You can think whatever negative nilly thoughts you want about Pete Carroll, and his 2023 Seattle Seahawks. I will not try to steer you one way, or the other.

You can believe, with all of your soul, that so long as he remains coach of the team, they will never reach the Super Bowl again because he is too old and has too much “lost his way.” Okay.

You can also be firmly intrenched within a staunch mindset that Geno Smith is nothing more than an expensive run of the mill quarterback who will never take this team far, and they need to draft a quarterback next year in order to be cheap at the position, and load up on veteran talent elsewhere on the roster. Cool. You are not alone in those thoughts.

You can also, of course, believe that, despite this surprising win on the road against the trendy Lions, these Seahawks are still due a down season this year. You know what? They might be. We will see.

What I think very few people would find a hard time discrediting is the fact that, historically, Pete Carroll coached Seattle Seahawk teams have done very well coming off of tough losses like this team faced last week at home against the Rams. Much was made this week about how Seattle was in trouble heading into Detroit. I, myself, had my doubts, but I don’t think enough folks who have followed this team for a living reflected on how good of a coach Carroll is at getting his players to respond after a tough loss, even though he is in his thirteenth year now coaching this team, and he has been doing exactly that for years now.

I would also say that, even though I had doubts about this matchup, I wouldn’t predict a Detroit Lions victory over this team. I don’t get involved in previewing and predicting games for the Seahawks anymore on this blog. Partly, it is because it has allowed my writing to become too formulaic and thus feeling more like a chore, but another reason is because over these last few years, these Pete Carroll coached Seahawks have become less predictable.

It is almost like the only thing I can predict is for them not to be predictable.. unless maybe when it is coming off of a bad loss. When that happens, many of these iterations of the Pete Carroll Seahawks tend to come out swinging the following week.

This week was one of those weeks, and while it was by far perfect, it was a thrilling game to watch. After all, the Seahawks had to travel on the road and face a team with a loud and fired up fan base, better offensive and defensive lines, and a collection of skill players who are more than capable of going toe to toe what Seattle has.

Given the fact that Seattle was down both starting offensive tackles, it should have felt surprising that they were as competitive as they were, even for much of this game feeling like was still going to become a likely loss. As I watched this game, I was preparing to write a piece about “moral victories.”

But instead these Pete Carroll Seattle Seahawks prevailed, and they did it by doing the very stuff against the Lions that I asked for them to do in a piece I wrote last week. Good on them.

Offensively, they stayed firmly with the run enough to allow pro bowl quarterback Geno Smith to throw pretty play action passes that kept this offensive humming. Yes, Seattle did not net a bunch of yards on the ground in this game, but 22 carries by the backs for a meager 62 yards kept the Lion defenders (knowing Seattle was down two starting tackles) having to honor the run, and that allowed for Geno to go 32-41 for 328 and 2 touchdowns with most of those throws coming off of said play action.

I said this last week, and I will say it again, this new and improved version of Geno Smith is very good at play action. He is tall enough, athletic enough with a strong enough arm, and the accuracy needed to throw pretty down field passes off of heavy run formations. Many of Seattle’s best plays of the game came off of this stuff. They royally messed up last week against the Rams not establishing this, but they didn’t make that mistake again here. Bravo!

Run the freaking ball, and Geno should be good to deliver. This should be the formula the rest of the way. Some games, the run will get going well enough that Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet will be the guys with all the fancy stats. Other times, it’s going to be Geno, and Tyler Lockett, DK, and others because of the commitment to these runners.

But just run the fricking ball.

Defensively, this team is still a work in progress, yet again. I said it last week, and I will say it again, I’m not super duper in love with this scheme Seattle is running. They do things that make it hard on me, but I will say that, at times, they show flashes that makes things interesting, and hopeful. Through two games now, at times, they will blow up plays in the backfield, create some turn over, and at others, they will get sliced and diced, and give up points.

In this game, they again gave up a ton of points and yards through the air, but then reserve cornerback Tre Brown turned into The Black Panther and took over the fourth quarter by sacking Jared Goff on one play, and then picking him off for 6 points on the next. Then, to complete the circle of feasting and famine, Brown gave up a touchdown in the end zone on the next series.

This is sooooooo Seattle Seahawks defense under Clint Hurtt, it seems. Honestly, it doesn’t feel that far off from the Seahawks defense under Ken Norton Junior. People will say that this is really Pete Carroll, but the vibe I get is that Carroll grants his defensive coordinators a bunch of autonomy to call their own schemes until he has to step in and fix. Hopefully, it fixes itself soon.

