Seahawks win but it was ugly and somewhat sobering

The Seahawks defeated the Cardinals in week 17 in a game that did not go fully as expected. Now Seattle needs to focus on playing better.

I have to be honest with this recap. The Seahawks stunk on Sunday. The only part of the team that truly played well enough to win was the defense. But if Seattle had been playing nearly any other NFL team (and possibly Alabama or Clemson), they would have lost.

Russell Wilson was sacked six times. Michael Dickson had two (TWO!) punts blocked and when Dickson was able to get the punt off, he out-kicked his coverage. Receiver Doug Baldwin dropped two passes. It was not a good game for Seattle.

I guess the positive from this game is that maybe the Seahawks got a really bad game out of their system. They learned again that they cannot simply walk on the field and beat the other team. This isn’t your older brother’s Seattle football. This is your Seattle football and nearly every week is going to cause you to have stomach issues.

And though it would be easy to focus on the negatives of this game – and there were a lot of them for Seattle – I want to stay with the positives as much as I can. Like Seattle getting to 10 wins in 2018 when a lot of people may have expected to get half that. ESPN had the Seahawks winning just four games.

Chris Carson got stuffed a lot because his blocking let him down, but he still ran for 122 yards on 19 carries and scored a touchdown. He had a season-long run of 61 yards too.

Jarran Reed got two more sacks and now has 10.5 on the season. Reed is a special player and if the Seahawks are not already working on an extension for him then the front office needs to be reviewed for keeping their jobs.

Frank Clark got another sack as well, and in a season when he needed to earn his next contract, he did. Clark has 13.5 sacks in 2018 and proved that Seattle either needs to extend his contract or franchise him this off-season.

And though the game ended up being 24-21 Seattle, the defense held the Cardinals to just 198 total yards and 12 first downs. Seattle’s defense is good enough to go deep in the playoffs. Let’s hope that the offense can catch up.

The exception, Tyler Lockett, had another massive catch to set up the final Seattle score. The receiver finished with 10 touchdowns and almost 1,000 yards in 2018. Without Lockett, a case could be made that Seattle doesn’t make the playoffs.

And finally, Pete Carroll got this 2018 roster to the playoffs and 10 wins. When you think about that, the job Carroll did was pretty incredible.

Sure, Seattle will have to play better next week. But the Seahawks have shown this season they can play with anyone (and nearly lose to anyone). Seattle may have played poorly on Sunday against the Cardinals, but next week is a new season and Seattle can never be ruled out when they have Carroll and Wilson.