3 factors that could keep the Seattle Seahawks out of the playoffs in 2023

The Seattle Seahawks are certainly at a crossroads for their 2023 season. Pull off a miracle or two in the next two weeks, and Seattle might still have a chance to make the postseason. Lose as expected and the team will be 6-8 and focusing on the 2024 NFL Draft a bit more.

So what exactly has gone wrong for a team that began 5-2 but has since gone 1-4? Is there an easy fix? And, most importantly, does Seattle have the talent and coaching ability to fix their ailments?

Below are three areas of concern for the 2023 Seahawks. I have not mentioned the inconsistency of kicker Jason Myers, though that would have been easy. If none of these areas improve, Seattle could easily finish 8-9.

1. Seahawks horrible struggle with penalties

The Seahawks have had issues for years, so that seems to imply that head coach Pete Carroll is OK with the amount of flags Seattle gets. The issue is that while the Seahawks had the talent and the scheme to overcome penalty problems for many years, especially in the mid-2010s, that same situation does not really exist anymore. Basically, Carroll needs to fix the problem, but he has never proven capable of doing so.

In 2023, Seattle is the most penalized team in the league through Week 13. They are so bad at being disciplined that the team is sixth in penalties that have been declined and fourth in offsetting penalties. Seattle leads the league with 91 penalties and 808 penalty yards. Seattle is 13th in penalties they have benefitted from so basically Seahawks games, as any 12 knows, are simply non-stop flags.

Another issue is that the Seahawks haven't gotten better at not being penalized as the season has gone on. Both of their highest penalized games have come in the last three weeks. In Weeks 11 and 13, Seattle received 130 yards in penalties in each game. That is extremely unacceptable and a lot of the blame should go toward Pete Carroll because since 2010 Seattle has only finished outside the top-nine penalized teams twice.