Now that we are several days removed from the Thursday night debacle against the San Francisco 49ers, I have finally reached a point of some reassuring perspective. Things could be worse for Seattle Seahawks fans. We could be Dallas Cowboy fans, instead.

I am not even joking.

The Dallas Cowboys are a vastly more talented ball club than the Seattle Seahawks. They are more talented on the offensive line, quarterback, receiver, linebacker, and pass rushers. Yet both clubs sit at a 3-3 record, and if you think our home loss with the Giants was bad, the Cowboys suffered a blowout loss at home by what is now proving to be a bad New Orleans Saints team.

There is also all kinds of pressure on the Cowboys to win big this year. Their owner has been very outward about this. If they do not turn their season around, their head coach will most certainly lose his job, and there is chatter that Jerry Jones will strip that roster down for a rebuild. They have committed to 30 year old Dak Prescott, they have put a lot of money into their offensive line, and receiver, and they are going to be starring at a huge contract extension next year with star pass rusher Micah Parsons. Something has to give around the corner.

Now look at the Seattle Seahawks. After a promising start to their season, when they went 3-0 against a soft portion of their schedule, they dropped their last three games inside the span of ridiculously scheduled eleven days. They lost a competitive game against a strong Lions team in Detroit when they were injury riddled on their defensive line. They fell flat against an inferior opponent six days later when the Giants were determined to put up a good fight, and then they had to face the NFC West bully 49ers four days later.

Even in what proved to be a bit of a debacle against the 49ers, the Seahawks, for the most part, put up a fight, and made it a game at the end. If we are being honest, it was a better fight that we saw out them than the ones they put up during the last couple years of the Pete Carroll era, yet there appears to be a contingent of the Seahawk fanbase ready to give up on Mike Macdonald after six games.

Good lord, pump the breaks on that, please, and I say this fully recognizing this team has a lot of issues on the field. In fact, I can say that there were a few disturbing things that happened in the Niners match that I won’t get out of my head anytime soon.

During the loss last Thursday night, we saw Geno Smith throw two picks, and beat his head with a Microsoft tablet on the sidelines. Not a great look. Even worse, we all saw DK Metcalf rip the headset off of his position coach and yell through it at offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb.

Maybe worse of all, we saw Macdonald’s defense get run on again, and painfully so in those final moments, giving up a huge run against San Francisco when we were down by five with a chance to get the ball back, and pull off an upset. Gross!

Time is a great healer, though, and the further I get away from this game against the arch rival 49ers, the better I have clarity that this team is in year one of Mike Macdonald’s regime, and this process of building a contender will take time. Macdonald isn’t going anywhere, and he should be given at least three years to fully build this team up into the contender he envisions.

So, just chill the flip out, impatient Seahawk fans. Go do some meditation yoga, go relax in nature, go have a spa day. Trust the Mike Macdonald process.

As I look at this three game losing streak in the span of eleven days, I feel like this a great launching point for Macdonald and his coaching staff to prove their worth as a staff. I am excited for Seattle to now be that scrappy team to give contenders a go at it on Sundays.

The NFL is tough. Yes, the league hosed Seattle with this last three game portion of their schedule. Yes, this team has had an unfortunate run of injuries on their offensive and defensive lines. Tough. So what. They are professional football players, and their lack of fundamentals on defense and offensive during this stretch has been damning both on the players and coaches. Time to fix this. I think they will.

The blessing is that they are not the Dallas Cowboys. Mike Macdonald is a first year head coach, unlike Mike McCarthy. There is no added pressure to win their division this year, unlike the pressure Dallas faces, and San Francisco faces, as well. The only pressure on Macdonald is to prove to his players that his system works, if they play it right, and to those who may not be buying in, he then must make the right call as a head coach.

If a high profile player isn’t taking to coaching, how much is it worth it to continue riding with that dude? Ditto for a high priced defensive end who is having trouble setting an edge in their run defense, or a high priced linebacker who isn’t getting off of his blocks and staying sound in his gap responsibilities.

This recent trade for defensive lineman Roy Robertson-Harris is a big tell for me. At 6-5 290 lbs, he feels like a classic Baltimore Raven style D liner. He’s listed as a DT, but Macdonald noted he will also play end, and perhaps set a stronger edge against the run than, say, high priced Dre’mont Jones, who has struggled to do that, at times. If I am Jones, I am probably playing my ass off against the Falcons this Sunday.

