Seahawks week 11 overreaction: Time to tear the team down

The Seattle Seahawks lost 23-13 to the Arizona Cardinals in week 11. Seattle is now 3-7 and it is easy to overreact to the team’s issues. We 12s aren’t used to Seattle being bad. Heck, we aren’t even used to the team not being among the better teams in the NFL.

After the game on Sunday, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll admitted even he doesn’t know how to react to being part of a team that is so poor

"I’m just not any good at this. I’m not prepared for this. I’m struggling to do a good job of coaching when you’re getting your butt kicked week in and week out. It’s new territory. So I’m competing in every way I can think of, but I’m just unfamiliar with it. I’m not good at this."

Well, Pete, 12s aren’t any good at knowing how to prepare for pulling for a team that doesn’t win most of its games either. We used to know how when Seattle was pretty terrible for a lot of the 1990s. But mostly since 2003, except for a couple of years here or there, the franchise has been good. Since 2005, Seattle has been to three Super Bowls and won one.

Seattle Seahawks not ready to be torn down and rebuilt

Part of the problem with 2021 is that we expected Seattle to be pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. Russell Wilson is still the quarterback, Jamal Adams is still at safety, Bobby Wagner is still good. But the team is bad.

And looking forward, there is no real reason to think 2022 or 2023 are going to be much better. What can Seattle do to improve so quickly? Fire the offensive and defensive coordinators? Seattle fired the offensive coordinator from last year and where did that get them? The offense is much worse this year.

The truth is, this team can’t really be torn down and rebuilt quickly. The Seahawks, of course, traded their first round pick this year (and it would be such a good pick to still have!) when they traded for Jamal Adams before the 2020 season. The only way of getting a lot of draft stock back is to trade the only player another team might want badly, Russell Wilson.

But even Wilson’s trade value is diminished after this season. He has not been good for three straight games now and this includes the first three quarters of week 5’s Rams game. Seattle scored 17 points in that game but 10 were after Geno Smith replaced Russell Wilson in the fourth quarter.

But we should also assume, based on 10 years of history, that Wilson will be better in the future. Wilson needs some help. He needs a better defense with a better coach. Wilson needs a better offensive line with a better offensive coach. But Russell Wilson will be the quarterback of this team next year and likely beyond.

So this team won’t be torn down. Not because it isn’t the right thing to do but because it can’t be. How can it be?

Adams is too expensive and too unproductive to have someone take on his contract. Wagner is getting too old for a linebacker for a team to offer high draft picks for him. Wilson might get the Seahawks a first round pick or two (at very most) but that isn’t enough to fix this team right away. Plus, Seattle stinks at taking players in the first round.

So let’s not overreact and say, “Let’s tear this team down and get much better!” Because this team can’t be the way it’s structured. We might just have to ride this out and be bad for a bunch of years.