The NFL now has a 17 game season. It’s stupid.

If these money grabbing owners need to make more cheddar, have two preseason games, make the season 18 games, give the teams two bye weeks, and play the damn Super Bowl in the middle of February. This Get Off My Lawn moment of mine is brought to you be Stihl; the maker of quality German engineered backpack blowers to annoy white privileged urbanites every Autumn during leaf season.

At any rate, as it stands now, it’s weird to determine what the mid point of the season is so that a middle aged blogger such as myself can issue grades out to his favorite team. I was going to do this last week, but I decided to write about why it’s dumb to bench Geno Smith right now, instead.

At any rate again, here are my grades for the 6-3 Seattle Seahawks. Read them and weep.

Quarterback: B-

Last year, at the time, I probably had Geno Smith down for an A-. He surprised everyone with his high efficiency play, and was throwing one of the very best deep balls in the game before his play fell back down to Earth more in the second half of the season. I love me some Geno Smith, but I gotta keep it real.

This season hasn’t gone nearly as well. Thus far, his touchdown numbers are down, and his interceptions are up. While I don’t believe he’s been helped by the play calling, I think he’s pressed a lot more, forced the ball into bad situations, been more skittish, and hopefully this cleaner game against Washington is a sign of better things to come.

His completion percentage is still pretty good, though, and out of three of these six wins on the season, he has guided this offense to come from behind wins against the Lions, Browns, and Commanders. In short, I think he’s doing his job good enough for this team to be solidly in playoff contention, but he can be a lot more consistent.

Running Back: B

Seattle has the potential to have an outstanding running back situation with the one two punch of Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet, but I don’t think they are taking enough advantage of what they have with these two. Finally, they got them more involved against Washington, and it paid off in a big way. This grade, in my opinion, should be a solid A, but because they haven’t been the focus enough, I can’t grade them this way, yet. Hopefully, that changes by the season’s end.

Wide Receiver: B-

Kinda like the quarterback situation, I think Seattle’s receivers have underwhelmed from where they were at this point last year. People want to trash on Geno, but I think it is up to these receivers to be more consistently on the same page with him, so I am giving them the same grade.

This is a highly talented group led by the consistently great Tyler Lockett, but I want to see better chemistry with the quarterback from others. If they can do this, they have the ceiling to be an A+ unit at the end of the season.

Jaxon Smith Njigba is starting to become more of a factor now, DK Metcalf has been calming himself down more, and Jake Bobo is a fun folk hero. So, at the very least, there are signs of this unit treading upwards. I got my fingers crossed for them.

Tight End: B-

Kinda like the running backs, I don’t think the tight ends are being used enough as they should be used. They were very active in September, but play caller Shane Waldron went away from using the multi TE looks in October, and they have since been less involved. When they are more of a focus, they are a talented group who can deliver as pass catchers and run blockers.

Offensive Line: C+

The offensive line has been pretty banged up throughout most of this season, and has seen so many different lineups that it has been tough for them to gain consistency and continuity. For far, they are gutting through it, and hopefully with promising right tackle Abe Lucas coming back, they can start rolling better during this tough second half of the season.

Defensive Line And Edge: B

Seattle lists their personnel as if they run a 3-4 defense, but I don’t think that is what they really are. I think they are mostly a modified 4-2-5 scheme that uses two defensive tackles, two stand up ends who will drop into coverage on occasion, and two off ball linebackers with three safeties on the field. Therefore, I am including their listed outside linebackers in this group with the interior defensive linemen.

Boye Mafe is the breakout star of the defensive front, breaking a franchise record for seven sacks in seven consecutive games. He is an ascending talent who have HUGE upside to his game. The edge rushers behind him are hanging in there after the season ending injury to Uchenna Nwosu. Rookie Derick Hall is strong against the run, Darrell Taylor provides a decent pass rush, and Frank Clark provides good depth.

Seattle’s DT types have played pretty solidly. Jarran Reed has been a real force at nose tackle, and Mario Edwards and Dre’Mont Jones have flashed at times. Leonard Williams as the new primary three technique played fierce against Washington, and should be a huge boost to this interior unit for the final stretch of the season.

Middle Linebacker: B-

Bobby Wagner has been outstanding versus the run, but I fear he’s becoming a bit more of a liability in coverage, although Pro Football Focus appears to love his play. Jordyn Brooks has been the more explosive player of the two. I think they are both fierce run defenders who are hanging in there in coverage.

Devin Bush has been a bit of a disappoint as a hyped up free agent signing, and I think Jon Rhattigan is just a dude. The depth of this squad has me nervous and I feel like this is an area of need heading into next offseason.

Cornerback: A

I think Seattle has one of the top cornerback situations in the league again, and they are the clear strength of the team. They are four deep in quality starters.

I think Devon Witherspoon is a superstar cornerback in the league right now, and should win Defensive Rookie Of The Year, but probably won’t because the league hates Seattle. In all my years, I have never seen a cornerback like him. He’s a mixture of Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman.

Riq Woolen is surprisingly overshadowed by Spoon, but is still a top end young corner in the league, and nobody else playing the position is built like him and has his type of world class speed. Tre Brown has provided scrappy good play as an outside corner in the nickel, and Mike Jackson is a quality depth player who probably starts somewhere else.

Safety: B

I think Seattle’s safeties are really good and are overshadowed by the corners. Jullian Love has been a really solid addition to the team, and Quandre Diggs has remained reliable enough.

Jamal Adams remains the team’s chosen X factor chess piece, playing a lot of safety, and linebacker, and even edge rusher. I think his play has been more up and down, but he is tasked to do a lot more than others. He will make splashy plays against the run, but he will also miss a tackle going for the knockout instead of slowing down to wrap up. My guess is that he is still working himself through the serious leg injury he’s coming back from. I would still take an up and down Jamal Adams on this defense, though.

