Dear National Football League,

31 of your teams are totally screwed in the pants right now. The Pete Carroll defense is back in Seattle, your announcers are going to get really bored talking about how miserable offenses are gonna be having to function against it.

On Monday Night Football, in front of millions of viewers, Daniel Jones stood no chance, even after weirdly knocking Jamal Adams out of the game with his knee. Yes, he didn’t have Saquon, and his offensive line was bad, but Seattle’s offensive line was worse. Seattle’s offense still managed enough points to comfortably win. The New York Giants kicked a field goal, and that was it.

The Giants’ defense was very good in this game. They were tough, aggressive, and they made it hard on Geno Smith, and almost knocked him out of the entire game. The Seattle Seahawks’ defense, though, was DOMINANT through the entire game.

In fact, that has got to the best defensive effort I have seen from a Seattle Seahawk defense since 2014. They dominated against the run and the pass any which way they chose to slice it up. They sacked Jones ELEVEN times, and intercepted him twice.

Daniel Jones may not be the great quarterback in the league, but he’s not that bad, either. Seattle made him look clueless.

Some will say that Seattle caught a break going against a banged up team. I say horse crap. Seattle has as banged up of an offensive line as it can get in this league, but they have now won three games in a row despite it. They are finding ways to win. That is what good teams do, let’s go back to that defense.

Quietly, Seattle has been settling into its defense for a few games now, I was convinced of it. The points had not shown it, nor had the passing yards, but if you really looked at a few things deeper, you could sense it. For one, they’ve been consistently strong against the run. For another, they were getting completions against them in fairly tight coverage, at times. For yet another, their pass rush was starting to show up more.

What all these things told me was that they just needed to get a bit tighter in coverage, and they needed feel each other a bit more as rushers. Once those things happened, I could feel this defense rounding into a very good one. In short, stop the run, and everything else should eventually fall into place with the talents on the back end, and at edge rusher. Low and behold, it happened on Monday night.

Now, after this total butt kicking, it feels like Seattle is on pace for having a great defense this year. Why am I so staunchly confident about all of this?

Devon F’ing Witherspoon. He is the straw that is going to stir this whole damn delicious drink.

Post game, Troy Aikman said, very candidly, that he has never seen a cornerback like Witherspoon. He compared him to a linebacker playing corner. I think that is highly accurate.

In this epic performance, Spoon recorded two sacks, seven tackles, a tackle for a loss, and a pick six that would have made Earl Thomas green with envy. He dominated the game playing outside, and inside.

Last week, I published a piece about who the Seahawk tone setters are to lead this team further towards a championship. Devon Witherspoon is a TONE SETTER for this team.

If I am defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt, I am coming out of the bye week with Spoon as the left cornerback in the base defense, and then as the inside corner in the nickel. When Jamal Adams gets back, I’m probably using him as a nickel linebacker with Bobby Wagner. I’m going to get quarterbacks thinking about the options I might send on a blitz.

Spoon isn’t the only guy setting tones and making things click for this defense, either. His mate on the other side, Riq Woolen had himself a strong game against the Giants, has been consistently very good this year, and will continue to make quarterbacks leery passing against him. Jarran Reed, Mario Edwards, and Dre’Mont Jones are bringing heat on the DL against the run and pass. Boye Mafe and Uchenna Nwuso are developing chemistry as bookend rushers and are playing strong against the run, as well. Bobby Wagner remains Bobby Wagner, and Jordyn Brooks isn’t bad either.

This defense, I am telling you, is coming around. They are getting it.

They get a bye week to sort it out further, get guys rested, and ready to play the Bengals, Cardinals, and Browns in October. They could easily put up dominant efforts against all three of those teams if they keep the focus and hunger for pissed off greatness in tact. There is no reason in the world why they should not. I expect great things.

Offensively, they got through this game, and that is fine. There was too much sloppiness with procedures and holds, but given the fact that they had both starting guards knocked out early, and the line shifted with Evan Brown moving from center to guard, rookie Olu Oluwatimi taking over at center, and rookie Anthony Bradford taking over at right guard once again, it stands to reason that a few gadget plays might get f’d up in the process.

Illegal procedures killed momentum too often, but the Giant defenders didn’t make it easy, either. Credit the Giants for coming out and defending their turf with everything they got.

As for Geno Smith, nah, he didn’t light the world on fire, but he took a hard hit out of bounds, getting his legs rolled on, and once he came back into the game out of the half, he decided to continue barking at New York defenders, drawing a personal foul that cost the team fifteen yards after a big first down play. It was that kind of night (along with the penalties), but he gutted through it, and threw as pretty of a touchdown pass to DK Metcalf as you will see in this league.

It was also fun to see Drew Lock get into the live action for a while, and spark a scoring drive. He’s not as good of a passer as Geno is, but he’s a better athlete, and you could sense his dynamic rolling out of the pocket, and taking off as a runner. Drew Lock helped this team win, no doubt. Great job on a guy with the same initials as Def Leppard.

If I were to nitpick this game a little bit more, I would say to Carroll when it was fourth and short in the red zone in the third quarter with an eleven point lead “just kick the damn field goal.” Getting up fourteen points, with how this defense was playing felt like the right move.

I would also say that I didn’t love watching Shane Waldron call three pass plays in a row midway through the fourth quarter when they needed to just drain clock. I don’t know if he was trying to get Geno’s numbers up, or they thought they could catch the defense off guard, but I didn’t dig it.

It was clear from the get go that this was going to be a defensive battle. Embrace the defensive battle. I hate to say it, Gen Z’ers, but sometimes it’s cool to go conservative when the moment calls for it.

But the Seahawk defense, though. Woof. Just look at some of these individual efforts.

Seven tackles, two sacks for Spoon, and a pick six.

Seventeen tackles for Bobby Wagner, and two sacks.

Ten tackles for Jordyn Brooks, and two sacks.

Six tackles for Uchenna Nwosu, and two sacks.

All of these guys were beasts, and in addition, Mario Edwards, Boye Mafe, and Myles Adams each got a sack apiece. When you’re best defenders play their best ball, good things tend to happen for everyone.

Total domination. Total Pete Carroll football. Seattle protected the ball, and they took it away. They ran the ball for 121 yards, and held the Giants to 112 with 66 of those yards coming off off Daniels Jones running for his life. They found ways to score 24 points, and held the Giants to 3. Beautiful.

Bring on the Bye week. Then bring on the Bengals.

The Legend Of Spoon is upon us, and it is a glorious thing.

Go Hawks.