The NFL trade deadline has come and gone, and surprisingly, only one team in the NFC West made a move: the San Francisco 49ers, not the Los Angeles Rams or the Seattle Seahawks. Given the 49ers' already-established Super Bowl contender status, it made sense for them to bolster their wide receiver room amid injuries.
Given the Rams' and Seahawks' clouded Super Bowl contender status, it seems odd that both made zero moves to improve any position at all. Either both teams' executives are confident, or there weren't any trades they felt would move the chains; not that the 49ers' trade for wide receiver Keenan Allen did, necessarily.
In any case, Seattle is going with who they have on offense and defense. Still, if they're to emerge as championship contenders before the season ends, it's a glaring defensive issue, not an offensive one, that could make or break everything.
Mike Macdonald must fix the Seattle Seahawks' defensive red zone issues before it's quarterback's ones
The good news for the Seahawks after the deadline is that no team in their division improved, really. San Francisco will only get better than they are when their entire receiving corps is fully healthy again, but for now, they're essentially where they were on Monday.
The bad news for the Seahawks is that they could have done something to help their own receiving corps, but chose not to. This says one obvious thing: Jaxon Smith-Njigba will wind up having the busiest season of his career.
Speaking of Seattle's offense, assuming there is no quarterback controversy between Mike Macdonald and his coaching staff, Sam Darnold's struggles are arguably not the main reason the Seahawks could miss another Super Bowl. In fact, missing the playoffs altogether may not come down to Darnold, assuming he doesn't improve.
Believe it or not, it's a defensive issue, and it's on Macdonald to right. What Seattle's defense is doing at an elite level, unsurprisingly, is keeping opposing offenses from marching downfield to the red zone. Outside the red zone, the Seahawks are suffocating and almost unbreakable.
It's a vastly different story inside the red zone when they allow an offense to get there. Shockingly, the Seahawks rank last in the league in red zone efficiency. Before Week 9, the Seahawks allowed a league-worst 83% red-zone touchdown rate, giving up touchdowns on 15 of their opponents' first 18 trips.
Against the Arizona Cardinals, the Seahawks defense went 2-0 in the red zone, preventing the Cardinals from reaching the end zone and forcing one field goal and a turnover on downs instead. Granted, this was against one of the league's worst offenses, but take the win, right?
It's hard to imagine Seattle's red zone defense being worse than their red zone offense, but that is the case going into Week 10 against the Las Vegas Raiders. Luckily, Macdonald might be able to get his group to pull out a second consecutive week of red zone stops, because Kirk Cousins is gone.
In any case, it's not Darnold, the struggling offense, or a thin wide receiver room that could keep the Seahawks from being championship contenders. Instead, how the defense performs when opposing offenses breach their walls inside the 20 that could kill them.
It's arguably Seattle's biggest area of improvement, and if they truly are legions of "The Dark Side", it's a job they should figure out for when it matters most. It's how they prove they're Super Bowl contenders once again.
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