Well, this wasn’t the game I had envisioned all week, but if I were to pick any Seahawk game this season to define 2020 in a nutshell, I would nominate this one. I mean, could it get any weirder than Colt McCoy out dueling Russell Wilson?

I’m going to keep this piece short because, frankly, I can’t get the taste of puke out of my mouth, and I wanna go eat a quart of ice cream while binge watching Clone Wars to more fully understand the last few episodes of the Mandalorian.

Here are my suck suck sucky suck notes.

The Good

The defense continued to play with an inspired effort, most notably, the high octane effort by Jamal Adams, the steady play by the starting linebackers, and some timely plays by the starting corners and other safeties. It was hard to see the Giants break those big runs at the midway through the second half, but at least Seattle was able to adjust enough to give their offense a chance.

Special teams continued to be a positive factor.

The Bad

I don’t know where to begin with the issues on offense.

Russell Wilson wasn’t as sharp throughout the game as he needed to be, the offensive line didn’t block well enough, but I would argue that they weren’t helped, and I’m not fully sure what all the issues are, so I am just going to blame play calling. I hate blaming the play calls because it’s the easiest thing to do when things break down, but the following is where I am feeling a potential underlined issue is brewing.

I started to sense this last week against the Eagles on Monday night, and I feel like there has been a carry over effect into this one. What I sense is an identity crisis brewing on the offense. They have dialed back a lot of the up-tempo passing aggression that they played with in September in an effort to find more balance between the run and pass.

In that, it feels like Russell his often being more tentative with his throws instead of being decisive. Essentially, he’s playing to “not throw interceptions.” That would be fine if they are to be a committed running team (like the Giants are), and Russ is reverted back to a play action game manager, but they aren’t doing that. They still have the passing playbook open and it feels like they are chasing balance for the sake of it.

In this game against the Giants, it caught up to them. A great example of this is that they would find success with the run, and then get away from it instead sticking with it enough to build play action off of it. They would also get cute with stuff to the perimeter when running down hill and throwing vertical was working.

What is the Seahawk offense right now? Are they a finesse passing team? Or are they a power run? If they are not either, then what could they possibly be?

While it sucks that they lost to the Giants that were led by Colt McCoy, maybe this is what needs to happen right now. Maybe they need to lose to a lessor team that knows who and what they are (a team committed to running and playing smart defense).

Offensively, maybe Seattle should just commit to being really good at one thing, and then build off of that. They can either be a passing team that uses the run to keep defenses honest, or they should be a run team that builds it’s pass game off of that (like in years past).

Balance for the sake of balance feels like a trap that they are presently finding themselves in. In this match, with an offensive line that was dealing with injury, maybe they just should have committed to Chris Carson more in this one and at least let the reserve right tackles be aggressors.

Instead of sneaking out with another close victory, they lost to an inferior team, and maybe that is the bill that the players and coaches need to swallow to make the adjustments needed.

The Ugly

Cut away shots of Pete Carroll looking stressed and confused, and Russell Wilson spinning himself into sacks like he did often towards the end of 2017 when Seattle narrowly missed the playoffs, finishing with a 9-7 record. I don’t think this is how Seattle’s 2020 season is trending towards, but this game also doesn’t give me confidence that 12-4 and the NFC West division title is at hand either.

Moving forward

Fix the offense. The defense is trending enough positively that it would be a shame that the offense continues to slip.

For my money, if I had my choice, I would let Russ cook a bit more. Let that be the signature of the offense this year. If the defense is giving opportunities to run, go with it, but let Russ lose. Let him be the threat and build the run off of him.

But that is just me.

Go Hawks!