Overreaction Monday: Seahawks are who we thought they’d be

It has been an odd year for the Seattle Seahawks. On the positive side, the team has already exceeded what most national pundits thought would be the team’s win total in 2022. On the negative side, though, Seattle started 6-3 and has a very real chance of going 7-10 and losing 7 of their last 8 games.

I assumed several things about the Seahawks coming into this year. Most of these assumptions were made on changes to the team this offseason or last season’s performance. And most of what I assumed has been wrong and the complete opposite has happened in some cases.

For instance, last year Seattle’s run defense was among the best in the league. Many of the interior defensive line players returned from last season so I thought the run defense would be good again this year. Well, I was extremely incorrect. The 2022 run defense started poorly, got a lot better for about four games, but has now regressed so much that it is a huge reason Seattle is on the precipice of a losing season.

Seahawks only slightly better than many thought they’d be

I assumed too that the team would struggle to win half their games. For a good part of the first half of the year, I, like many 12s, was very happily surprised by how good this team seemed to be. The rookie class was amazing and quarterback Geno Smith was far better than the Russell Wilson Seattle had in 2021.

The odd part is that even though the Seahawks are 1-3 in their last four games, Geno is still playing well for the most part and the rookies haven’t dropped off in quality much. Was Geno perfect in Week 14 against the Panthers? No, and far from it. His first pass of the game was easily intercepted after the ball was thrown into an area of about 650 Panthers and one lone Seahawk. It was a terrible pass.

Geno’s second interception of the game was still his fault but not as much. He thought (and he was correct to think it) that the Panthers had jumped offsides and he had a free play. The problem was the referees (who were once again not good in a Seahawks game) didn’t throw a flag. Geno’s pass went straight to a Carolina player and ended what was starting to look like a promising drive.

Seattle is probably going to lose its final four games. The schedule is difficult with the 49ers next followed by the Chiefs, Jets, and then the Rams. After Week 14’s loss, Seattle is very unlikely to make the postseason. Actually, if Seattle can somehow get to 9 wins and finish 9-8, that would be probably a best-case scenario.

But the 2022 Seattle team is basically going to wind up like I thought they might just for completely different reasons. Geno has been very good and has led the offense when my assumption was that the team would need to rely on a very good run game to score points. The run game has disappeared the last month, though, and that was before Ken Walker III got injured. The secondary hasn’t been awful and is probably the strength of the defense even though Jamal Adams got injured Week 1.

But the run defense that I assumed would be fantastic has been a travesty. And this is why the Seahawks won’t be going to the postseason. Things might get very ugly on Thursday versus the 49ers and the following game against the Chiefs.

All that said, 2023 should be better because Seattle should have more talent due to high draft picks. To end on something positive, while the Seahawks are going to end up about where most thought they would, Russell Wilson and the Broncos are going to be far worse. Seattle is going to have two well-positioned draft picks in the 2023 NFL draft and we can thank Denver for Seattle having a top-five choice.