This could be a signal that the coaches have determined that they need different players to fit this defensive scheme than the ones they inherited from the Pete Carroll regime. It could also mean that they saw an opportunity to improve their defensive line rotation, and Robertson-Harris gives them better depth for their interior pass rush, but one thing is clear. This team’s run defense has been a mess since they played Denver in the opener, and they haven’t gotten home enough on the quarterback lately. If this dude improves both of these areas, then this trade is going to be a hit. Personally, I welcome his addition to their rotation.

There is another reason for optimism that this defense will improve as we head into this tougher stretch of games. Rookie DT Byron Murphy II is expected back soon (perhaps against Atlanta), and his unique explosion and athleticism inside proved productive against the run and pass during the first two and a half games of the season before he injured his hammy.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that middle linebacker Tyrel Dodson played much better when Murphy was in front of him. Dodson may not be a long term answer at linebacker, but he is who Seattle has now (unless they shift to rookie Tyrice Knight), and having a rare talent like Murphy in front of him is a pretty good recipe for staying cleaner off the blockers and making a play. I don’t think there will be anyone more happy to see Murphy back in this lineup than the middle linebackers who will play behind him.

We can expect the Macdonald will have his defenders back to the drawing boards this week on honing the fundamentals with their run fits, and technique. This is his week to prove his worth as a first time head coach who’s coaching mantra is “make it right.”

This is the time where Macdonald, who is known to be a great communicator, must get his fellas to rally together, trust each other, and trust the process. He must make it right, and I have faith he will, even if there is a contingent of Seahawk fans who now seem ready to move on from him.

As for the whole DK and Geno situation that transpired last Thursday against San Fran?

On one hand, I think it is something to monitor moving forward. I think there could be some dysfunction brewing between the receiver and quarterback. There definitely felt like dysfunction between the receiver and offensive play caller in the heated moment DK decided to yell at him through a head set.

More likely, though, I think this was just a case of two hyper competitive professionals who were sick and tired of losing to the 49ers, and as mistakes unfolded, things came to a boil over. I am willing to trust both players will put these less than ideal moments behind them to move forward to win ball games together. I actually like them to come out showing better this week against the Falcons. Just a vibe I get. I think both will be incentivized to play strong next Sunday.

For all the second thoughts that filled my mind about DK Metcalf after the 49er debacle, the ideas of trading him instead of extending him, I have to admit that I was pretty impressed watching his midweek press conference yesterday. He took ownership of his mistakes in the game, he was transparent about his headset exchange with Grubb, he said that the key for the offense moving forward is running the ball, which is something I fully agree with.

I don’t think DK Metcalf is the selfish player that some make him out to be. I think he gets caught up in the moments too often against the opposition, and I think he has been prone to lapses in fundamentals in recent games. Both of these things are correctable, and it will be curious to see if this new coaching staff can massage those out of him moving forward.

I also feel like Mike Macdonald isn’t the type who is going to allow dysfunction to exist in his locker rooms. If by chance, DK decides to continue to act out when things get tough this season, and they will get tough, I don’t think he sticks around. That’s not going to be what Macdonald is going to want. I would also say that if Geno struggles to keep composure and poise as Macdonald wants it, you can kiss goodbye notion of him signing an extension here.

I am not predicting that Seattle trades DK and cuts Geno around the corner in the coming offseason, but I am saying that, at the end of the day, Macdonald is going to build this thing with his guys, not Carroll’s. It is up to the Carroll holdovers to prove that they are worth keeping around, and being paid handsomely to be part of this process of building a contender.

When Pete Carroll and John Schneider built up their Super Bowl team together, there were sweeping changes after year one. They let Mike Holmgren’s quarterback in Matthew Hasselbeck go. They let Lofa Tatupu, and Marcus Trufant go, as well.

They also held onto a few of the Holmgren holdovers who proved a big part of their championship run. Center Max Unger, DT Brandon Mebane, and DT Red Bryant were huge pieces of the puzzle.

This year is about Mike Macdonald establishing his culture, building his schemes, and figuring out who his pieces are on this roster moving forward. It is going to take time.

This team, right now, sitting at 3-3, tied for first place in the division, just traded for another defensive lineman, is taking positive steps forward. I know it doesn’t look great over these past few games, but they are.

Trust the process.

What other choice do you have, anyways? Yelling on the internet, demanding players to be traded, and coaches to be fired isn’t going to change the coarse of anything that they are about to do. It just makes you look like you need something else in your life to preoccupy your time while this process takes the proper, necessary time.

So, if you are going to boil over in this process of properly building a contender, I suggest to take nice hikes, and maybe naked dips in nature’s hot springs in order to find the earthy holistic sensation of sand and slimy rocks rubbing against your pent up private parts. That’s what my native ancestors use to do, anyways, when they lost canoe races.

Trust in Mike. Trust the process. Chillax.

Go Hawks.