The Day After, Hawks loss ugly, but not crippling

After the emotions of a disappointing loss have passed, it’s a little easier to remain optimistic about the Seahawks chances for a good season. For now anyway…..

I took a lot of heat on Twitter last night for my extremely pessimistic and emotional reaction to the Seahawks horrible 9-3 loss to the bad-team-overall-but-always-good-against-Seattle LA Rams.

Stuff like this….

While I admit to being a little over-emotional yesterday, I will say this……our “blog” is part of the FanSided Network. As in written BY fans FOR fans. I’m no longer a professional journalist covering the team for a news entity. I don’t have to be objective. In fact we like to be SUBJECTIVE here sometimes. I stand by my initial gut reaction, because I care so much about this team.

The excuses I’m hearing from other fans today are plentiful. Most of them go something like this…..

It’s OK we always lose to the Rams.

Russell isn’t 100% healthy right now, we’ll be fine. 

The Rams were extra pumped up for their first home opener in two decades. 

We are always slow starters, we’ll pick it up.

Our offensive line is terrible, but they’ll get better. 

As I try to take a more optimistic viewpoint today, I want to address those last two points in particular.

Yes, in three of the last four seasons the Seahawks have been better over their final 8 games as they were over the first 8. Here’s the breakdown:

• 2012: First half 4-4, Second half 7-1
• 2013: First half 7-1, Second half 6-2
• 2014: First half 5-3, Second half 7-1
• 2015: First half 4-4, Second half 6-2

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And yes, I think we can all agree that the play of the offensive line overall has been dreadful through the first two games.

My point yesterday was, and still is today albeit with a much more calm and thoughtful tone, for this team, at this time, with this core, it’s not acceptable to play such a bad game against such a clearly inferior opponent. And it’s becoming increasingly more obvious that the risk Seattle’s front office took in going cheap on the offensive line could cost them another shot at a ring.

Brushing this off as just one bad game against an opponent that gives us fits is failing to see the bigger picture; that this doesn’t look like a team capable of beating the good teams in the NFC right now. If the Hawks were facing Arizona this weekend, or Carolina, or Minnesota, instead of the 49ers……how would you feel about their chances? Honestly, I don’t think it would be pretty.

But here’s the good news (and my intention when I started writing this piece was to focus on the good news); no one appears poised to run away and hide in the NFC this year. The Panthers, Cards, and Packers already have one loss apiece, while the Redskins are already 0-2. Meanwhile, Minnesota is 2-0 after beating Green Bay last night, but how far can they go with a banged up Adrian Peterson and Sam Bradford playing QB? The Giants are off to a surprise 2-0 start, but does anyone expect them to challenge for the #1 seed?

The opportunity is still there for Seattle to get off to a good enough start to have a shot at a top playoff seed and the much-coveted bye that comes with it. For that to happen, however, there need to be some significant changes, and they need to happen quickly. Whether those are adjustments to scheme, or personnel, or simply execution remains to be seen.

Next: 5 takeaways from bad loss to Rams

The bottom line here is that a team expected to go to the Super Bowl has only scored one touchdown through two games, and just got beat by a team that was shutout in week#1 by the 49ers.

Thank goodness parity reigns in the NFC, at least through these first two weeks.