While football fans will be ready for the Seahawks to take on the Philadelphia Eagles at CenturyLink Field on Thursday, drivers should expect to tackle heavier than normal traffic on regional highways before game time.

Kickoff is at 5:20 p.m. but the Washington State Department of Transportation warns congestion will likely begin building earlier than usual in the afternoon and remain heavy through the evening commute.

With mid-week games, the playbook calls for longer than normal backups on north and southbound Interstate 5 into the city, on I-90 and State Route 99. Exits to Fourth Avenue South from I-90 and downtown exits along I-5 will be extremely busy. Backup Incident Response patrols have been added to the roster by WSDOT to quickly clear collisions and disabled vehicles.

WSDOT recommends all drivers traveling into or through downtown Seattle on Thursday afternoon allow plenty of extra time or choose alternate routes.

Drivers can monitor real-time road conditions and look at traffic cameras by checking the Seattle traffic map.

WSDOT will post real-time traffic updates on the Travel Alerts page.