Seahawks News: Geno Smith, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, DeeJay Dallas and power rankings
By Lee Vowell
ESPN's new power rankings likes Seattle a bit more
After looking awful in Week 1, Seattle was rightfully ranked fairly low in many power rankings. After beating the Detroit Lions in Week 2, the Seahawks jumped up to number 14 ahead of Week 3's Panthers game. After defeating Carolina, however, Seattle has jumped into the top 10. Well, they rank number 10.
One concern that ESPN has with Seattle, however, is third-down offense. Since 2015, Seattle has ranked no better than 16th in third-down conversion rate and this issue has crossed over three offensive coordinators and two different starting quarterbacks. That's a bit weird, right? One might think that the issue could get better or worse with a different OC, so there must be some through-line that the team is missing.
And, no. That through-line is not Pete Carroll. He doesn't call the offensive plays so he wouldn't have anything to do with third-down conversions on offense on the field. Maybe Seattle just hasn't drafted the right guys who are built to help turn third downs into first downs. More on that in a minute.
The good bit, though, is that Seattle does seem to be getting a bit more respect nationally after two straight victories. We couldn't really blame national pundits for still waiting to see how good (or bad) Seattle actually is in 2023, especially after the terrible loss to the Los Angeles Rams.