Love is romanticized in society. One of life’s great quests is finding someone you love who also loves you. Sports love belongs in its own category. You can fall in love with a player or a team without it being reciprocated. You can ignore your love for days, weeks, months or years, and still return to it with a white hot passion. Commitment is demonstrated not by wearing a ring or exchanging vows, but by wearing team colors and spending valuable time and money on your beloved. What those who seek love may be less familiar with is the torment that can come when you allow your soul to be intertwined with another. Seahawks fans are experiencing that this season in a way that feels unique throughout franchise history. Hope and despair are waging a vicious battle that is abusing the hearts of those who love this team. Despair scored a decisive victory on Sunday.
The Seahawks exited last season as a mediocre team that played terrible defense, had an awful offensive line, was easily overpowered, and often embarrassed when facing elite competition. Eight games into this season, nothing appears to have changed.
Three times the Seahawks have faced a Super Bowl caliber opponent. Three times they have been humiliated. It is true that Seattle gave the Lions their best game in a month. It is true the Seahawks had the ball twice in the fourth quarter against the 49ers with a chance to take the lead. It is also true that the performances in those games would result in not just a loss, but a blowout loss, in most cases.
There are various aspects you want to see in a football team:
- Are they tougher, more physical, than their opponent?
- Are they more uniquely talented and capable of things their opponent is not able to match?
- Do they play with energy and passion?
- Are they creative with their strategy and tactics?
- Are opponents having to adjust to them, or are they having to adjust to opponents?
- Is there something they do better than any other team in the league?
- Do they correct mistakes?
- Are they the smarter, more disciplined team?
- Does the sum feel like more than the parts?
- Does their success feel repeatable?
- Do they rise to the occasion in prime time and against elite competition?
The most disheartening aspect of this Seahawks season is there have been multiple opportunities for the team to give fans some reason to answer positively on at least some of those questions, and instead, they have left each of those games with a negative answer to nearly every one.
Let’s start with the most basic problem. The Seahawks cannot stop the run. They have allowed 155+ rushing yards in four straight games, and have been dominated on the ground six of their eight games. Nothing interesting is possible if you cannot stop the run. It is so bad that when an opponent gets fewer than five yards on a carry it feels like someone should pop open a bottle of champagne.
Mike Macdonald was brought to Seattle with the promise of improving the defense. His inability to stop the bleeding against the run is troubling. The Ravens had trouble defending the run the latter half of last season even as they were the most dominant defense in football. Macdonald talked about the “run wall” he wanted to build being the foundation of his defense this off-season. Fans would settle for a “run speed bump” at this point.
There is no way a team with Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy II, Jarran Reed, Roy Robertson-Harris, Derick Hall, and Boye Mafe should be this bad against the run no matter how bad the linebacker play is behind them.
This front should be a problem for opponents every single week. They are more often found on a the back of a milk carton than in an opponent backfield.
Run defense is not glamorous. It will not get people paid well. It is also the most basic necessity for being a competitive football team. The same way having a front door and locking it does not guarantee your safety, run defense does not guarantee you will beat your opponent. Not having it almost certainly guarantees the bad guys will take anything they want.
There are so many things going wrong with the team that it could be overwhelming to decide where to start. Let me help. Stop. The. Run. Stop it.
We can make it even simpler. Keep runs on 1st down under four yards. Do whatever it takes for that to be true. Since Week 4 when the Seahawks played the Lions, opponents are rushing for 4+ yards 46% of the time on 1st down. That ranks 31st in the NFL. The top mark in the NFL is 17%. Middle of the road is 36%. Start there.
Of course, there is so much more that ails this team than run defense. The offensive line found new ways to be a disaster on Sunday. The Bills run defense has been suspect, and was missing their best linebacker in this game. The longest run by a Seattle running back came when Kenneth Walker III fumbled a pitch, picked it up, and ran the opposite way the play was designed to go for a whopping five yards. Connor Williams managed to hike the ball over Mount Rainier from inside the 5-yard line, and also trip his quarterback from the 1-yard line.
Believe it or not, the Bills only got pressure on 28% of Smith’s drop backs. That is the lowest mark of the season for this beleaguered group. There just was no running room. Seattle finished the day with a -0.70 EPA/rush, which was the 3rd-lowest single-game mark by any team in the NFL this season.
