Seattle Seahawks Week 9: Good news and bad news from the shellacking by the Ravens

Every experience, no matter how painful, can be a learning experience. In their eighth game of the season, the Seattle Seahawks traveled east, then stuck a fork in the light socket that is the Baltimore Ravens. Hopefully, lessons were learned.

The Seahawks were overmatched in every phase of the game against the Ravens. It isn't exactly easy to find good news in a 37-3 loss, but we'll try. If nothing else, the Hawks got a very up close and personal look at the team they're striving to be. The Hawks want to establish the run, right? I think the Ravens did a fair job of showing how that's done. Play smothering defense? Yep, saw that too.

If you were wondering when I'll get to the good news, it's coming. I just need to get my jackhammer first. Let me see... last I saw it, I was looking for my prediction of how great the Seahawks pass rush would be this year. Yes, I predicted 62 sacks and 168 pressures. Hey, according to Pro Football Focus (paywall alert), Seattle now has 29 sacks and 151 pressures.

Just an aside, but every other site, including NFL.com, shows the Seahawks with 27 sacks. And 151 pressures, really? That would put Seattle in the top five for a full season. The more sane sites, such as pro-football-reference.com, list the Hawks with 27 sacks and 71 pressures. Okay, back on topic.

The Seattle Seahawks saw just how much work needs to be done

I suppose that's good news in a way, right? The Seahawks were absolutely thrashed on both sides of the ball. Better it happens in the eighth game of the season than the last. It's not as if the Ravens are a mediocre team, either. Just two weeks ago, they throttled the Lions, whose only other loss was to - hmm, what was that explosive team that beat Detroit in overtime? Can't seem to recall seeing that offense in a while. Anyway, Bobby Wagner had this to say about the Hawks still at 5-3:

The bad news is a bit on the nose, right? The only reason the Seahawks "held" the Ravens to under 300 yards is that Baltimore lost two yards taking a knee, twice, from the Seattle four-yard line. Geno Smith was bad, as in, when do we expect the Hawks to replace him bad? It certainly wasn't all on Smith, though.

As Lee Vowell wrote, he was under pressure 49 percent of the time on Sunday. Geno, not Lee. Lee's under pressure 100 percent of the time, every day. That same offensive line opened running lanes for Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet smaller than an 8-gauge sewing needle. That's small, and that's how you get 28 yards rushing from a pair of very talented backs.

As for the defense, even Devon Witherspoon had a bad game. He missed two tackles and only defensed one pass. No one could tackle, basically, as Jamal Adams said after the game. At least Boye Mafe had his sixth straight game with a sack, tying a team record. But when that's the only good news for the Seahawks, other than they know just how much work they need to do, it's a bad week indeed.

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