At midseason a year ago, Seattle was 4-3 and facing struggles on both sides of the ball. Following some personnel adjustments and a little team soul searching, they eventually turned it around, storming to a 9-1 record over their final 10 games, winning the division, and claiming the #1 seed in the NFC.
Entering their bye this week, Seattle sits at 4-4 and faces similar hurdles to their struggles a season ago, but a new one is the 4-3 Rams, who beat Seattle in week one and sit in 2nd place between the 1st place Cardinals and the 3rd place Seahawks. Just two games behind 6-2 Arizona and one game behind St. Louis, this division is anything but decided with nine weeks left in the regular season, but a lot of good football has to be played if Seattle is going to knock off both.
So how can they fix it this time around? Can they mix an average offense, a good defense, and a tough schedule and somehow make lemonade? They can, but it all starts with identifying what’s not working, what is working, and converting a few negatives in to positives.
One of the top rushing teams since Pete Carroll came to town, Seattle is back at it again, currently ranking 2nd in the league in rushing yards per game at 139.5/gm. Yet they have just 3 rushing touchdowns, placing them at 25th in the league.
At this same time last season, Marshawn Lynch had 5 touchdowns on the ground by himself, with Russell Wilson adding three of his own. So far in 2015, Wilson has zero rushing scores, Lynch has two, the other belonging to Thomas Rawls. Some of that can be attributed to Lynch’s hamstring injury earlier in the season, some cannot.
At the close of the 2014 regular season, Seattle led the league with 172.6 yards per game on the ground, and also led the league with 20 rushing scores. They averaged 5.3 yards per rushing attempt and had 17 plays of 20 yards or more, six going for more than 40 yards. So far this season, they are down 33 yards per game on the ground, and are down five rushing scores compared to last year. They only have 5 plays that have gone for 20 yards or more, and only one of those has gone for 40 yards or more.
Turnovers are a similar story. Last season, they had only 7 fumbles as a team, this year they already have four. Last year Wilson threw just 7 interceptions, this year he already has 6.
So scoring is down, yards are down, and turnovers are up. That’s not a good sign.
On the flip side, offenses are consistently getting the best of Seattle more than they have in years. The defense has allowed 25 plays of 25 yards or more, whereas last season they allowed just 32 all year. The defensive line has 20 sacks so far compared to 37 in all of 2014, so they are getting to the QB more, but allowing more big plays at the same time, that’s also not a good sign.
You can’t forget that this team lost its defensive coordinator, one of their starting cornerbacks (Byron Maxwell), and started the season with one safety (Earl Thomas) recovering from shoulder surgery, and the other safety (Kam Chancellor) sitting out the first two games, with Seattle losing both contests.
That’s just the defensive side, on offense they replaced Pro Bowl center Max Unger with Drew Nowak, who they signed from their practice squad last season. They also promoted Gary Gilliam to start at right tackle, following the departure of James Carpenter to the New York Jets. Gilliam had not started a game prior to the 2015 season.
Pro Bowl TE Jimmy Graham, acquired in an offseason trade with New Orleans that sent Unger to the Saints, has 38 catches for 450 yards, but has produced just two receiving touchdowns.
The offense is scoring 3.7 points fewer per game and accumulating 20 fewer total yards compared to last year, while the defense is allowing 17.8 more yards per game, and 1.6 more points. So both sides can clearly improve, but how?
The easiest answer, and the hardest to track, is this team needs to get hungry and tighten the screws on both sides of the ball. They must limit turnovers on offense, and create turnovers on defense. They looked out of sorts for big chunks of their first half last season, then turned it around and went on a rampage. Granted, they had the same secondary members as the year prior, whereas this year they are unsuccessfully (so far at least) breaking in CB Cary Williams, and that transition hasn’t gotten any easier with young corners Jeremy Lane and Tharold Simon physically unable to play while they are out with injuries.
Seattle was dealt another tough blow this past week, as Ricardo Lockett was injured during a punt return and underwent season ending neck surgery. Seattle won the contest in Dallas to avenge last year’s loss in Seattle, and got to .500 for the first time this year, but where do they go from there?
Before changes were seen on the field last season, the players had to call a “players-only” meeting to discuss what the team wanted to achieve that year, and how they were going to accomplish it, and holding eachother accountable for assignments and responsiblities. With both of their meetings with Arizona still to come, as well as a rematch with St. Louis, the time is now to get on the same page and work on this mess.
If this team is going to do anything of note in 2015-16, and avoid being the next Super Bowl runner up to miss the playoffs the following season, they have an uphill climb in front of them, but not an impossible one.
Aiding their rise last season was the Rams inability to put together a winning roster, and the Cardinals losing QB Carson Palmer for the season with a knee injury. Neither of those things are likely to happen this year, so the Seahawks will have to do this the old fashioned way and prove they are the better team against the best players and game plans the opposition has to throw at them.
This team does not appear to have an identity, and it would be best if they got back to the ball control offense and terrorizing defense they became known for in 2013, and the identity they regained in 2014.
So far this year, there is not much to be said about Seattle, other than they are not living up to the tremendous expectations their past two seasons have set for them.
The rest of the league is hoping Seattle will fail. How will they respond?
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