History Lesson: Are The Seattle Seahawks Set To Disappoint In 2013?

May 20, 2013; Seattle, WA, USA; Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson (3) and head coach Pete Carroll watch a scrimmage play during organized team activities at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

Those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. At least that’s how the saying goes. In the NFL, sometimes history tells us things were don’t want to hear.

The National Football Post calls it the curse of the 10-win comeback. They looked at teams that went from a losing record to 10 or more wins in just one season. What they found was that, out of 29 instances, only three had more than eight wins the year after. Or to put it another way, 26 of 29 teams that went from losing records to 10 or more wins, went on to win eight or fewer games the following year.

The Seahawks happen to fit into this category. They won just seven games in 2011, and then had 11 wins in 2012. According to the historical trend, they are unlikely to win more than eight games in 2013.

Football Outsiders has their own system for looking at things. While they’ve yet to produce any predictions about Seattle and 2013, I expect them to predict only eight or nine wins for the Seahawks. Why? Because the 2012 Seahawks were very similar to the 2011 San Francisco 49ers in a couple of key ways, and Football Outsiders predicted just eight wins for the 49ers in 2012.

The reasoning behind that prediction was similar to the one listed above. Historically, teams that make a huge jump in DVOA in one season, tend to regress back down the following season. The 2011 49ers made a massive DVOA jump from 2010, so Football Outsiders predicted that they’d regress downward from their 2011 form. They did, but only slightly, and much less that was predicted.

Football Outsiders ended up wrong in their prediction last year, but it doesn’t change the historical trend. The Seahawks made a huge jump upward in 2012, which then points to a probable regression back closer to their 2011 form next year.

The 49ers actually managed to break these historical trends last year by winning 11 games. What we can see by looking at  that case, was that the talent was in place, but it was being severely held back by poor coaching. A coaching change seems to have made all the difference. 2010 turns out to be the outlier, not 2011.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens with the Seahawks. The biggest difference between 2011 and 2012 was the addition of a franchise QB. The roster was loaded in 2011, but the QB play held the team back. That clearly isn’t the case any longer.

Personally, I think the Seahawks break the historical trend. This team is simply too good to win eight or fewer games. I just don’t believe that any team with this much roster talent will struggle that much. I just don’t see any way, baring some major early season injuries, that this team doesn’t win at least 10 games this year.