Congratulate the Seahawks for a win? Sure - but cartwheels for mediocrity? Nah.

For the second straight week, the Seahawks won a game by a 20-17 score and did it by scoring in the final minute, last week against Philadelphia, this week against Tennessee.

If they were the Mariners, we’d all be excited because simply making the playoffs is still a big deal for Seattle’s baseball team. But since they’re Seattle’s football team and barely over .500 at 8-7 and only a Super Bowl contender to its most avid fans, the excitement level is muted.

Or maybe I’m just more skeptical and pessimistic than most, a Danny Downer who should be celebrating the magic of two consecutive game-winning drives, the last of which gives the Seahawks a 70 percent chance of making the playoffs according to ESPN’s Power Football Index.

Commend them for overcoming a letdown spot after posting an emotional Monday night victory over the Eagles at Lumen Field. Congratulate them for coming through in a 10 a.m. game on the road. But the thought of doing cartwheels for them? I’m not so sure about that.

How can playing in the playoffs be a bad thing compared to not being a part of the Super Bowl sweepstakes? Couldn’t the Seahawks win their last two games against Pittsburgh and Arizona, finish 10-7 and turn that momentum into a merry darkhorse postseason ride and maybe even threaten to play for the Lombardi Trophy?

Because we’re talking about the unpredictability of sports, yeah, that could happen. And for anyone who has a strong belief in the Seahawks, they’ll point out that their favorite team beat Detroit and Philadelphia, two of the top NFC teams, and hung with Dallas, which is certainly another.

But here’s the problem, and everyone knows it’s a big problem, gargantuan even. If the Seahawks squeeze into the playoffs again, they’ll likely be the No. 7 seed. If they’re fortunate enough to beat the No. 2 seed on the road, at Detroit or Philadelphia, they would face the No. 1 49ers in Santa Clara the following week.

And let’s say they earn a playoff berth as the No. 6 seed, they’d have the same path, needing to win at Detroit or Philadelphia and likely facing the 49ers in the next round. The only way they wouldn’t is if the No. 7 seed beat its opponent on the road in the first round. If that happened, since the 49ers would face the lower seed in their first playoff game, the Seahawks, as the No. 6 seed, would avoid San Francisco in the divisional round.

The Seahawks’ best chance of getting to the Super Bowl, along with every other NFC playoff team, is to avoid the 49ers and hope someone else can beat them.

I think we can all agree that if the Seahawks make the playoffs, their season will end like it did last year, with a loss to San Francisco. From what we saw of the two-game series, the 49ers pretty much slaughtered the Seahawks, creating a hopeless situation.

If you want, trot out the old adage about it being tough to beat a team three times in one season. Whoever said that didn’t see the Seahawks’ two games against the 49ers in 2023. Nothing suggested that with a bounce of a ball here or there, the outcomes might have been different.

I’d be more optimistic about the Seahawks’ future if they lose a tight game to the 49ers in the playoffs. If that happens, the postseason would feature a rousing first-round victory on the road and a game in Santa Clara that would give you actual hope for a better season ahead in 2024, better as in actually making a run at the NFC West title. You can say that a few upgrades from the draft and seasoning from incumbent young players might push the Seahawks over the top. It also wouldn’t hurt if they cut Jamal Adams because they’re clearly a better team without him than with him.

But if they get blown out of the playoffs by San Francisco again, we’ll have to go through another offseason of irrational wishful thinking that they’re almost there, that Geno Smith can do it, and the Seahawks, with a few tweaks, can too.

Give all kinds of credit to Pete Carroll for putting his team in a potentially fun position again, just as he always has. But if the season ultimately plays out in disappointing fashion, there will be questions about his future, and understandably so.

Jim Moore has covered Washington’s sports scene from every angle for multiple news outlets. You can find him on Twitter @cougsgo, and on KJR-FM 93.3, where he co-hosts a sports talk show from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on weekdays.