Back from injury, key Seahawks defender Ryan Neal draws playoff inspiration from...his cat

The key to the Seahawks getting the best Ryan Neal back into the middle of their defense for these playoffs may be...Tyson the cat?

Wait, what?

“Tyson. Mike Tyson. You know, cats with the hands...,” Neal said at his locker after practice Thursday.

Seattle’s strong safety then rapid-fire patted his hands, like jabbing cat paws.

“If I have get another one, I’m going to name him Floyd,” he said.

For Floyd Mayweather, of course.

Neal, the Seahawks’ sure third-down tackler plus boxing and cat fan, has missed the last three games with a knee injury. He’s back to play Saturday when the Seattle (9-8) plays the heavily favored San Francisco 49ers (13-4) at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, in the first round of the NFC playoffs.

“My cat? You know, it’s been hard, because he’s not with me. I really need my animal with me, dog,” Neal said. “He understands me. Every time I’m hurt he just come up under me right here and cuddles with me.”

He pantomimed holding a cat under his right arm.

Tyson is a 15-pound Bengal cat.

“But he ain’t been around, so I’ve been stressed out at home alone, staring at the walls all day,” Neal said.

Tyson is back home in Indianapolis with Neal’s girlfriend.

“So every now and then I get to FaceTime him — when he pays attention to the camera,” Neal said. “When he hears my voice he meows and (stuff), purrs, all that good stuff.

“So it kind of got me through.”

Cool cats

Neal going on about Tyson the cat two days before his first career postseason start is another example how the Seahawks aren’t exactly nervous wrecks about being 9 1/2-point underdogs to the 49ers.

In fact, Seattle’s players have been cool cats all week.

They aren’t freaking out about San Francisco being on a 10-game winning streak, or about the Niners dominating Seattle in both meetings in the regular season.

This is the loosest the Seahawks have been, outwardly and obviously, before a game in years.

Quarterback Geno Smith has been dancing off the practice field before the first playoff game of his 10-year career. Co-captain Al Woods got a kick out of a visitor’s black, trench/raincoat he was wearing watching the start of the team’s outdoor practice in a steady rain Thursday. Woods was bellowing his approval and gesturing to the coat from the middle of the field as he and the team did drills.

Pete Carroll had his team practicing out in the rain for one of the only times of his 13-years as the Seahawks’ coach. That was because the weather forecast for already-soaked Santa Clara Saturday at the 1:30 p.m. kickoff is a 60% chance of rain or a thunderstorm with wind gusts of up to 33 mph. There’s forecast to be a nearly 100% chance of “flooding rains” in Santa Clara Saturday morning, so the heaviest rains appear likely to be over before the game begins.

“This week worked out exactly like we hoped, really,” Carroll said. “We even got our chances to get out in the elements, which it could very much be like. We got rained on (Thursday) on the field and it was in the 50s. It might be like that on game day, so it was a good chance there to at least be prepared.”

Carroll has been preparing his players this week with a noticeably loose, fun vibe, even more than the player-favorite coach usually does. The 71-year-old coach has ridden a kick scooter fast through hallways of team headquarters, rounding corners like a teenager. After Thursday’s soaked practice he looked like a 25-year-old, with his Seahawks cap on backwards.

He almost never wears caps. The team’s win over the Los Angeles Rams last weekend in the Seattle rain was one of two times anyone can remember Carroll wearing a baseball cap during a game.

Asked if he is suddenly now a backwards-cap guy, Carroll feigned like he didn’t know what the questioner was talking about.

“What other kind of guy was I before?” he said, with a shrug.

Pro Bowl safety Quandre Diggs said the team’s attitude this week is: “Nobody expected us to be in the playoffs. So the last two weeks we’ve been like: What do we really have to lose?

“Nobody’s giving us a shot.”

Neal is getting an unexpected one.

Ryan Neal’s extra chance

He thought his season was over when he couldn’t bend his knee following playing in Seattle’s 21-13 loss to San Francisco at Lumen Field on a Thursday night last month on only three days rest from the previous game. He initially bruised his knee in Seattle’s road win at the Rams Dec. 4, then played on it the following weekend against Carolina.

He eventually got the knee drained of fluid build up from a contusion, but then still couldn’t bend it.

That’s why he missed three games, through the regular-season finale last weekend against the Rams. He watched as first Teez Tabor then Johnathan Abram, the former Raiders first-round pick Seattle signed in late November, played for him.

Neither Tabor or Abram had as tight of pass coverage and immediate tackles short of the line to gain, especially on third downs, that have become Neal’s calling card the last two seasons replacing injured Jamal Adams at strong safety.

Neal had to watch the Seahawks fall behind in the fourth quarter to the Rams last weekend, when a loss would have ended Seattle’s season. He then saw his team rally to tie, kicker Jason Myers miss a field goal at the end of regulation that would have won it, then Diggs intercept a pass at midfield to set up Myers’ winning field goal in overtime.

“It’s a lot. I mean, it’s a lot for all of us. All we ever want to do is be out there and be there and be available for each other,” Neal said. “And when we can’t do that in a critical time that we were in, it really hurt, you know what I mean?

“It was nerve-wracking.”

So was this: Neal and his teammates then had to wait four hours watching on national television to see if the Detroit Lions could upset the Packers in Green Bay Sunday night. That was the other result Seattle had to have Sunday to make the playoffs. The Lions rallied to win.

That sent the Seahawks to the playoffs for the 10th time in Carroll’s 13 seasons coaching then — and gave Neal an unexpected extra game to play.

“It was kind of agonizing watching that game, of course,” Neal said.

“It was exciting as hell though, man. I’m glad those boys did it for us, fo’ ‘sho.”

Neal was his usual, excited, happy-go-lucky self Thursday. He was far from that the previous three game weeks.

“He has been really frustrated by not playing,” Carroll said. “He can only do what he can do. He got really good work done in the last 10 days to get back to this point here.

“He’s handled it. He’s been frustrated, though. He is a high-energy guy and wants to be a part of this team as much as anybody that we’ve got. He’s really grateful right now that he gets the chance to (play) in this game.”

Kenneth Walker full go

The Seahawks did not list lead running back Kenneth Walker or Neal oon the official game injury report due to the NFL on Thursday. Walker will join Neal in playing Saturday.

Walker has had three 100-yard rushing games in a row since Carroll looked him in the eye and told him to run more directly into the line, with fewer lateral cuts, at halftime of Seattle’s loss at Kansas City on Christmas Eve.

Walker missed practice Wednesday, resting his injured ankle.

Shelby Harris’, 10 others’ 1st playoff starts

The Seahawks listed starting defensive end Shelby Harris questionable with a sore knee, but Carroll said he expects the veteran to play Saturday.

It will be the first postseason start — first playoff game, period — in the 31-year-old Harris’ eight-year career. Seattle acquired him from Denver in the Russell Wilson trade in March.

“It’s crazy. It’s still kind of surreal,” Harris said.

“But now it’s: Get to work.”

Eleven of Seattle’s 22 starters on offense and defense will be making their first playoff start on Saturday. That included rookies Walker, offensive tackles Charles Cross and Abe Lucas and rookie Pro Bowl cornerback Tariq Woolen.

Dallas, Haynes, Crawford iffy

Number-two running back DeeJay Dallas is questionable with ankle and quadriceps injuries.

Alternating right guard Phil Haynes is questionable with a high-ankle sprain. Special-teams cornerback Xavier Crawford is questionable with an injured hamstring.