A living body is an extremely complex mechanism. It is full of multiple organs that require each to function optimally for the body to survive. Once, an organ weakens, it puts further stress on other organs to function and they often have to work twice as hard to compensate.

This is why when someone who suffers heart disease, they can also end up with lung problems or some other mortal ailment. Everything is connected on a string, to a degree.

The plant world can be like this, as well. When a plant develops a dead branch, it can develop more dead branches by sending energy to the area of the dead branch that it would otherwise send to healthier branches throughout its canopy. The result is that over time, those other areas begin to struggle, and eventually die. This is why it’s good to cut the dead branches out of your Japanese maple, annually.

NFL football is much the same. A good football team functions like a good living organism. It needs all of its bits functioning properly. If it is good in certain aspects of the game, but terrible in others, it can be very difficult to win games. If one area is truly awful, it puts more stress on others to compensate.

The Seattle Seahawks cannot stop the run, defensively. In football, that’s really bad. It’s honestly one of the worst things to plague a team. It forces the offense to play near perfect in order to pull out wins, and over time, things on that side of the ball can begin to wear down, as well.

The biggest gift that you can give any struggling offense is to have them match up against a defense that cannot stop the run. In the last four games, this Seahawks defense has given three bad teams victories because they could not stop the run, and they almost gave a fourth bad team a victory, as well. That’s bad football.

In those games, Geno Smith has looked like he has had to press more with pushing the ball down field, and it hasn’t helped him that the Seahawk rushing attack has been spotty at best, and nonexistent at worst, either. In my opinion, I think think Seattle should have been more aggressive bringing in another work horse back to complement Ken Walker after Rashaad Penny went down for the season, but that’s another matter.

At any rate, it’s bad timing heading into the final stretch of games with playoff hopes, not having the ability to stop the run, and now possibly not being able to run the ball either. This is the opposite of Pete Carroll football.

In this game, the Carolina Panthers beat Pete Carroll by playing his preferred brand of football. This is officially becoming a broken record with these Seahawks. The Falcons did this to them, and the Saints, and Bucs, and Raiders, and now the Panthers. None of these teams have winning records, either.

Right now, at the rate that this defense is regressing, I don’t know where Seattle’s eighth win is coming from, and it pains me to type that. It just feels that bad.

After this game, I also sense that there will be people more apt to blame Geno Smith for not having his sharpest game, and I get it to a degree. His first throw of the game was an interception that was a bad decision to force the throw into coverage when he had someone open in the flat. I think his other one was a result of the refs blowing an obvious offsides by the defense, though, and I can completely understand him thinking he had a free play, I thought he did, too.

Let’s get real with Geno in this one, though. His defense was doing next to nothing to slow down Carolina, and Carolina was doing everything to take away Seattle’s rushing attack to balance the pass game off of. Thus, Geno was placed in yet another situation where he had to be near perfect, and he fell short. He needed to be better, but let’s not make it sound like he had an altogether horrible day because the simple fact is that 21 for 36, 264 yards, 3 TDs to 2 INTs can get many teams a W if their defense can stop the bloody run game.

The memo is out on how to play the Seahawks moving forward. It’s to run the f’ing football. Right now, it would be negligent for any offensive coordinator to not call 40 runs against this defense. San Fransisco might only pass the ball four or five times against this defense Thursday night, if that.

Right now, it is incredibly difficult to not become pessimistic about Seattle’s shift to the 3-4 under Clint Hurtt’s defensive direction. He might be a HUGE fan of 3-4, and has been pining for Seattle to transition to it for years, but that scheme is NOT matching the talent on this roster; not in the slightest.

Seattle does not have great defensive line talent, but they got players who could probably function towards league average if they were operating out of some variation of a 4-3. If Carroll wanted to shift back to his old odd fronts, he could have Quinton Jefferson play 5 tech, Al Woods play nose, Shelby Harris as the 3 tech, and Uchenna Nwosu or Darrell Taylor as the Leo end, and that would probably be an adequate four man line with Poona Ford and others rotating in. Bruce Irvin could play his old SAM role with Coby Barton, and Jordyn Brooks playing WILL and MIKE.

This would look like at least a functional front seven in the 4-3 base defense to me, and there would be enough bodies up at the line of scrimmage fire out of three point stances to fill gaps and take on blockers with leverage that the linebackers and DBs would be freed from blockers to cleanup on ball carriers.. just like it used to be. This is what a 4-3 defense offers. There is little exotic about it; it just puts guys in gaps and it allows other guys to fill.

