The Seattle Seahawks are past their minibreak between Weeks 13 and 14 and are back to practicing and preparing for arguably the best team in the NFL on Sunday, the San Francisco 49ers. San Francisco opened as a whopping 10.5-point favorite against Seattle, according to FanDuel. Almost everyone expects Seattle to fall to 6-7 with four games left.
If that happens, Seattle will have gone 1-5 since beginning the season 5-2 and in first place in the NFC West. Seattle is now third in the division. The NFL is a crazy league.
But maybe there is some positivity to come out of Seattle losing. I mean, we have to look at the bright side, right? Well, here it is.
Where would the Seahawks currently be drafting in the first round?
While Seattle has recently been losing a bunch of games, that has at least helped their draft position. For much of the year - had the season ended after Week 7, for instance - Seattle would have been picking in the 20s. For a team that might be thinking of choosing a quarterback with their first pick, drafting that late would not necessarily yield a solid pick. The later you get after pick 15 the higher the risk.
Well, good news if you don't care if Seattle makes a playoff run this season and you instead want them to take a quarterback as high as possible in the 2024 NFL Draft. If the season were over right now, Seattle would pick 14th. CBS Sports has a top-150 big board and they have four quarterbacks in the top 30. But only two of those are higher than 14.
The two highest two quarterbacks are USC's Caleb Williams and North Carolina's Drake Maye. But in the Seahawks' current range are Michigan's JJ McCarthy and Texas's Quinn Ewers. Again, according to CBS Sports only, both Oregon's Bo Nix and Washington's Michael Penix, Jr. could easily be available for Seattle at 14. As Seattle is likely to lose their next two games, their first pick in next year's draft is likely only going to be higher.
Bobby Wagner is Seahawks nominee for Walter Payton Man of the Year award
Here are two things that are not breaking news. One is that Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner is a fantastic football player and should be a first-ballot Hall of Famer five years after he decides to retire. He is Seattle's all-time leader in combined tackles and he is a six-time First-Team All-Pro and three-time Second-Team selection.
But more importantly, Wagner might be a better person than he is a football player. For the second time in his career, he has been nominated for the NFL's Walter Payton Man of the Year Award which honors "a player's commitment to philanthropy and community impact, as well as his excellence on the field." Wagner also goes about his philanthropic causes very quietly, which is ideally how one should do that because the point is to help people and not draw attention to oneself.
Still, here are a few of the many great things Wagner does to help people. One is that he and receiver Tyler Lockett have in recent years paid for all the lunch debt of students in the Renton School District. When one is struggling to pay their bills, any bills can be stressful. Paying off lunch debts just helps parents and students have one less thing to have to deal with and that is immeasurable.
Wagner also launched a comic book in 2023 called "FAST54" in partnership with Virginia Mason Franciscan Health which helps promote awareness of signs of a stroke. The proceeds of the comic book go toward the Phenia Mae Fund which was also launched by Bobby Wagner and named in horo of Wagner's mother who passed away from a stroke when Wagner was playing in college.
FanSided's NFL power rankings
For many weeks, even in the early stages of the Seattle Seahawks recent struggles, Seattle still hung around in the top half of the NFL in terms of FanSided's power rankings. Why? I am not sure. Seattle was mostly losing to decent teams, I guess, and now even the Rams, who have beaten the Seahawks twice this year, are in the hunt for the playoffs.
At least Seattle isn't one of the worst teams in the league. Number 32 is the New England Patriots whose offense is almost seemingly intentionally awful. Possibly this is just what happens over time when a team loses Tom Brady and doesn't draft well. Let us hope the Seahawks do not turn into the Patriots.
But for the first time in weeks, Seattle is not ranked in the top 16 teams. And they should not be. Sure, they did play the Dallas Cowboys tough, but Dallas also appeared to not be as good as their record. We will know more after the Cowboys play the Philadelphia Eagles this coming Sunday. The Eagles, who Seattle plays in Week 15, are ranked fourth, by the way.
Seattle is currently 18 and plays the number 1 49ers on Sunday. San Francisco, of course, blasted Seattle 31-13 in Week 12. After Week 15, though, the season does begin to ease a bit. The Seahawks close with the Tennessee Titans (currently ranked 26), the Pittsburgh Steelers (ranked 16 but just lost their quarterback for a bit of time), and the Arizona Cardinals (ranked 27).