This was a weird game. I won’t belabor all the weirdness involved with my favorite team facing off against a 44 year old formerly retired future Hall Of Fame QB who hasn’t played in five years, but this was a weird ass game.

Before I comment on the officiating, let me first say that Seattle seemed very unfocused on offense throughout most of that first half, and even the defense felt a little be like they were maybe going through some motions. It is not hard to imagine that the huge divisional matchup against the Rams on Thursday Night Football had perhaps been filtering into the minds of some of the players throughout this week, and into this game. They played like it, anyways.

When a wide open JSN dropped an on target pass that Sam Darnold hits him with in stride, you could sense that maybe this was going to be one of those games. Seeing fullback Brady Russell also drop a Darnold pass that hit him in the mitts later in the game was also eye rolling, and so was AJ Barner lining in the neutral zone negating his own big first down catch.

This game felt sloppy and unfocused, unnecessarily so for Seattle, and that is how you lose a game to a struggling team in December that is playing for their season. Darnold looked hesitant, at times, but I don’t think he was always helped with Klint Kubiak’s play calling. Seattle was passing with ease against Indy’s backup cornerbacks, yet Kubiak chose to stay with a run game that, frankly, wasn’t working.

The Seattle offense looked surprisingly bad running the football, and they looked flustered not getting any rhythm going. At times, the blocking didn’t look great, but I thought K9, in particular, ran hesitant, and uninspired. He continues to be one of the more frustrating players for me to watch, and this was, again, a game where the less dynamic Zach Charbonnet felt like the better, more dependable runner.

I also don’t know if going back to Jalen Sundell at center over Olu Oluwatimi was a factor in how bad Seattle ran the ball, but it is interesting that when Olu had been starting, Seattle tended to run better. I suspect that the reality at center this year for the Seahawks might be that while Sundell offers the better pass blocking, Olu is the more effective run blocker. What they might need moving forward into next offseason is to find a center who does both really well.

As it stands now, Seattle found ways at the end of this game to win it 16-18 in the final moments, and they have now won 11 games, the number of wins I projected for them at the beginning of the season. While watching them play like this yesterday won’t inspire tons of fan faith in them, there is every chance that they finish the year with more wins than this, and at this point, I would think it’s still probably a safe bet. That said, I believe that all this loud recent chatter over them being a potential Super Bowl favorite is, in my opinion, premature, and I say this being as big of an optimist as you will find when it comes to the Hawks.

They are a better team than they were last year, I have no doubts about that. They are better at offensive coordinator, and quarterback, and they are even more improved on defense. They still are the little brother in the NFC West division to the LA Rams and the San Francisco 49ers, and until they best those two teams in this regular season, and in the playoffs, that will not change.

The good news is that when they are on their A game, I think they can now do it. I didn’t think that much over the past few years, so improvement feels like it is genuinely happening under Mike Macdonald, and that is something to feel good about.

It is just that this game against the Colts kinda left me resetting in my mind that, despite all the DVOA stats that suggest this is a Super Bowl contending team, the reality is that there is a lot of young players on this team trying to figure out to be consistent NFL winners, and this Kubiak offense is still very new, therefore, is still working out the kinks and growing pains. In contrast, the offenses of the Rams and 49ers are fine tuned machines, and for as much of a Sam Darnold enthusiast as I tend to be, the Niners and Rams both have starting quarterbacks who have actually won in the playoffs and found themselves in Super Bowls. That is a clear advantage for them.

In this game, I think that the proof was in the details. If you want to be a top shelf tight end option for an NFL quarterback, you have got to know where to line up before the ball is snapped. If you are going to pull on a tricky athletic run block, you can got be able to be precise as a blocker on the move, or the play will look stupid. If the ball touches you hands, you have to catch it. All this must be automatic.

Fortunately for Seattle, their top level defense held in enough in this game against the wise old sage in Phillip Rivers, and Rivers really did show is where he is at as a passer. He’s got an A+ game between his ears, but his arm is a pop gun now, and he never was a threat to move to begin with. As the game wore on, this reality caught up to Indy fans, and Rivers.

They will be lucky if he can get them to nine wins with this remaining schedule, I’m afraid. He is a Hall of Fame level QB, has seen many things that an NFL defense can throw at him, but asking him to step on the field for the first time in five years, and deal with Nick Emmanwori blanketing his best target option, and snuffing out the run is an ENORMOUS request.

If fact, I think it definitely took the help of the NFL refs to keep this game competitive for them. It has been a long time since I have watched an NFL football game, and genuinely wondered if there was a fix in on it, but this game had me thinking it, LOUDLY, and that is not good for this league to have games like that. Not with online betting, and FBI investigations going on in the NBA, and other sports.

The numerous blatant PI no calls on Colts defenders that happened against Seattle receivers prevented the Seahawks from scoring touchdowns, and the late fourth quarter PI call that gave Rivers, and the Colts new life for a potential game winning drive were all eyebrow raising in the week that was filled with Rivers love and hype. I will just leave it all at that, and let you come to your own conclusion, but for me, I think everyone in sports media last week was recognizing the Disney level feel good story of Old Man Rivers coming out of retirement to save the Colts season.

Would it be great for the league to have this storyline in late December? Absolutely, it would. There is no debating its value in generating viewers and interest.

There is also no way anyone can prove that the NFL illuminati told the refs how to call this game, but it felt very clear to me that Seattle was not just fighting to overcome their own occasional screwups, it felt like the officiating was also very clearly working against them, as well, and objectively, there is no way anyone can argue against that. There was undeniably that at play, and that will be a talking point about the game this week.

But great on Seattle’s MOB defense for holding Jonathan Taylor at bay, and forcing Rivers into a number of hurried off target throws. Also credit Darnold and the offense for playing better in the second half to get critical field goal scoring drives to go up twice in the fourth quarter, and most of all, huge credit goes to Jason Myers for being most stellar when Seattle needed to win this game by getting six field goals. He was, unquestionably, the player of the game for Seattle.

I hope someone out there bought Myers drinks and maybe even a lap dance after the game. He earned it.

As it stands now, the game this Thursday against the Rams will be enormously hyped and it should be. Whichever team wins it will most likely win the division. I have a feeling like Seattle will be more ready and focused for that one than this one yesterday.

My biggest most optimistic view coming out of this game against the Colts is that perhaps this is the game a young Seahawk roster needed to feel before Thursday Night Football. Yesterday, the played down to an inferior opponent, and almost blew it. On Thursday, I look forward to them playing up to a very worthy one.

Go Hawks.