Let me guess.

The Seattle Seahawks beating the Chicago Bears on the road on Thursday Night Football by a final score of 6-3 probably doesn’t have you wildly excited as you sip your coffee and read this piece. Well, let me go through the box scores to see if you be aroused.

Geno Smith was 17/23 for 160 yards, 0 TDs, and 0 INTs.

Zach Charbonnet ran 15 times for 57 yards with a 3.8 per carry average.

Little used Kenny McIntosh ran 7 times for 46 yards with a 6.6 per carry average!

Norah Fant had 4 receptions for 43 yards.

DK Metcalf had 3 receptions for 42 yards.

Jaxson Smith Njigba had 3 catches for 32 yards.

Not a lot of offense in this game for the Seattle Seahawks. Turns out that they didn’t need it.

The Seahawk defenders took this game over and held onto it all throughout the game. They sacked Caleb Williams 7 times, stuffed the run, limited passes, and the game ended with a poetic Riq Woolen interception that killed off Chicago’s last chance to pull of the win. They played championship worthy ball even if the offense decided to not show up.

Many fans will look at this game and will probably not be wildly excited about Seattle’s chances against the Rams next week, much less their chances in the playoffs should they get there. I get it. This teams feels incomplete, in many ways, and I don’t need to rehash what I have already said about with the offensive coordinator, the offensive line, and, at times, the erratic quarterback play.

I will just say that I think it is important for Seattle to finish with a winning record in year one of Mike Macdonald’s regime, and with this win in Chicago, we now have that. Good. Finishing strong matters in this league no matter whether a team makes the post season or falls short.

I imagine there will be other Seahawk bloggers and writers who will be less glowing about this win in Chicago than I am. Some will bemoan being 9-7 yet and again and firmly kinda middle of the pack as an NFL franchise.

Personally, I think there are different sorts of middle of the pack teams. There are middle of the pack teams that slide by having a good quarterback and not much less (Chargers). There middle of the pack teams that aren’t bad enough on either side of the ball but nor are they good enough either.

Then there are middle of the pack teams that are good on one side of the ball but not enough on the other. This is where I think Seattle lays in the mid tier of the league. They have what seems to be a very promising defense, but they are a hot mess on offense. I will take being this type of mid level team right now with the hopes that the defense continues to carry into next season with improvement from the offense to follow.

Trends matter in football, and Seattle’s defense has trended very well over the coarse of the season half of the season. They were the sole reason why they managed to win this one.

In all honesty, this uneventful game against the lowly Chicago Bears might be as big of a signature win for Macondald and his team as any all year. This was a game that felt like the Bears could pull off a win, but Seattle’s bad ass defense said NOPE. This matters moving forward. Seattle needs to hang its hat on something, and I think they absolutely can with this defense more and more.

Let us remember that there was a time just two months ago where it felt like Seattle would be lucky to find six wins. Neither their offense nor defense were playing well, and fans began questioning replacing Pete Carroll with Macdonald. People all over the internet were calling Seattle a bad football team, devoid of enough talent to win, and the widespread projections of them were to be the basement dweller of the NFC West.

Then during the second half of the season, Macdonald turned their defense around from being bad to being solid and exciting. If you love good defensive football, you should feel excitement in the direction of this team as we head into 2025, no matter what happens against the Rams next week.

Yes, there will probably be many changes to this team this offseason. I would expect an aggressive upgrading of the offensive line. I think we could see a new offensive coordinator. We will pour over all these needs and wants after their season concludes. Right now, I think it is worth celebrating them getting to 9 wins this year with perhaps a chance to win the division next week.

Instead of lamenting the lackluster nature of Seattle’s offense against Chicago, I would rather celebrate the stellar offensive play of Seattle’s defensive line, linebackers, and secondary. Their best players on Defense took this game over. Devon Witherspoon, Big Cat Williams, Derick Hall, Riq Woolen, and Jarran Reed all played dominant against an inferior opponent.

In fact, the defenders played so elite in this game, that I have to imagine a scenario inside the VMAC earlier in the week where Mike Macdonald asked Ryan Grubb to call a more conservative game plan on offense. Like, he looked at the Chicago tape with Caleb Williams and he knew what his defense was going be dial up in this one.

This is why I am not personally all that stressed out about how Seattle’s offense played. It was a weird Thursday night game on a short week with the numbers down at running back, a gimpy quarterback, and banged up receivers. It was rare that Seattle pushed the ball down field in this one. It felt like they weren’t interested in it, and were hoping short gains would lead to favorable conversions.

While I am sure the team isn’t thrilled to win a boring 6-3 slug fest on Thursday Night Football, I wouldn’t be surprised if they would have looked at a 13-3 win scenario in more glowing terms. This game had that sort of conservative offensive vibe to it, and had Pharoah Brown not gotten the ball stripped out of his hands in the third quarter, it is possible that we would have had a final score more similar to that.

So, take that for what it is worth. It is fair to question if Macdonald has lost faith in Grubb with in this sort of dialed back approach as we witnessed. Maybe he was concerned about whether Geno would put the ball unnecessarily in harms way again.

Or maybe he just looked at the Chicago Bears and felt “yeah, I think we can win this one 9-3.. fuck it, let’s just do that.”

They won’t be able to play this way against the Rams. They will have to open up the offense again. I think they will and that this version of their offense is a mirage. They suddenly didn’t forget how to pass the football. They just chose to be close vested about it in this slop vest.

The good news is that they will have ten days of rest and the Rams will be less rested. If the Cardinals beat the Rams on Saturday night, this one in LA next week will be for all the NFC West marbles and the division title. This is exactly what football is all about.

So, while folks can point to Seattle having a losing record at home this year, their road record has been stellar thus far. While we can bemoan the inconsistencies of the Seahawk offense, it feels like their defense is building towards a style that can be championship worthy around the corner.

Generally speaking, I am happy with what is trending with this team. I know a lot of work needs to be done, but it feels mostly isolated with the offense. One aggressive offseason fixing this offense line could be enough to make this team a contender next year. I fully believe that.

Am I crazy?

Sure! I might be.

But this is what being a fan is all about. You have to be made of thick layers of fan fiber to watch your team play a good old fashioned slobberknocker like this on Thursday night and feel good about them afterwards, and I feel kinda great about them, honestly.

Now, I just need to be the biggest Kyler Murray fan on the planet on Saturday Night.

Go Cards!