One thing that I want to say before we move further through this piece. Good God, do I ever hate watching the Seattle Seahawks losing in action green uniforms. If you are going to go bold with the looks on national television, then you better bring it and win that fucking game, or you are going to look like a massive boob. Last night the Seattle Seahawks were boobs worthy of a their our Russ Meyer picture. Big Lime Green Boobs.

It was boob ball. They were out coached, and out played. I could list individual positive efforts, but I am not really in the mood for it. My eyes still hurt from all the action green stupidity from bad play calling to bad cornerback play to bad red zone quarterbacking (again).

So, that said, if any of us got overly caught up in the after glow of that win in Arizona last week, we can now certainly wipe anyway any fanciful notions that the Seattle Seahawks being a true contender this year. With a healthy Geno Smith, they are probably a solid B lister in the NFC, with a decent chance of the playoffs (if they don’t puke all over themselves), but with Sam Howell, I think they will be lucky to win one more game out of these remaining three and finish out 9-8. Hopefully, we will get Geno back at least by the time this team suits up in Chicago in tens days because what I saw from Howell having to sub in for an injured Geno made me miss Drew Lock tremendously in the second half of this game.

So, it is what it is after the Packers and their hoards of fans spilled into Lumen Field last night. We were sounded beaten on all phases. Asses in action green handed to us by a bunch of marauding, laughing cheeseheads.

Our defense was a slight bright spot in the second half after it adjusted to its bad play of the first half, but it was not enough. In the end, they gave up a bunch of yards through penalties downfield, they didn’t sack the quarterback once, and they didn’t stop the run enough. Conversely, the Green Bay defense sacked our quarterbacks seven times, held Seattle to 128 yards passing, 80 yards rushing, and it collected two interceptions. For me, the Green Bay defense was the big story of this game, and it exposed Seattle for what it is on offense.

Ryan Grubb continues to coach a drop back shotgun heavy offense that doesn’t seem to know how to be creative with its run game even though it has a talented collection of running backs. I don’t want to hear or read comments about the state of the offensive line. Plenty of teams in the league this year suffer from subpar offensive line play, and yet they find ways to overcome. It is a league epidemic, so please don’t @ me with comments about the offensive line.

Good offensive coordinators figure out ways to mitigate the issues with subpar lines. They get the quarterback under center more, they use motions for window dressing, they use a flipping fullback, and they get their starting five finding rhythms with run blocking together, they use play action, they run out of spread instead of predominantly drop back passing out of it as Grubb chooses to do.

I would love for Ryan Grubb to work out in Seattle. It would be huge for the team to maintain stability with the offense, and have this side of the ball taken care of as Macdonald focuses on his defense, and I don’t love the idea of bringing in another OC for young players to learn yet another scheme, but sometimes, you just have to cut your losses. After this game, I just do not feel certain that Grubb’s offensive philosophy can be a match for what Mike Macdonald wants his team to be in the stated goal of being a physical team.

The best offensive play of the game was a beautifully executed gap pulling play to the right that broke Zach Charbonnet for a long explosive touchdown run. This was the type of run blocking that soundly beat Arizona on the road last week. Why did we not see more of this?????

Was Grubb caught up in wanting to continue to get JSN more involved and DK? Was he trying to reward long time Seahawk receiver Tyler Lockett more Scooby snacks catching the ball downfield? Does he just get bored dialing up run plays????

The whole approach that worked wonderfully against the Cardinals felt like it was thrown out the window against the Packers perhaps because of some injuries in the Green Bay secondary, and this is why I feel like Grubb maybe just isn’t going to provide a good marriage for Mike Macdonald. I just don’t sense that the ground game matters enough to Grubb, and this is why we have such an uneven offense. He wants to play call as if he is gifted the best offensive line in the league, and he has Tom Brady. Perhaps he would be well served going back to college where he can be a bit of a rockstar again because in Seattle, he feels more like a liability that is going to waste good defensive efforts.