Instead, we see, almost play after play, five guys up at the line of scrimmage, but the two guys on the outside standing up (vulnerable to leverage), with blockers and ball carriers blowing past them into smaller linebackers and DBs. Simply put, Seattle does not have players to play this way. Poona Ford and Quinton Jefferson aren’t going to soak up multiple blockers to keep Coby Barton clean, and Barton is not going to take on a 300 pound guard and win.

What Hurtt and the defensive coaches are asking these front seven dudes to do is really tough stuff to accomplish in this league. You need special EXTRA LARGE dudes to do this stuff, and your linebackers have to be special, as well. If they had drafted mammoth Georgia defensive tackle Jordan Davis at nine instead of left tackle Charles Cross, he would have been a good piece to fit into that style of defense, but even having him play in a 3-4 is probably limiting what he would be able to do in a 4-3.

So, what’s the answer for this season with these final four games left on this schedule?

How can they better prepare these players?

What can they better tweak without suddenly tossing out entirely this whole Vic Fangio inspired 3-4 thing?

Is it even possible to install more 4-3 at this point? I felt when they were in the four game win streak back in October/November, there was more elements of 4-3, mixed with some Bear stuff they did a lot of last year. Who knows, though, maybe I was just dreaming that.

All I know is this. It will be incredibly hard to win any remaining games is they cannot slow a simple run game down.

They should be well aware of what the 49ers are going to do, as they should the Jets who run that same offense. In my opinion, it is up to this coaching staff to put these defenders in a best positions to be most successful against these offenses. If they cannot do that, then I think a question should be asked as to whether this scheme and staff that was brought in to coach it are right for this club in 2023.

They can throw their two first round picks at the defense, but if those guys aren’t being coached well enough, how much good is that really going to do for this club?

Oh, how fleeting it is to be a diehard fan of this team!

Last week’s narrow win against the Rams had me dreaming of post season. This loss against the Panthers has me wondering where our next win is coming from.

Beating the 49ers on Thursday night would be the right remedy. I dare to dream that one. I do dare it, indeed.

Go Hawks.

No game left on the Seahawks schedule is going to be a gimme. This is what the last three games have taught me about this team that I love.

I thought the Seahawks would roll into Germany and beat Tom Brady and the Bucs pretty decisively, and I was painfully wrong. I thought they would bury Derek Carr and the Raiders at home, and they lost to them in overtime. I thought they would handily win against John Wolford quarterbacked Rams, and Geno Smith had to pull that game out at the end in a dramatic game winning drive.

So, I’m not going to say that these Panthers are an easy match for Seattle. They are not a great team, but they have a toughness to them. They run the ball well with a good offensive line, and they have a pretty good defensive line with edge rusher Brian Burns, and defensive tackle Derrick Brown.

Seattle has to be ready for this team, and they probably have to be ready without their star running back Ken Walker III, aka K9, and they could be without a few other players, as well. I don’t know how much looking past the Raiders they did the other week, but when I was at that game, I sensed a lack of crispness with the offense, at times, and maybe some lack of focus with the defense at others. I sensed that same lack of focus and fire from the defense last week in that opening drive against the Rams, as well.

These things cannot be a repeat trend during these final five games, if Seattle wants to see the playoffs. They need to shore it all up, and I think this game against a tough Panther squad is the game to do it.

Some will say that Seattle isn’t a very talented team, and that they have overachieved to get to where they are at 7-5. I say their record is what it says they are. They are a team with enough talent to contend for the playoffs and that is what they are doing. I think they are getting top level play from Geno Smith at quarterback, and he is aided by one of the best wide receiver tandems in the business, and a good group of tight ends, as well. While the defense has regressed in the last three games from where they were in October and early November, I think they have enough talent to still turn it around towards respectability again, and it might start this Sunday.

The Carolina Panthers are not likely going to trick Seattle in this match. The weather conditions could favor running, and they are a down hill, run it at you, offensive attack. With Seattle doing more 3-4 stuff these days, they have gone away from what was always the most consistent aspect of Pete Carroll’s 4-3 under/over front schemes, and that was stopping the run. This might be the way where Clint Hurtt decides to go with those heavier looks again.

Offensively, this also might be the game where Seattle decides is wants to try to get up early with the points, airing it out to set up the run, and leaning into its strengths with their passing attack. Getting Sam Darnold passing more while chasing a lead, than D’Onto Foreman running to chew clock is probably what would be ideal for the Seahawks in this one.

