The Seattle Seahawks looked exposed, sluggish, and terrible in Week 9. Seattle's 37-3 loss to the Baltimore Ravens this past weekend looked more like 63-0 and even that score didn't seem like it would be bad enough. Just look at the total yards alone: 515 for Baltimore to 151 for Seattle.
Time of possession was just as bad as the Ravens held the ball for 40:04 to Seattle's 19:56. The Seahawks were 1 of 12 on third down attempts, while Baltimore picked up 6 of 13. Heck, even Michael Dickson got out-punted by Baltimore punter Jordan Stout.
There is some good and bad to all of this, of course. The bad was the game itself and what is might say about Seattle's roster overall. The good is that Seattle is still 5-3 and Week 9 was just one game and that kind of performance is unlikely to be repeated. The Ravens might be the best team Seattle plays all year. Baltimore beat the 6-2 Detroit Lions just two games ago; They are good.
Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll defends QB Geno Smith's play
Geno Smith was terrible in Week 9, but he also has 8 turnovers in the last four games. He's not played well for a while but because of Seattle's increasingly good defensive play (except for Week 9), Smith's football sins have been mostly washed away. But the Seahawks' defense showed this past Sunday that they aren't quite as good as we thought (well, maybe Bobby Wagner is) so Smith is going to have to start playing better and a performance like the one against the Ravens - 13 for 28 for 157 yards, no touchdowns, and 2 turnovers - won't win lots of games.
But Pete Carroll has publicly defended Smith so far. According to the Seattle Times, Carroll said, "We struggled across the board on offense so that everybody had some difficulties in this game. It just added up to where the quarterback is in the middle of that as well...(The team and coaching staff have) got to help him, make sure we’re doing our part."
Would Patrick Mahomes have been able to win a game with the kind of blocking that Geno Smith got against Baltimore and with as bad as the defense was? No. But Mahomes would have probably still played better than Smith and the score would have been closer. Smith does need more help from his team, but Smith needs to be better too moving forward.