This gets to the primary aspect of why loving this team is so hard right now. They are bullied on both sides of the ball. It is hard to beat your chest when it is being caved in each week.
John Schneider is someone who I like and respect. His process for assembling this interior offensive line, however, has been frustrating. This team would look very different with even one competent veteran guard. It feels like another season has been irreparably damaged by a faulty offensive line.
Ryan Grubb deserves some blame for the horrible display we witnessed Sunday. His lack of creativity in the run game and stubborn reliance on shotgun formations is a problem. What is difficult to separate is just how much his play calling is limited by what he sees on that offensive line. Calling more complex run schemes when your team cannot block simple ones is probably foolish.
Teams like the Panthers, Rams, Giants, Jets, and Commanders spent big money on free agent offensive linemen this season and are getting varying results. It is true that the only thing worse than having a bad offensive line is being stuck with an expensive and bad offensive line. The one thing Seattle has going for it is some flexibility to change things up.
As of right now, it looks like they missed on their 4th round pick in 2023 (Anthony Bradford) and their 3rd round pick this year (Christian Haynes). Both players are young enough that they may have a magical off season that helps them step forward. The problem is that both are starting from a pretty low level of play. There would have to be a huge improvement to get from where they are to above average starter.
Beyond the inability to win in the trenches on either side of the ball, which is super fun, there is not a single Seahawks player who seems capable of lifting the team out of a tailspin on the field.
Devon Witherspoon, Riq Woolen, Williams, Murphy, Mafe, Hall, Walker, DK Metcalf, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Julian Love are all players who are meant to be foundational pieces. Show me a moment when any of them have stepped forward and lifted the team up with a special play when things were going wrong. Heck, show me a single special play in the entire game yesterday from that group (sans the injured Metcalf).
Mike Holmgren used to always say you need your best players to have their best seasons to do special things. The Seahawks best players are doing their best Homer Simpson backing into the hedges meme impression when they are needed most.
That is a gigantic red flag. It is fair to point fingers at Macdonald and the entire coaching staff right now. Coaches are responsible for the product on the field. It is fair to point fingers at the front office for personnel decisions they have made. Most concerning, though, is that there is nobody on this defense who has shown the will or talent to stop the bleeding. The same can largely be said on offense, but Smith has stepped up multiple times this year in those situations.
Smith once again, however, failed to look like a player who deserves to be compared to other great quarterbacks. He also made reference to the noise from opposing fans in his postgame comments. The team better be careful there. Fans are under no obligation to spend their time and money on a team that has lost three straight at home and is embarrassing themselves. The last thing the team needs is acrimony between the players and the fans.
What everyone could see yesterday was that the terrible self-inflicted wounds by Seattle were not the reason they lost. They were outclassed. The Bills were a far superior team, and they do not have a superior roster. Buffalo has a much better offensive line. They have a much better quarterback. They had a better receiving corps in this game with Metcalf out. That’s really it. Where the Lions and 49ers have either better rosters or far more blue-chip talent, the Bills dominated the Seahawks in every facet without the talent advantage in many areas.
That is an indictment of the coaching staff. They get some grace in their first season working together and with this team, but the only honest assessment is they are struggling. It is also indictment on the players. Do your job. Win your rep. Lift your teammate. Correct your mistake from one week to the other. Work before practice. Work after practice.
Seahawks fans love this team. Many have loved it for decades, or even lifetimes. They do not need it to be the best team in the NFL every game or every season. They can love a flawed team that fights and claws, and ideally punches above their weight class from time-to-time. Just a flicker of what a young player or group could become if given time to develop can sustain fans through tough times. This Seahawks team is unearthing those flashy diamonds one week and then burying them under a ton of rubble the next. Torment is part of what proves love is real. Willingness to stick around when the object of your affection is at their worst is the entrance fee for true joy when they are at their best. Seattle does not need to win a certain amount of games or make the playoffs for this season to be a success. They do need to prove they love each other, this game, and this city enough to improve. Our next date is Sunday against the Rams. Don’t ghost us this time.