While Seattle’s defense has had it’s issues against the run, lately, they have been fairly decent against the pass with playmakers in their secondary like rookie corner, Tariq Woolen (6 INTs), and edge rusher Uchenna Nwuso (9 sacks). It cannot be overstated how important it is this week for Seattle’s defense to show up better against the run in this one. If they can do that, I think Seattle can comfortably win this one, even if they are without K9. I trust Seattle’s offense that much.

So, how do I think this game will go down?

I see Seattle winning, and advancing to 8-5. It might not always look pretty, but I think they find ways to get it done.

I think Seattle wins this in a 27-24 sort of way. The only reason I am giving it a tight score like this at the end is that, until I see this defense really bounce back towards playing well again, I need to emotionally brace myself for the reality that we could see Seattle forced to win shootouts.

Therefore, I think this game will have the look and feel of yet another close one, but Seattle still does enough to where Sam Darnold won’t have enough time to pull it out at the end.

Just get this win though, and get healthier for San Fransisco next Thursday.

Go Hawks!

The Seattle Seahawks aren’t a great team right now. They aren’t a bad team either, but they have a lot of work to do in order to become a real contender.

If the season ended today, they would be the seventh playoff team coming out of the NFC, and that feels like the right sort of projection right now. If they want to be better than that, they have work to do through these final five games of the regular season.

They have regressed on defense from the four game winning streak they were in during October and November in ways that are trying to watch if you are a fan of this team, and you love defense. For me, that’s been a struggle to view. A Pete Carroll defense should be better than this.

Last week, they gave up 283 rushing yards to the Las Vegas Raiders, and that wasn’t a fun watch. In this game against the Rams, they surrendered 171 yards on the ground. While this game in LA was an improvement, it was a still a bad effort, and had LA been able to hang onto their lead to win, it would be a major talking point about the Seahawks this week (it still might be).

If you cannot run the ball in this league, and if you cannot stop the run, as well, you are likely not going to win many games. In order to win games with these deficiencies, you need great quarterback play to win shoot out scenarios on a weekly basis.

In this game against the Rams, the Seattle Seahawks got awesome quarterback play from Geno Smith, and make no mistake about that. No longer can cheapskate fans say that you cannot pay Geno Smith because he hasn’t led this team to any fourth quarter comebacks. They are going to have to come up with another reason now.

When his team needed him most, in a hostile environment on the road, against a top ten defense, Geno Smith delivered as pretty of a come from behind, touchdown throwing drive as you will see in the final minutes of a game. Yes, I know that the Rams were without Aaron Donald, but they still had a lot of high end talent playing on that side of the ball, and they have a much better defense than the Raiders had the other week. When they knew he had to pass, Geno delivered darts against heavy pressure, and he beat them.

As bad as the Seahawk defense played at times (and the Seattle offense stalled at times), this was yet another fun game to watch. When Ken Walker (K9) was lost to an ankle injury early in the game, Seattle was forced to turn to reserve third down back DeeJee Dallas and fourth string back Tony Jones Jr who many casual Seahawk fans probably didn’t know he was even a dude on this roster. It wasn’t always pretty with Dallas and Jones, but it was impressive with how they hung in and fought, especially with Dallas who got immediately banged up and yet had to come back in and grit it out after Jones was knocked out.

Circling back to the defense, I don’t really know what to think. They gave up monster yards on the ground again, but they mostly held the Ram offense in check in terms of scoring. At times, it felt like they allowed John Wolford to be a competent NFL quarterback in place of Matt Stafford, but his state line was a fairly terrible 14/26 for 178 yard and 2 INTs. His best production was almost as a runner. Also, after having no sacks against Tom Brady and Derek Carr, they got to Wolford 4 times in this one, and Uchenna Nwuso collected 2 of them for 9 sacks on the year so far. So, I guess, if anything, this was a very up and down defensive effort.

Here’s what I think I see from this unit. They are very committed to staying within the 3-4 structure that Clint Hurtt wants to roll with. I thought maybe they would shift a bit more out of it, but they haven’t. The 3-4 is a defense that functions best against pass happy offenses. Defensive coordinators can disguise more pressures and coverages and confuse quarterbacks more, but this is also a defense that is much easier to run on than the 4-3 one. In the last three games, offenses have chosen to run on this defense more than pass, and the Seahawks are 1-2 in result (and were almost 0-3, if not for Geno in this one).

To my eye, I see the edge players having hard times containing outside run plays (maybe guessing wrong with the freedoms they have to go make a play), and I see defensive tackles not getting off blocks enough inside (possibly because they are reading and reacting more than attacking). The result is very feast or famine. They will make big plays in this sort of scheme, but they are also capable of giving them up.

