Seahawks in exact place as end to last season. Bobby Wagner, DK Metcalf know it’s damning
A year ago this week, the Seahawks were 8-8.
They had been 6-3 and in first place — but a 2-5 pratfall put them in a jam. They needed to win their regular-season finale against an eliminated NFC West foe plus have the Packers get upset by an eliminated division rival in Green Bay to sneak into the playoffs.
Exactly 12 months later, the Seahawks are 8-8. They had been 6-3 and in first place — but a 2-5 pratfall has put them in a jam They need to win their regular-season finale Sunday against eliminated NFC West foe Arizona (4-12) plus have the Packers get upset by an eliminated division rival in Green Bay to sneak into the playoffs.
It’s coincidental.
It’s middling.
It’s damning.
“That’s just the bed we laid for ourselves,” Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf said this week.
Indeed, Seattle controlled its playoff fate entering last weekend and its home game against Pittsburgh. Win that plus this weekend’s game at the Cardinals and the Seahawks were in the playoffs.
But they couldn’t tackle the Steelers. Pittsburgh steamrolled them 46 times for 202 rushing yards through 15 missed tackles — five on one play — in Seattle’s demoralizing, 30-23 home loss on New Year’s Eve.
That leaves the Seahawks with what probability models say it just a 22% chance to make the playoffs for the 10th time in 12 years. They need a win Sunday. Plus, the Chicago Bears (7-9) must win at Green Bay (8-8) in a game starting at the same time (1:25 p.m. Sunday) for Seattle to steal the seventh seed in the NFC postseason for the second consecutive January.
Seahawks scoreboard watching
Linebacker Bobby Wagner, named to the Pro Bowl for a Seahawks’ record-tying ninth time Wednesday, wants the scoreboard operators at the Cardinals’ stadium in Glendale, Arizona, to help out Seattle during Sunday’s game.
“Human nature, you want to look up and see what the (score of the Bears-Packers game) is. Hopefully, they don’t show it too much. Hopefully they just let us do our thing,” Wagner said.
“At the end of the day, it’s kind of on the older guys to make sure that everybody stays locked in and not worry about that. Because the moment you look at that score, you forget there’s a score right in front of you that could change easily if you lose focus.”
Metcalf is realistic. He isn’t the only Seahawk thinking the Packers aren’t going to blow it on their home Lambeau Field two years in a row.
He isn’t the only Seahawk talking about next season.
“Once you get in this position you just start looking back at all the games that you should’ve won or the plays you should’ve made . And then the plays that you should’ve made just start to catch up with you,” Metcalf said. “But it all just goes back to just being consistent and just being the same executing offense that you were these past couple of weeks that we were, and we have been.
“Just gives us something forward to look forward to next year.
“But just finishing strong this year is something that we have to do.”
That’s coach Pete Carroll’s message to the players this week: Finish.
Pete Carroll’s message
The Seahawks didn’t finish last week, turning a 17-17 tie in the third quarter into a 30-20 hole late in the fourth after Geno Smith got hit from behind and lost a fumble deep in Seattle’s end.
They did finish the previous two games. The Seahawks rallied with game-winning drives in their final possessions to the winning touchdown in the last minute of wins over Philadelphia Dec. 18 and at Tennessee on Christmas Eve.
“It couldn’t be any more obvious. This is the finish opportunity here for the regular season and we’ve got to get this game done,” Carroll said. “We’ve got to get what we need to get done here to have a chance to keep rolling. It isn’t about really what’s down the road, it’s about this game, right now, this time.
“We’ve got to do some things better than we did, and we’ve had some times where we’ve been OK but we’ve got to get better.”
Then Carroll asked himself the same question you may be asking right now, after the Seahawks allowed the often-dormant Steelers offense to roll them for a season-high 468 yards with a third-string quarterback.
“How can you get better in the week?” Carroll said.
“Well, watch.
“We’re going to change a little bit of how this thing happened last week. And I’m anxious to see it come together.”
Carroll and defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt are going back to training-camp drills and emphasis this week. That is, a tackler taking the proper angle on a ball carrier. Getting his feet under him. Squaring his shoulders to the ball carrier. Wrapping his arms around him. Driving a shoulder into the opponent’s chest.
This return to basics in week 18 tells you all you need to know about how bad the defense has been. And they do this without ever taking a guy to the ground. Including in training camp, the Seahawks don’t truly tackle, out of fear of injuries to big-contract players outside of games.
Last season the Seahawks finished 30th in the 32-team NFL in rush defense. So Carroll, Hurtt and general manager John Schneider spent up to $124 million in new contracts for the defense. They replaced every starter in the front seven except edge rushers Uchenna Nwosu and Boye Mafe. They signed Wagner back to the defense after his year away with the Rams. They used the fifth pick in this year’s draft, a generational pick for Seattle, on defense (Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon).
This season the Seahawks are ranked...yep, 30th in the NFL in rush defense.
With fingers pointing in so many directions about this defense — it’s the coaching, it’s the youth, it’s the scheme — the unit’s captain has a bottom-line answer to why Seattle continues to be so bad, and what needs to be done about it.
It’s on the players. They play.
“We just didn’t execute, to be honest,” Wagner said of the Seahawks against the Steelers. “There’s really not much you can say about it. We didn’t wrap up. We didn’t drive. We knew they were going to come in, they were hungry, and we didn’t do what we needed to get done to win the game. And maybe that’s a mentality thing.”
Asked about Seattle having the most rookies in the NFL (15 players) and 40-plus percent of the roster being first- and second-year players, Wagner dismissed that as an excuse, not a reason.
“At the end of the day, what you learn is that you’re a professional,” he said. “Whether you’re an older player or a younger player, when you go out there, you have a job to do. And you’re always going to be graded whether you did that or not.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2024 at 10:40 AM.