In the second half of this game, Seattle’s defense gave Grubb and his offense chances by making stops, and after Geno Smith was knocked out of the game, Grubb squandered them trying to make short Sam Howell be a drop back passer. With the way the Packers defensive line was pass rushing, it was like watching Emperor Nero throwing Christians into a pit of starving lions with what Howell was tasked to do.

If Geno hadn’t gotten injured, he might have, indeed, made it a game in the end. His fourth quarter comeback charms are legit in this league. Yet, at the same time, I feel like Geno’s pension for throwing red zone interceptions could have just as easily crept up in the late moments of the fourth quarter, as it did in the first half. In short, I am not sure even Geno would have had it in him to pull this one off.

So, what does this all mean for Seattle moving forward through these next three games, at 8-6?

I think the answer to that question will be revealed once we know more about Geno’s knee injury. I have a hard time believing this team will win a couple of these games (much less one game) with Sam Howell quarterbacking, but maybe I am wrong. Maybe having Sam out there forces Grubb to dial further into the running attack, and Sam does some decent game managing over this next stretch of games.

Something tells me that when Geno went out of this game, so did a lot of our chances of winning this division and making the playoffs. I don’t particularly believe that Geno Smith has been that great this year, not like others have been claiming he has anyways, but I certainly do believe that he gives Seattle the best chance to win this year. If the goal is the playoffs, he is our best bet at quarterback to get us there.

So, we will see on the state of Geno. Fingers crossed that we get him back soon.

Despite the terrible way they showed up at home against Green Bay, I still want to see this team win the division and make the playoffs. I need this young roster and coaches to feel playoff football to build off of into next year.

In the meantime, I now want to see how this team will rally through these final three games. If they have to hide the Howell Train, I want to see how player rally around him. I want to see the fight. I don’t necessarily need to see all the wins, but I gotta see the fight. If we get the wins, it will be icing.

As I have said many times before on this blog, I see this thing with Macdonald most likely taking a few seasons before we really start seeing the big returns. This year, in many ways, is a trial to see how all these new coaches work with each other and the players, to see which players are the real big time pieces moving forward, and to determine what needs to be addressed next offseason. That is what 2024 is really about for these Seahawks, whether or not that is what they openly state that or not.

So, in that, I don’t think this ass whooping from the Packers is that much of a big deal as ugly as it was. Sure, it sucks that it ended the fun four game win streak, and yes, it does suck that the stadium was yet again filled with a bunch of away fans, but the best way to prevent ticket holders from selling to out of town fans is to put a product out that makes them want to attend in person more often. That product should include a better offensive line, more competent offensive play calling, and maybe it needs to involve having someone at quarterback who isn’t a 34 year old second tier passer with a pension of throwing a lot of red zone interceptions.

I know this sounds harsh, but I think it is worth stepping back and looking at this Seattle Seahawk product for a moment. The Green Bay Packers feel like a well oiled machine. They have a talented young quarterback that they invested a late first round pick into acquiring him with (and developing), they have a stable offensive line, a smart play caller as their head coach, and they have a talented defense. They are a true contender because of all this, and they have now beaten every single team in the NFC West after this game. Conversely, Seattle can kinda say that they got a decent defense, and that is about it. Their offense teases but cannot be trusted to leave the house without a proper babysitter looking after it, and they don’t have one.

Seattle has a lot of work to do in order to keep ticket holders from selling off their tickets to out of town fans pouring in. It is that simple. They need to improve the offense line, get an offensive scheme that has an identity to match its defense, and they probably need to figure out the longer termed solution to the quarterback position, one way or the other.

That doesn’t mean that they can’t find a couple more wins to finish this year out right. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if they managed to do that. It just means that they need really start attacking this thing strong after their football playing raps up for the year. However these final three games play out, next offseason will be critical for John Schneider and Mike Macdonald to make the right calls on how to best take this team forward towards being an A List contending team again, finally.

After watching them lose to the Packers like this, it is clear that there is a lot more work to be done. I am excited to see what this offseason brings to Seattle. It will be a huge one for this team.

But for now, I just need to see Ryan Grubb mandated run the ball, and I need to see this team fight and claw through these next three games. Something tells me that they will give it a good fight, win or lose, and that is worth something in this league.

Go Hawks.