I would suggest that maybe Seattle needs to go back to the 4-3 defense Pete Carroll usually runs with, but I think that would most likely be something for them to consider next year. For the remainder of this season, I’m not really going to beat that drum for the simple fear of beating a dead horse. For now, Seattle is by and large a 3-4 team. Can they get better in this scheme at stopping the run?

We will soon see. In short order, we will have the Panthers coming into town, and we will have the best running attack in the league to face again in the San Francisco 49ers coming in, as well. The Panthers ran for 185 yards against a very good Bronco defense last week, and are coming off of a bye week this week. The 49ers ran decently against a good Dolphin defense, but are getting more banged up now, so we will see about them.

Regardless, Clint Hurtt has his work to do. He might want to tweak his scheme more, but he has got to get his edge defenders containing better, and he has got to get his defensive tackles attacking better.

All is not lost on this season, but it appears that Seattle could become thinner at running back while its run defense is still a mess. This will continue to put more pressure on Geno Smith, and the Seattle passing attack.

Through this all, I think they can deliver. They just did it on the road against a Rams team that had all the momentum in the final minutes until Geno took over. They are 7-5 and in the thick of playoff contention. Two more wins through these next five games might be enough for them to get into the post season. That still feels very doable for me. Ten wins doesn’t feel a total stretch either.

Why am I this optimistic at the end of listing all of their issues on defense and with the ground game?

This answer is simple.

Winning a come from behind game like this on the road can have a galvanizing effect. When blockers know that their quarterback can get it done in crunch time, they tend to block harder. When receivers trust the quarterback, they tend to be crisper. It’s fun playing with a quarterback you believe in.

I think the Geno factor can have that sort of carryover to the other side of the ball, as well. As a defender, when you know your guy behind center can get it done, you want to go get make that stop or get that ball for him.

I think this team believes in Geno Smith, and probably more so now than ever.

This win on the road against LA, when former Seahawk Bobby Wagner was doing everything in his power to keep Seattle from winning, and Sean McVay was dialing up his offensive magic against Pete Carroll late in the game to take the lead, seeing Geno pull off that sort of high end quarterbacking is probably just what this team needed to see. Sometimes, a team just needs a spark to kick it in the ass for them.

This can be the real spark to get this team into the post season, and I am here for it. I hope you are, too.

Also, watching DK Metcalf absolutely punk that punk ass Jalen Ramsey at the end of the game by beating him for a game winning touchdown grab was extra special priceless. Have fun in Cabo, Jalen Ramsey!

Go Hawks.

Sitting before the Seattle Seahawks is now a great opportunity. Entering December, they have six games remaining in their schedule, and they are in playoff contention. If you would have asked me if I would be willing to take this at the beginning of the season, my answer would be “hell f’ing yes.”

These last two games have not gone well for them, however. They have regressed on defense in a way in which they can neither stop the run, nor the pass, and they can’t seem to get a good pass rush going, either. Offensively, they haven’t been good in the trenches, and Geno Smith and their rookie runner K9 have taken some beatings. In fact, it feels like K9 has possibly hit his rookie wall.

Instead of putting forth a gloom and doom ditty on the state of the Seahawks, I will flip this positively. I think they are faced with a grand opportunity through these final six games to turn it around, and get back to playing better ball, and winning games again.

I think now is the time for Clint Hurtt to prove that he is, in fact, a worthy NFL defensive coordinator. In his attempts to bring a multiple looking defensive that is supposed to bring pressure and better disguise coverages, he should now know through these last eleven games what is working, and what isn’t. His defense had a bad stretch early, they adjusted their scheme to have a great four game run, and now they are in the midst of another bad two game stretch again. While I remain somewhat skeptical of what his vision might be for this unit, I would love nothing more than Hurtt to shatter my skepticism as a coordinator, and get his defenders back to doing what they were when they beat the Cardinals twice and good clubs in the Chargers and Giants. This is now his time to do just that.

This is also a great time for the offensive get get back on track with it’s ground game, and for offensive line coach (and run game coordinator) Andy Dickerson to get his linemen blocking better again for K9 like they were through the first nine games of the season. We have seen what this offense can do on the ground and it is very good. It is time to recommit to that style of play in order to balance out the steady production of Geno Smith and the passing attack.

Most most of all, it is now time for Geno Smith to prove that he is more than an NFL feel good story as a starting quarterback, and show the world through this final stretch of games that he is a franchise quarterback here to stay. He already has me convinced of that, but I understand his remaining doubters. While I see little reasons to criticize him greatly during this losing streak, I can concede that he could have been more clutch at the end of the game against the Raiders. I’ve also sensed through these last two games, him possibly pressing for the bigger play a bit more instead of choosing to take what is there. He can be better, and this is a great time for him to be just that.

