for a clear example of how much turnovers can affect a game. Sunday's loss to the Vikings was the seventh game this season in which the Seahawks have lost the turnover battle, and they're 1-6 in those games. When the Seahawks are even or positive in turnover differential, on the other hand, they're 7-1.

And while the Bears, who have lost nine in a row, have had plenty of struggles this season, one area in which they're pretty consistently performing well is turnover margin, with the Bears at plus-8 in that all-important stat, despite frequently playing from behind when opposing defenses can get aggressive. Leading the charge on the offensive side of things is rookie quarterback and No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams, who has not thrown an interception in the past nine games.

"It's impressive," Macdonald said of that streak. "This game's going to mostly come down to takeaways and how the ball is affected. We have to force situations where they have to throw the ball, but he's done a great job."

Williams' ability to escape the pocket and create plays off script will be another challenge the Seahawks defense needs to contend with on Thursday.

"I think what goes unnoticed is his ability to escape the pocket," defensive coordinator Aden Durde said. "He is really good at that. You see his ability to navigate the pocket and look downfield and make some elite throws. I think it's just rushing as four. When you play against mobile quarterbacks, it's the same thing every week. It's like how do you compress the pocket? How do you attack the pocket? How do you condense rush lanes, make throwing windows shrink on people? Those are the things you're looking to do as a group. It's really just the guys working as a collective."

On the other side of that equation, the Seahawks will be looking for just their fourth turnover-free game of the season after a pair of interceptions proved costly in last weekend's loss.

3. Will it be a record-breaking day for Jaxon Smith-Njigba?

Jaxon Smith-Njigba has been one of the Seahawks' best and most consistent offensive performers this season, as is evident in the fact that he has led the team in receiving yards for eight straight games while becoming the 10^th player in franchise history to eclipse 1,000 receiving yards in a season.

With two games left, the second receiver is on pace to have one of the best receiving seasons in franchise history, a pretty impressive feat for a 22-year-old with 17 career starts under his belt. With 93 receptions for 1,089 yards, Smith-Njigba is closing in on teammate Tyler Lockett's single-season franchise record for receptions (100), and while it would require two good games to finish out the season, DK Metcalf's single-season record of 1,304 yards is also within reach.

"He's always been a special talent, special player from his days back at (Ohio) State, back in Texas," Smith said. "What I've seen from him is just the commitment to his own personal growth. It's something that is showing up every single day. He's working hard every single day; taking practice reps extremely serious. He's working his game, trying to find now ways to get better. Again, he's one of the more talented players in this league, one of the more talented receivers in this league. But just his work ethic, his want-to, and the way he's approaching the game every single day is helping out."

4. Can the running game get going with Kenneth Walker III sidelined once again.

The Seahawks have had success running the ball at times this season, but they've had a hard time doing so on a consistent basis, at times because opponents are stopping it, and at times because, for a variety of reasons, they get away from that part of their offense. Last week, for example, the Seahawks rushed for only 59 yards while running backs Kenneth Walker III, Zach Charbonnet and Kenny McIntosh combined for just 12 carries. Yet a couple of weeks earlier, the Seahawks rushed for a season-high 176 yards, including a career-best 134 from Charbonnet, who was starting in place of an injured Walker.

With Walker out again due to an ankle injury, it will be Charbonnet and McIntosh leading the charge, and the Seahawks would like to find a bit more balance, either because the running game is going early, or because they are in a position to try to close out the game on the ground while leading.

"You'd love to be able to finish out the game with the run game," offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said. "I thought the guys did a good job fighting back to get the game (vs. Minnesota) and got a little bit lopsided there. We had some injuries at running back as well, so there are a few things that were working in play there trying to figure out who's going to be available in the game and things like that. So we were battling a few things on that front, but I thought the guys did a good job moving the football when they needed to."

5. Can the Seahawks clean up the self-inflicted wounds?

As Macdonald noted earlier this week, the Seahawks have shown they're capable of playing really good football, at times, but "we're just not as consistent and we want to be right now." There have been several factors contributing that inconsistent play, but one of that has shown up too often that Macdonald would like to see changed are the self-inflicted wounds like costly pre-snap penalties. Among Seattle's 11 penalties last week were a couple of false starts, including one right before the interception that ended Seattle's comeback hopes, as well as a defensive offside call on cornerback Tre Brown, negating a third-down sack and giving the Vikings another shot in the red zone, which they turned into a touchdown.

No team is going to play perfect for 60 minutes, and some penalties are just the result of a player trying to make a play, such as Byron Murphy II's incidental grasp of a facemask while making what could have been a crucial sack, but the pre-snap penalties shouldn't be such an issue this far into the season, Macdonald said.

"We should be further along than we are right now on the procedure stuff, especially at home," he said. "We're working through that and like I said, this is an area that we need to attack, so we're spending a lot of time and energy getting it fixed, and we need to do a better job. Our procedures actually have been better on the road it feels like at points than at home, so we'll look at it cadence-wise, operation-wise. Everything's on the table."