Special Teams: A-

Jason Myers is a great kicker. Michael Dickson is a solid punter. I really like DeeJay Dallas returning kicks and punts now.

Coaching: B-

I am a HUGE Pete Carroll fan, and because of him, I want to grade this area higher than I have, but I can’t. I think Pete is still a tremendous leader and Seattle is lucky to have him still here, but I haven’t loved a lot of the play calling on offense this year, and this have been the big sticking point for me.

If feels like Shane Waldron really wants his three receiver passing attack to be the bread and butter of this offense with the addition of rookie Jaxon Smith Njigba to his squad. Don’t get me wrong, I love the potential of JSN, and I think he’s going to be special in this league, but with all the injuries that have occurred to the offensive line, I think tight end heavier formations along with more run plays, and play action, has probably been the better recipe for this offense with Geno Smith at quarterback. I think Geno is a much better play action QB than a straight drop back passer, and Waldron has taken that away from him for whatever reason.

I think Clint Hurtt has done a solid job modifying his defense to better fit the principles that have worked well for Seattle over the years. I think he’s steered away from some of the stuff he was trying to get do last year, and it’s been a return of tilted even front for the defense where defenders are better able to defend the A and B gaps. All this football jargon just means is that he has simplified his front seven, and has made their jobs a lot easier. Bravo.

Thoughts Moving Forward

At this point in the season, I would say that the defense is ahead of the offense, and.. well, that sorta does feel like maybe this team is, in fact, returning back to Legion Of Boom form. I wouldn’t say that this defense today is at that level yet, but I think they have the youthful upside to be close down the line, perhaps by next year.

Offensively, this team has been much more of a disappointment. Heading into the season, I expected the additions of Jaxon Smith Njigba and Zach Charbonnet to really open things up for Geno Smith.

Instead, the Seahawks have been dealing with a tattered offensive line right out of the gates, and with all the constant shuffling mixed with suspect playing calling, and inconsistent quarterback play, this entire side of the ball has been kinda just been hanging in there.

They haven’t been bad, but they haven’t been great, either. They have the talent to be great, and they are going to need to really get it together in this second half of the season when the schedule gets a lot tougher.

I would love for this team to really take it to the Rams this weekend down in LA and beat the snot out of them, but I think that’s going to be yet another tough matchup. The Rams are rested out of their bye week, and are getting Matt Stafford back. We will see how well Stafford is healed up, but Sean McVay as a head coach absolutely has Pete Carroll’s number. So, Seattle is going to have to play very disciplined ball to get this W. I think they can, but it’s up to them.

I think this is how the second half will go. Seattle is far enough into their season where the expectation is for them to be more disciplined and consistent.

Geno Smith needs to be a good distributor and not get caught up in hero ball. Jamal Adams needs to go for the proper tackle and not the knock out blow. DK Metcalf needs to keep his cool while maintaining his physical edge. The defense cannot afford to blow coverages much.

If this team stays fierce on defense, and plays more consistent on offense, they should be able to get through the remaining schedule and earn double digit wins, if they stay healthy enough. Pro Football Focus projects them to have a 83% chance at the playoffs with these tough remaining games.

In short, despite the inconsistencies on offense, this team is pretty much where we want them to be. Of their six wins on the season, I think they beat three quality opponents in Detroit, Cleveland, and Washington, and they took care of business against three other lesser opponents.

The Seattle Seahawks have the fifth youngest roster in the league and out of the five youngest teams, they are the only ones with a winning record. I think we should be pretty damn excited about that as fans, but way too many folks seems dead set on trashing on Geno Smith. That’s a shame, in my view.

Therefore, what I am really rooting for is for Geno to flip the narrative about him in this second half of the season. There’s a lot of anticipation from the fans that Seattle could be drafting a quarterback next Spring to be the future starter, and that could prove true.

Having said that, though, I think Geno Smith controls the narrative here. If we see more consistently good Geno during this final stretch when the games get tougher, and he leads us to the playoffs again, I think he more than earns the right to be QB1 again next year, even if they take a QB high in the draft.

My prediction for this team is that they finish this season at 10-7, and they are a wildcard playoff birth. Of these remaining games, I think it’s likely that they beat an opponent that few are expecting them to beat, and they drop a game that many will probably think that they should have won because that is just the nature of NFL football.

I think we do see more consistent and better play out of Geno Smith and the offense. The team is getting right tackle Abe Lucas back soon and I think that’s going to be a boost for the unit. I think we see start to see better play calling from Shane Waldron, and I like what he’s starting to do with the screens to JSN and getting the quick passes going.

I think it’s possible that we could see the defense taper off a bit, and that is just because of the daunting matchups that they will face against the explosive offenses of 49ers, Dallas, and Philly. I think the loss of Uchenna Nwosu is significant and maybe preventative of this side of the ball from truly reaching elite status this year, but we will see.

I don’t see this team going far into the playoffs. Not unless they really start to whoop up on some really quality in late November and in through December.

I think it’s fine if their post season is short lived again. I know a lot of other fans won’t like that, but I’m going to be more patient with these young cats. It is more important for me that they build this young new nucleus right, and in that, they take whatever lumps come their way so that they feel it together and learn together.

The Legion of Boom did not happen over night, or even through the course of a season, or two. It was a three year process for them to grow into what they became. I think it’s reasonable to be patient with this franchise to expect a similar three year process of building back up to a true contender again post Russell Wilson.

And if by chance the wheels come off this cart during this final stretch, if injuries to key players mount, and they miss the playoffs, well, that just means higher picks in next year’s draft to further fortify this rebuild. In that sense, I see little scenarios where Seattle isn’t winning out in the bigger picture.

I think the future is bright for this club, either way.

Go Hawks.