The Los Angeles Rams present a great start for them to turn this ship around on offense, and especially on defense. They are a banged up shadow of their Super Bowl winning self. While their defense remains good, their offense is in shambles.

Now is the time that Clint Hurtt takes advantage of a lesser opponent across from his defense, and he has this unit attacking again instead of maybe playing more passively up front. He needs to allow his defensive tackles to attack the gaps like they did in October into early November. No more two gapping read and react stuff. Attack!

Offensively, get that run game going. Get K9 back on track with decisive running, and take the pressure off of Geno Smith feeling like he needs to carry this team to victory. There is no Aaron Donald on this defense right now, and while they still has great talents like Bobby Wagner (weird as f*** to even say that) and Jalen Ramsey, there is no reason why Seattle can’t get back on track, if they can clean things up better up front. Now is there time to do it against these Rams.

Will they?

Yes, they will. They will do this because they have to, and an illness going around the locker room cannot be an excuse not to do it. Time to suck it up, and seize the day. I know it, they know it, and now you know it, too.

I’m going to project a comfortable Seahawk win this Sunday. Yes, I’m a homer, and I have been doing this all season, but I am 6-5 in my predictions and the last time I checked, that’s a winning record. So, stick that in your glass pipe of doubt and smoke it.

Predicting scores is dumb. I don’t know why I do it, but I have this compulsion. Therefore, I’m going to say Seattle finds a way of beating LA in this one, 24-13.

It may not feel like an offensive juggernaut sorta day, but I think it will feel like a steadier one. Geno stays his Steady Eddy self with support a nice effort on the ground by K9 getting on track, and having us feel like he’s on his way to Offensive Rookie Of The Year again.

Defensively, is where we see Seattle really get back on track. I think they attack more at the line of scrimmage. I think we see sacks and turnovers created, and we get back to stopping the run. I think they do this because they have to do it, and because they can. We have seen them do it before.

It’s now time for them to do it again.

Go Hawks!

Football is a fun game. There can be a ton of nuances to its schemes, and strategies, but it can also be a very simple game.

Here is one simple truth about football from the dawn of leather helmets to today’s game of Microsoft tablets and helmets with ear phones; the team that is best at running the ball and stopping the run usually wins the game.

In this game against the lowly Raiders (who came into Lumen Field with a defense that hasn’t been great against the run or pass), the Seattle Seahawks could not run the ball and they could not stop the run, and they lost another winnable game because of that. I could end my review here with this simple statement, but I choose to go forth.

It is now two games in a row where Seattle has lost to a team with a worse record in the exact same, brutal sorta bone crunching way. Sure, I could blame refs for taking away a clear fumble recovery from the Seahawk defense that could have saved this game for them, but I don’t want to do that.

Seattle should have been able to establish the run in this one, and they should have been more able to stop the run. These were pretty much the words of Coach Carroll post game.

Apparently, they went into this game with a plan to take away Vegas’s top receiver, but that scheming made the defense susceptible to being gashed by the run. Wildy, Clint Hurtt made little to no adjustments to the heavier packages the Raiders put out against his lighter defensive line fronts, and Vegas was more than happy to take what was there.. just like Tamp Bay did two weeks ago in Germany.

As for why Seattle couldn’t get its run game going with Ken Walker III (K9) for a second game in a row, I think that could be a bit trickier. Maybe defenses are more determined to take him away, and have Geno Smith beat them, but to my naked eye at this game, I noticed K9 taking a lot of extra steps instead of just hitting a hole and plowing forward. It sort of looks like he’s trying to find the home run (at times) instead of settling for the potential four or five yard gain. That’s not going to cut it in this league, and maybe he is victim of his first early season success.

This is where I think having another proven veteran work horse back to mix in with him would have been ideal for Seattle, and him, as well. I am positive that Carroll’s vision of his running attack this year was to have K9 mixing in with Rashaad Penny. I think Seattle sort of views Travis Homer and DeeJay Dallas more as third down backs, otherwise we would see them mixed in more.

After this rough outing for K9, which saw him run a ridiculous Russell Wilson inspired reverse course of direction for about a ten yard loss on a play, I half expect Seattle to take a look at Melvin Gordon, who has now found himself on the market. Maybe Gordon is a guy who can come in, spell K9 on downs, and impart wisdom on this young talented rookie who is seemingly trying to do too much these days, much like Adrian Peterson did for Penny last year.