One positive that I can say about this defense against the Lions is that rookie Devin Witherspoon looks like the real deal at cornerback, and that is pretty cool. He had a few rookie moments like getting beat on a flea flicker, but the dude hadn’t played in the preseason at all, and is just now working himself in. He had a few nice pass defenses, and a really good open field tackle for as minimal gain early in the game. For his first professional start, I thought this was a nice start. I am excited about his potential moving forward.

It was also nice to see defensive tackle Dre’Mont Jones getting his first sack with the team after not factoring in much against the Rams, and then drawing criticism from fans and media because of the expensive nature of the contract. So far, Jones is on pace to get about 8 sacks this season. Not bad for an interior guy at all, but we will see.

Also another guy who is on a nice pace now is Geno Smith. We can all point to the nice game Tyler Lockett had, and DK, and the tight ends, but Geno had to enter into Ford Field with reserve offensive tackles Jake Curhan and Stone Forsythe starting (and playing surprisingly solid) against the dreaded Aidan Hutchinson and company, in front of a huge crowd of loud, jacked up, blue ski masked Detroit fans, and he had to stay patient, poised, and deliver, and when the team needed him most, deliver a walk off touchdown in overtime.

Outside of the one play towards the final minutes of regulation when bad Russell Wilson entered into his body, and demonically possessed him into truly one of the most bizarre running around in circles like a chicken without his head sacks that I have ever seen, Geno Smith had an outstanding game, under the given circumstances. That walk off touchdown pass on the road in OT is why he’s being paid the big dollars. Others played well around him, but Geno Smith delivered like as high priced quarterback should. Good job, Geno Smith.

So, yeah. You can away pine for Michael Penix Junior all you want to be the next starting quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks, and that’s fine. I get it.

I dig Big Penix Energy, too, and having a talented quarterback on a cheap rookie contract is gold in this league, but the reality of it is that, if Geno keeps playing this way, Seattle isn’t going to be anywhere near where they have to be in order to draft a quarterback like that. So, maybe it’s best to just embrace Geno as the guy, and get behind him.

After all, the Seahawks face the Panthers back at home next week with rookie quarterback Bryce Young, and then travel to New York to face a suspect Giants team on Monday Night Football. It is entirely possible that in a couple weeks, Seattle is sitting at 3-1 heading into their early bye week.

What felt like what was sure to be a long season last Sunday against the Rams, and gave me moments of thinking about Seattle having an off year that could lead to another top ten pick, now this win makes me think that Seattle can still do serious damage to other teams this year, if they keep together fighting through adversity like this. Now, it feels like a lot is more possible, and I like that feeling.

Make no mistake about it, going to Detroit and pulling off this win without Charles Cross, Abe Lucas, Jamal Adams, Boye Mafe, and for much of the game, Riq Woolen, .. yeah, this sort of feat is a thing that can give this youthful roster a lot of confidence heading into New York, into Cincinnati, Baltimore, and Dallas. After all, Detroit is supposed to be that sexy team that this year, aren’t they?

So, you can doubt these Seahawks all you want. You can even pine for a new head coach, quarterback, defense, ownership group, etc.

The one thing I would caution against is predicting what this team will do moving forward. Like many other teams in this league right now, it is still too early to figure out what they are, but right now, I wouldn’t bet against them. Not yet, anyways.

Also, after watching this game unfold like it did, I now have the feeling that Seattle, and its head coach, is an entity in this league that just really pisses off a lot of people, and is a festering itch that just won’t go away. Like, right now, there are a lot of Lion fans who hate this team kinda like maybe how Packer fans do, Panther fans, Giant fans probably do, Dallas and Philly fans, and, of course all those 49er faithful fans.

I think fans for teams in other markets are desperate to believe that Seattle sucks, and when their team gets beaten by them, it’s like watching their ex happily hitched to a short nerdy dude who works for Radio Shack and drives a Geo Metro. It makes them wonder what he has going on for himself that they do not possess themselves.

Honestly, I think that is what Pete Carroll is. If you are a hater, he is that weird old elf who is banging your ex inside his Metro, and you want to burn your eyeballs out with flaming marshmallow sticks whenever you see his team win. Each time Carroll and company win, you take another step closer to becoming either a Sith apprentice, or a Reddit troll.

As a life long Seahawk fan, I appreciate rooting for a team that has a coach who annoys people in that jolly sort of way. In fact, I kinda revel in it.

I would even bet that there is a smallish faction of Seahawk fans who are pining for this team to collapse this year so that that change finally occurs at the top, and they are annoyed by this win. To them, I drink their tears of frustration.

Will Pete Carroll get this team back to a Super Bowl? I dunno, nobody does, but I am going to have fun finding out.

Go Hawks.