History of NFL teams starting 5-0 should excite the Seahawks. Their defense should not
If history counts for anything, the Seahawks are going to the playoffs again.
Seattle’s latest, last-second, crazy victory, 27-26 over the stunned Minnesota Vikings Sunday night, has the Seahawks off to their best start in team history. They are 5-0 for the first time in the franchise’s 45 seasons in the NFL.
Since the NFL went to a 16-game regular season in 1978, there have been 69 teams begin 5-0. Sixty-two of those 69 have gone on to qualify for the playoffs that season. That’s an 90% success rate.
And history says 5-0 teams often don’t stop there.
Almost 40% of the teams that have started a season with five consecutive wins in the last 42 years have made it to the Super Bowl (26 of the 69 teams, 38%). That includes two of the last three teams to be 5-0, both out of Seattle’s NFC West: the 2019 San Francisco 49ers and the 2018 Los Angeles Rams.
Three of the last four NFC teams to begin 5-0 have made the Super Bowl: the 49ers last season, those 2018 Rams and the 2015 Carolina Panthers.
“We have to keep it going,” said linebacker K.J. Wright, the longest-tenured Seahawk in his 10th season.
“5 and 0 is beautiful, but we have a long ways to go.”
Specifically, on defense.
The Seahawks need to fix the worst defense a 5-0 team has ever had.
Or do they?
So far early NFL most valuable player candidate Russell Wilson (19 touchdown passes, one off Peyton Manning’s league record through five games, a league-best passer rating of 129.8) keeps throwing and winning no matter how much the defense is giving up.
“With the quarterback we have, there’s no doubt in our minds that we’re not going to go down here and score,” wide receiver DK Metcalf said Sunday.
That was moments after Wilson completed two passes to him on fourth down on Seattle’s final drive against Minnesota, including for the winning touchdown with 15 seconds remaining.
“Any time we’re in a that moment, it’s easy for us to just go out there and play our football, because we know we’ve got a quarterback that can make anything possible, anything can happen,” Metcalf said.
“He can deliver when the game is on the line.”
The average final records for those 69 teams that began season with five straight wins since 1978: 13-5.
None of those 5-0 teams finished with a losing record.
But none of those 69 previous unbeatens through five weeks had a defense playing like Seattle’s.
The Seahawks are allowing 471.2 yards per game. The NFL record for most yards allowed over an entire season is 440.1 yards per game, by the 2012 New Orleans Saints.
Those Saints allowed 7,042 yards, began the season 1-4 and finished out of the playoffs at 7-9 that year.
The Seahawks are on pace to allow 7,539 yards this season.
There have been many factors for Seattle’s epic defensive problems:
- The lack of a consistent pass rush up front. That’s been exacerbated by the season-ending knee injury to edge rusher Bruce Irvin and indefinite absence of rookie second-round pick Darryl Taylor.
- Reliance on All-Pro safety Jamal Adams blitzing so much until he strained his groin. Adams has missed the last two games.
- Defensive backs allowing receivers to beat them deep, breaking coach Pete Carroll’s first rule of pass defense.
- Poor tackling.
- And last weekend getting run over for 201 yards rushing by Minnesota, the first team to truly try to run after four foes passed all over the Seahawks.
Is this sustainable, winning with Wilson’s heroics — and without defense?
The Seahawks’ defense-first coach says no.
“We’ve got a lot of improvement that’s going to happen,” Carroll said.
“I don’t really care what happens. It don’t matter. We can’t do anything about those five games that already happened, the yards or the plays or nothing. But we do have the ability to do something about what’s coming up.
“For us to kick into a whole better level of our performance in all aspects of our game when we have a good start behind us, it can make us real dangerous going down the schedule.
“But we’ve got to improve. We’ve got to get better.”
Carroll mentioned his defense has given up fewer points the last two weeks — 23 at Miami, 26 to Minnesota. And the Seahawks have gotten huge defensive plays while backed up in the fourth quarter to preserve the last two wins. Cornerback Shaquill Griffin knocked down a pass in the end zone then had an interception to keep Seattle ahead at Miami two weeks ago. End Benson Mayowa stopped Minnesota wide receiver Adam Thielen on an end-around run on third down in the red zone, then running back Alexander Mattison on the next play on fourth and 1 to give Wilson and Metcalf the chance to beat the Vikings on Seattle’s last offensive possession.
But the Seahawks’ defense is playing a dangerous game of relying on lightning strikes while otherwise getting swamped.
Largely because they aren’t pressuring quarterbacks, the defense can’t get off the field enough. Seattle is 29th in the league in allowing a 50% success rate by offenses on third downs. They allowed the Vikings to convert twice on fourth down in the first half. That is why Minnesota ran 83 plays Sunday night, to just 58 for Seattle.
That puts big pressure on Wilson and the offense to score just about every time they touch the ball. So far, they’ve been fantastic.
Seattle’s schedule toughens following this bye — at Arizona (3-2), home against defending NFC-champion San Francisco (2-3), at Buffalo (4-1 after its loss in a rescheduled game at Tennessee Tuesday) and at the Los Angeles Rams (4-1).
Wilson might have to keep his record-setting passing pace for the Seahawks to keep winning over the next four games.
Carroll thinks the return of Adams alone will improve the defense.
The team has gotten wins the last two weeks, at the Dolphins and over the Vikings, without having Adams play. Seattle’s idea was to give him those two games plus this bye week to rest his badly strained groin. The strong safety, blitzer, cover man and tackler could get to rest the injury sustained in the fourth quarter of Seattle’s win against Dallas Sept. 27 to the Seahawks’ next game Oct. 25 at Arizona.
Starting cornerback Quinton Dunbar missed two games before he returned last weekend against the Vikings.
In many ways, all on defense, these 5-0 Seahawks are unlike any 5-0 team in NFL history.
They hope they can improve that defense to be more like those previous 5-0 teams.
“Like a lot of teams have gone through a lot of injuries, we have, too,” Carroll said. “We’ve had a lot of changes we have to deal with. We need to overcome those, come out of those, be better for it.
“I’m hoping we can get that done.”
This story was originally published October 14, 2020 at 6:30 AM.