This game against the Raiders was a lot of things. It was fun at many times, and it was also stressful at others. There were a number of Seattle players who made big time plays, but then oddly had screw ups, as well. Quandre Diggs picked off Derek Carr twice that gave Seattle’s offense opportunities for points, but he also whiffed on a few key tackles by not wrapping up. Geno Smith had another great statistical game, made some thrilling plays, but he also threw a costly pick, and there was a weird fumble exchange with the back late in the game. Jordyn Brooks was a monster tackler but didn’t appear great in coverage.

K9 had two spectacular touchdown runs, but danced around too much at other times for little to no gains. This was honestly one of the weirdest games I’ve seen from a Seattle running back, and it was stunning that it came from this guy, who everyone thought was the top contender fro Offensive Rookie Of The Year. He won’t be if he continues these sort of outings.

There were also guys who this team is heavily relying who didn’t really show up. Abe Lucas, who we all love at right tackle, had a rough day against Maxx Crosby who is one of the best edge rushers in the league. Lucas was sick over the weekend, and there’s a chance he wasn’t fully healthy, but if you put the pads on, you gotta be better than that. Also, Seattle’s entire edge rushing group was quiet for a second game in a row. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Darrell Taylor be quiet, I have doubts as to whether Hurtt’s scheme suits him, but seeing Uchenna Nwuso make this little of an impact as an edge rusher in back to back games is a disturbing trend.

In the end, I felt Lumen Field with a really gross feeling in my stomach. I hate it when my team’s defense cannot stop the run, and it doubly sucks when the DC is putting forth fronts in order to get his pass rush going and defense is managing neither aspect. After a great four game stretch where they were doing just that for the most part, this defense has badly regressed. I’m not sure it’s on the players either. I think it could be on coaching, and the scheme right now.

By showing more 3-4 looks to disguise coverages, Seattle is rolling with lighter defensive fronts than in past years. I think the reason Carroll always preferred more of a 4-3 philosophy is because that style is better at taking away the run.

People were all over firing Ken Norton Junior last year, but at least in his time as the DC in this town, Seattle was decent at stopping the run. With this defense yesterday, they couldn’t do anything, and Vegas managed an absurd 576 yards of total offense, which made this one of the worst defensive efforts in the history of this organization. I can’t imagine that sitting well with the Coach.

Therefore, I wouldn’t mind seeing Seattle going more back to more of Carroll’s 4-3 philosophy again. Most of the teams that they will be facing in December prefer running the ball. Most of those opponents look beatable if Seattle can shore if their run defense more, but can they in time?

I think they better, and I suspect Carroll will do what he needs to do as head coach to make sure they do. These two back to back losses have got to sting him. He has been beaten in ways in which he prefers to win with.

It’s fun to use terms like “being multiple” these days in this modern game of football. It’s a trendy thing with a lot of defenses to show a variety of looks, but football is very cyclical. These multiple style defenses largely bore out of college where offenses were spreading the ball around with multiple receiver sets. The trend found itself in the NFL over the last several years, but I see more offenses starting to shift back into traditional running attacks to counter these looks. San Francisco is doing it with great success, but so is Miami, the Jets, the Giants, Washington, Dallas, and other teams in playoff contention. There’s a pattern here.

So, screw it. Let’s just get back to running the stinking ball, and let’s make stopping the run the priority again. Know who you are, and be who you are.

Maybe what Seattle needs to do in these final six games isn’t to over think themselves with being “multiple” and just simplify the game to two basic fundamental truths; run the ball, and stop the run, and let the chips fall where they may.

Go Hawks.

The 2022 Las Vegas Raiders are an odd team. Their record says that they suck, yet they’ve lost a lot of close games, including a very narrow loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on the road, but then they also got beat down badly by a bad Saints team.

They have talent on offense with Devante Adams, Josh Jacobs, and Derek Carr that they can be pretty dangerous to deal with, but they are paired with a miserable defense on the other side of the ball. Hence, their 3-7 record. They can score points, but they give up a lotta points. This is the 2022 Raiders.

Conversely, the Seahawks are sitting with a respectable 6-4 record, with a pretty good offense led by Geno Smith, DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and rookie phenom Ken Walker III (affectionately known as K9), and a defense that isn’t as bad as the Vegas’s. Geno Smith is flirting with MVP votes, and K9 is a leading contender for NFL Offensive Rookie Of The Year; that’s how good they’ve been through ten games.

