Losers and more Losers from Cardinals 23 Seahawks 13

The Seattle Seahawks are bad and showing few signs of getting any better.

There. That’s my opening line. I picked the Arizona Cardinals to beat Seattle with full knowledge of Colt McCoy starting not just because McCoy is the Seahawks killer, but because the Cardinals are an elite team with a lot of depth and thus a vastly superior football team.

There are no Winners this week even though a few Seahawks played well. Instead I will offer kudos and salute Bryan Mone, Jamal Adams (even with his game-killing DPI), Tyler Lockett, Gerald Everett, Michael Dickson, DeeJay Dallas, and Rasheem Green for their noble efforts on the gridiron.

Losers

Russell Wilson

Another bad game from Wilson that looked not too different from his performances towards the end of the 2020 season. He was victimized by a couple of dropped passes but he was fortunate not to have been intercepted a couple of times, and the throws he did miss he missed badly. Wilson continues to be poor on 3rd downs and his decision making does not look sharp. We know Geno Smith is not a good quarterback but Wilson has not been that demonstrably better than him since his return, and that’s more damning of Russ than praise of Geno.

I’ll attack this later in the week but I am convinced that Wilson’s diminished abilities as a runner has severely damaged this offense in the long-term. And at that point it’s fair to question just how many more high-level years he can achieve in the NFL. Perhaps one way to find out is to have a new, offensive-minded head coach... preferably on the Seahawks, but be prepared for it to be on another team.

DK Metcalf

The final statline reads 4 catches for 31 yards for DK but he had a couple of (admittedly difficult) plays he could’ve made and failed. One was the deep ball into double coverage and another one was a seam throw from Wilson that Metcalf tried to body catch instead of hands catch.

Will Dissly

Killer drops are killer drops and he had one that stalled out a drive. Hate to do that to Uncle Will but he deserves his spot.

Bobby Wagner and Jordyn Brooks

Kliff Kingsbury coached circles around Ken Norton Jr and Pete Carroll, but the players needed to execute. A supposed position of strength turned into a damaging liability. Even with D.J. Reed and (eventually) Tre Brown out at cornerback, the Seahawks’ worst defensive plays were almost entirely a product of attacking the middle of the field and exploiting the linebackers in coverage. Wagner and Brooks were regularly out of position and getting carved up on play-action. I hate to say it but it’s also the obvious thing: Bobby isn’t what he once was athletically. Combine his athletic decline with Brooks not having the consistently good instincts to make positive plays and Seattle is going to be at a disadvantage more often than not against offenses like Arizona’s.

Those two combined for 29 tackles but just one tackle for loss and several first downs and double-digit plays allowed. They were very culpable for Zach Ertz’s big day.

Pete Carroll

The good news for Pete is that I don’t have to get on him for questionable 4th down decisions. The bad news is I don’t see what he brings to the table on gameday anymore. He did give us an utterly hopeless challenge on a 4th and 1 when it was obvious to everyone that Eno Benjamin converted it.

Seattle looks not only not very talented (spoiler: relative to the other top teams in the NFL, they aren’t) but poorly coached. They still can’t defend screen passes, the offensive line looks like they’ve never seen a stunt in their lives, etc. It’s more pronounced this season in large part because Russell Wilson hasn’t conjured up his classic magic plays to rescue lost causes.

I respect and praise Pete Carroll for all he’s done with the team and I won’t be stupid enough to give him no credit (or attribute all of his success to luck) for the team’s sustained run of regular season success and a Super Bowl win. It’s time for him to go, but I don’t know if it’ll actually happen. What I do know is that neither he nor John Schneider should be a part of the Seahawks’ impending rebuild.

Shane Waldron

I said on the Field Gulls Twitter account that the Seahawks hiring Shane Waldron was like Spongebob Squarepants’ cousin working for Plankton and the Chum Bucket. Some of you may not get this reference but that’s either because you are very old or didn’t watch cartoons. But the main point is that whatever hype Waldron garnered from the offseason through about the first few weeks of the season is now completely gone. The play sequencing is confusing. The lack of play-action boots is baffling. I think some of this boils down to Wilson’s weaknesses hamstringing what Waldron can/can’t do, but I am not impressed with what I see. It is not all Pete Carroll controlling the offense, otherwise that ridiculous pass-heavy approach to the Packers game never happens.

Say what you want about Darrell Bevell or Brian Schottenheimer but neither one of them produced a product as bad as this year’s Seahawks offense.

Final Notes

• It figures that Rashaad Penny finally gets an NFL start but after a quality 18-yard run on his first touch he struggles to get back into the game due to injury. I feel bad for the dude. Forget his future on the Seahawks, his future in the NFL has to be really dicey with how badly his body has already broken down.
• I didn’t see enough to overturn Sidney Jones’ interception into an incomplete pass. It’s one where had it been ruled incomplete live and not overturned I’d have been fine with it, but it was called an interception and I don’t see clear and obvious evidence that Jones didn’t have control of the ball all the way. Alas, Seattle is now back under a 1% interception rate on the season, which would be (obviously) one of the worst in NFL history. Two passes defensed out of 44 attempts is horrific.
• The pass rush stinks beyond belief. They did their best work on the interior but in terms of edge rushing? Scarcely there and on multiple occasions Colt McCoy was escaping would-be sacks like he assumed Kyler Murray’s body.
• Did Dee Eskridge even play? You have to wonder how far behind he is on the playbook given the training camp and in-season injuries.
• All the best to Tre Brown. A patella tendon injury is no joke and the Seahawks have had several players past and present deal with that in recent years. He showed a lot of promise in his handful of starts but the rookie’s season may very well be over already, which sucks.
• For all intents and purposes, this season is over. Seattle will not make the playoffs and if they do they will be stomped out fiercely. All that’s left to figure out is just how messy this offseason will be, and whether or not the incredible Pete/John/Russ era is actually going to end. The make-or-break season has become the season from hell.