The Seahawks are mediocre. Again. There is plenty to talk about regarding to the details of a game with a script so tortuous, Jigsaw was cribbing notes for his next captive. Starting there, though, would miss the story that matters most. Seattle is now 22-22 over the past three seasons. That record is almost certainly going to dip below .500 over the next few weeks. The Seahawks have a strong chance to make the playoffs even with a scuffling end to the year, but that is not the way to measure progress or success. Success is a Super Bowl win. A Super Bowl win requires elite level of play on at least one side of the ball. There is nothing the Seahawks do that is elite or headed in that direction. They have plateaued at mediocre, and there is not a credible story to be told about how they will escape the morass of the middle class.
This team was built to excel on offense. Ten games into the season, they have scored 20 points or less half the time. They are 16th in points scored, 18th in yards per game. The defense, which was among the worst in the league last year, has improved significantly. That has helped them climb from the bottom of the league to the middle.
The construction of this roster almost requires Seattle to contend in the next 1-2 years. Geno Smith, Bobby Wagner, Tyler Lockett, Quandre Diggs, Jarran Reed are all on the wrong side of 30, and all but Lockett have no youngster behind them ready to ascend.
Try to come up with a credible path to where the Seahawks not only can compete with the likes of San Francisco and Philly and KC, but be favored to beat them, to be the better team. You would have to start with the defense. They at least have some young talent playing at a high level. Turn the page to next season.
You have to hope Wagner can still play at a high level. You are probably letting Jordyn Brooks go, or you keep him, knowing he has never made a Pro Bowl and commit way too much cap space to a guy who will not make your defense elite. You likely need to cut Diggs as his salary is far too high, which opens up a spot for young safety to step in. Maybe Mike Morris returns and is a great player. Maybe Derick Hall takes a big leap in his second season. Maybe Boye Mafe keeps getting better. Adams possibly plays better after a full offseason removed from his surgery.
I can squint and see a very good defense, but it is hard to see a scary good defense that other teams lose sleep preparing to face. There is also real potential to step backwards depending on what happens with Wagner, Brooks, Diggs, and the defensive line.
While everyone else was furious about the loss to the Bengals, I was excited because the defense we saw that day was elite. What we have seen since has been good, but not great.
The offense is even harder to project into greatness. This does not feel like a group on the cusp of greatness, and the path for them to get there involves a number of logical leaps that could just as easily lead to regression as progression.
While everyone can agree the team needs far better quarterback play to win a ring, few fans seem to grasp how few players in the league are playing at that level and how hard it is to acquire a player of that caliber. Seattle’s best hope was that they hit a lottery ticket in Smith, who could at least be a Matt Hasselbeck-level quarterback. There is still some reason to think that is possible, but Hasselbeck had the best offensive line in Seahawks history in front of him, and this line is not that.
Your 25-year-old right tackle is the one missing most of the season with a chronic knee injury while a 41-year-old takes his place. Your left tackle is debatably above average, but nowhere close to elite. Your center is fine. Both starting guards will be free agents and neither seems worth of a costly deal to retain them. That could open the door to better guard play, or much, much, worse.
Lockett has, at most, one more season in him. Jaxon Smith-Njigba can hopefully step up, but it would be unwise to expect him to be as productive as the second most productive receiver in team history. Jake Bobo is a good complimentary player, but will likely never be a starting caliber player in this league.
We needed this offensive line to be young and good. We needed Smith to take a step forward. We needed Shane Waldron to bring out the best in his skill players. None of that has happened, and it sucks.
Part of what was so frustrating about this latest loss to the Rams was that you could see the outline of progress in the first half. The line was blocking well. There was a good mix of run and pass, quick throws and intermediate-to-deep. Kenneth Walker, Zach Charbonnet, DK Metcalf, Locket and JSN were all involved. The defense was stifling McVay in ways we have not often seen. The team was ahead by more than one score.
And then, like the slow steamroller in Austin Powers, we watched the slowest, most tediously slow death unfold in the second half.
The offense disappeared. Will Dissly started with a dropped pass that would have almost certainly been a first down. Waldron called a pass play on 3rd and 2, which did not work due to massive deterioration of pass protection. That was just the most recent example of Waldron outright refusing to run the ball on 3rd and short (3 yards or fewer). He ranks 30th of 32 teams in run percentage on 3rd and short. He runs on just 32% of those situations. It is no wonder the Seahawks are one of the worst 3rd and short teams in the NFL, converting less than half the time.
The next series saw Smith sacked before completing a pass that created a 4th and short. Miraculously, Waldron called a run and wouldn’t you know it, Charbonnet got 9 yards and a first down. Smith barely overthrew Metcalf on a deep pass to the end zone on a play that looked like Metcalf did not run full speed. Then, Charbonnet broke another long run, only to have it called back to a holding penalty on Colby Parkinson. The drive stalled there. They got a field goal, which would be their last points of the day with 8 minutes left to go in the 3rd quarter.
Their next series started strong with a first down pickup to Lockett and then a 4 yard run to Charbonnet. Stone Forsythe and Anthony Bradford were blown up for a sack on the next play, leading to a 3rd and 14. The series after that, Smith was injured on the first play when Aaron Donald flew by Phil Haynes.
It really cannot be overstated how important offensive line play is to a quality offense.
Even while all this was going on the Seahawks defense was holding tough. Three plays and negative seven yards on the Rams first possession of the second half. Four plays and 12 yards on the next. Six plays and six yards. Two plays and an interception.
They finally bent on the fifth Rams possession of the second half. Even then, they battled in the red zone and should have held them without a touchdown. An absolutely devastating pass interference call gifted the Rams a touchdown. If there was any single play that decided the outcome of this game, it was that one.
Even with that play, the game could have been over on the next Rams series when the Seahawks got off the field on 3rd and 15, only to have that series extended by a legitimate illegal hands to the face penalty on Riq Woolen. Now, I think that rule is a really bad rule that accomplishes nothing, but Woolen committed the foul as it is written.
The Seahawks still would have a decent chance at a comeback if they had held Royce Freeman on 3rd and 2 with 2:55 left in the game. Instead, Freeman managed to overpower three Seahawks and pick up a first down that meant Seattle would need a miracle to win.
They nearly had it. Smith once again led what should have been a game-winning drive, coming off the bench and playing through a painful injury to his throwing arm. But Jason Myers shanked the kick and that was that.
Seattle probably wins this game if Smith does not get injured. They almost certainly win if both Smith and Walker do not get injured. They win if the referees do not invent a penalty in the endzone. They win if the referees let a play go that happens a bunch during games without getting flagged. They win if their kicker makes a kick that was 1-yard longer than the kick he already made.
They did not win.
It still burns. This one is going to take a while to get over. The problem is, the Seahawks do not have much time to process. They are facing the most talented team in the league in a few days. They will almost certainly get beaten badly at home. They will not be favored to win for at least the next month.
It would have been nice to have a 7-3 record to comfort us through what could be a very cold winter. Perhaps it is better to face the elements without protection. Maybe we need the harsh reality of seeing how far this team is from the true contenders.
Carroll and the Seahawks have managed to outperform expectations before. That is becoming an easier task as those expectations sink. The gulf between where this franchise is, and where it needs to be to raise another trophy, feels like it is widening instead of shrinking. That, more than any of the aggravation from this loss, is the bitter pill to swallow.