Given the fact that this game is being played in Seattle, and the Seahawks are rested coming off of their bye week, Seattle should win this game on Sunday, even with the Raiders coming off of their dramatic come from behind win in Denver (thank you, Raiders for that, by the way). The Broncos and the Seahawks are two very different teams. One is a team that is in complete disarray after heavy expectations were placed on them with the Russell Wilson trade, and the other is a total surprise (in a good way) playing with house money (pun intended).

Therefore, I am going with conventional wisdom, and I am picking the Seahawks to flourish in this one against the Raiders on Sunday. I think they are primed to do it. They’ve had time to dive into this opponent, and they are motivated to make a playoff run during this final seven game stretch of dive where they will be playing five of those games on in front of the Twelves.

After getting stunned by Tampa’s ground game in Germany, I think Clint Hurtt and Pete Carroll get their defense back to playing fast and furious against the run, and I think that will likely force Carr to beat them from the pocket against a secondary that is up and coming. I’m positive that Devante Adams will get his (he’s that good), but if I’m to match these two offenses against these two defenses, I think Seattle’s defense is much more likely to have the better day. This leads me to why I feel most likely Seattle is going to win this one at home.

Geno Smith is due a monster game. He’s had a few big ones already this season, but at home and against this Vegas secondary with Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf, and his stable of tight ends? Yeah, I suspect Geno is going to put on a show, especially with K9 getting back to his explosive ways. The weather won’t likely favor the pass game, it looks to be wet and cold, but I don’t think that stops Seattle’s offensive attack in this one. They will be ready for it.

I see the Seahawks winning fairly comfortably, with maybe a 31-17 final score. I think their defense get turnovers that leads to points for the offense. I think the offense plays a good game of keep away from LV’s offense with K9 running and Geno playing a stellar game of quarterback efficiency, and I think this is going to be a fun game for the Twelves to watch.

As for Vegas, I believe this team is desperate for a reset. I think they missed an opportunity to have promoted their interim head coach last year into a permanent position this year. He was popular with the players, they were a fun underdog because of how the players rallied for him, and I just don’t think Josh McDaniels is the guy to lead them to where they want to go. If I’m Mark Davis, I’m going to cut my losses with McDaniels at the end of the season, and I am going to be prepared to make Sean Payton a very lucrative offer to take over the franchise in order to finally get it back to their glory days that are now decades ago.

Because here are the cold hard facts about the Silver and Black. The Seattle Seahawks, over the last decade, have been more like the feisty Raiders of old than the Raiders have been, and it can not been disputed. Their offenses have largely been explosive like those teams coached by John Madden, Tom Flores, and Art Shell, and their LOB defense was as sticky and fierce as any Raider defense was back in the seventies and early eighties. They played it almost the exact same way.

The Raiders have been a team living on reputation for years with Gen Xers and Boomers who knew who Lyle Alzado was, but their kids and grand kids have no knowledge of those years and players. They need that to change. John Madden was an iconic culture guy. McDaniels is not.

So, it’s time for Seattle to do their old AFC West rival a solid, and beat them down in order to make Davis’s decision at the end of the season an easy one. Seahawks need to mash them up like a pot of boiled potatoes this Sunday.

I think they will. It’s the right thing to do for Seattle and Vegas.

Go Hawks.

This wasn’t the game that I was anticipating for Seattle in Germany. Heading overseas, they seemed like one of the hottest teams in football. They were on an impressive four game win streak against quality opponents, and playing great ball both offensively and defensively in all of these matchups.

Conversely, the Buccaneers were a team that looked on the ropes. They had a banged up offensive line, a run game that was laughably one of the worst in the league, and an offense that wasn’t scoring a lot of points, even with The GOAT. Their defense, while still pretty good, didn’t seem too terribly intimidating, either.

This felt to me like a game that Seattle should have been able to win handily, and true enough, the first series of the game, Tom Brady and the Tampa offense looked overwhelmed by Seattle’s defense. It’s a shame that the rest of the first half, and second half didn’t look the same as that initial series.

Almost inexplicably, Tampa found its absent run game, and stunned Seattle’s defense with it. They stayed with it throughout, and Brady had himself a pretty easy day hitting targets almost anywhere he wanted to go with play action. If you give Tom Brady that kind of ground game, he can beat any defense in this league, and it did. That was the difference in the game for me.

That was also a really hard watch for me, as well. Yes, it’s true that Seattle couldn’t get much going offensively in the first half, K9 was held in check, and they were was lousy with third downs, and found themselves in bad positions with penalties and taking sacks, but watching Tampa running on Seattle’s defense mostly at will was super difficult to digest.

How? Why?

Ultimately, I don’t have any definitive answers, but it was really telling for me to hear Coach Carroll say in his press conference “we need to go back to doing things (on defense) that respect the run.”

If I were to guess what Coach meant by that, I would suggest that maybe Tampa caught Seattle in defensive fronts that were favorable to run on, and since they are coached by a defensive minded HC, he had absolutely no problem dialing the run against those specific fronts where perhaps a more offensive minded coach would desire to pass. In other words, I think it’s possible, if not fully probable, that Clint Hurtt’s game plan was to stop the passing attack of Brady, and not be overly concerned with Leonard Fournette on the ground.

With Hurtt’s defense, Seattle often features a four man front in it’s nickel that some football nerds might call a 2-4-5. The two represents the two interior defensive linemen, the four is four linebackers with the outside backers at the line of scrimmage as stand up ends, and the five is the defensive backs on the back end. This front is played mostly against obvious pass situations. The idea is to get the best athletes on the field to rush and cover on the back end, but there can be a price for that.

The four rushers are often lighter athletes, the defensive tackles are lighter and the ends usually are as well. Again, the idea is to win with quickness. A 330 pound run stuffing Al Woods isn’t as ideal as a 290 pound Quinton Jefferson, and a 250 pound Darrell Taylor isn’t likely to win with leverage standing up, but with speed off the edge or on stunts.

Furthermore, when Seattle uses this package, Hurtt has his defensive tackles wide to the outside corners of the guards with no big body on the center. Sometimes the inside backers crowd those inner gaps, but not always, and if you opt to run on that front, it is much easier for the 300 pound center to take on a 240 pound middle linebacker than a mammoth nose tackle.

When I see Seattle showing this package, I am sort of amazed when offenses don’t just run on it all the time. Offenses were doing that earlier in the season when Seattle showed that a lot, but Seattle tweaked their front and went to more heavier looks of 4-3 and 5-2 Bear fronts. It helped their defensive turnaround, but then this game happened.

Seattle showed a lot of 2-4-5 in this game (I believe I found myself noticing), and Tampa took what was there on the ground. That helped them set up play action as soon as Seattle shifted back to more heavier fronts in order to stop the run.

Tampa boxed smart from the get go, and put Seattle’s defense in a corner that it never really got out of enough. It never got its pass rush going, and it got fortunate to get a couple interceptions to help bail them out (one on an incredibly stupid play by Tampa with Fournette throwing to Brady, of all things).

Eventually, when Seattle needed to stop the run late in the fourth quarter to aid a Geno Smith led comeback attempt, Tampa had Seattle’s defense so tired that they couldn’t stop the run even with their heavier fronts. I think that speficically had Pete Carroll pretty upset at the outcome.

Tampa did to his defense what Pete Carroll loves to do late in games against other teams. They ran with success at will. Seattle did this to Arizona, and the New York Giants, and the LA Chargers. That won’t sit well with him on a ten hour flight home.

People can criticize how inept the Seattle offense was during the first half of ball, and how out of sorts Geno Smith might have been in moments, and how K9 couldn’t get anything going on the ground. I think it is completely fair to suggest that Seattle could have adjusted earlier on offense, and got their passing game going faster when the run wasn’t there for them like they hoped.

In my opinion, however, this was a way more disappointing effort by a Seahawk defense that I expected to play a lot better. I anticipated that Seattle’s offense would have some hiccups against a tough Tampa defense. What I didn’t envision was seeing one of the worst running attacks have a day against Poona Ford and Al Woods.

So where does Seattle go from here?

As bad of a taste in my mouth as I got from watching this game, I feel more inclined to see a silver lining. I honestly think that losing like this right before their bye week isn’t the worst thing for these 2022 Seattle Seahawks.

I think this is a team still very capable of finding themselves in the playoffs, and maybe hanging onto their division lead in the NFC West (yes, even against those 49ers). Geno Smith proved yet again in this outing to be a quality starting quarterback, and I don’t believe that is going to change from here on out. He’s legit, and he has great weapons around him and a good scheme to play in. I’m a believer in this team still very much, offensively.

Defensively, they need to put this game behind them, and get back to a style that wants to get after the run, and force teams into one dimensional play. I think this might require Hurtt and Carroll to look at making further tweaks up front again. Specifically, I think that might require getting back to an approach that will be stronger against the run.

Moving forward, this team plays the 49ers, the Panthers, and the Jets who all prefer the ground game. I believe that Seattle has the bodies to stop the run, but they need to be used the right way, and the players gotta want to do it, too.

That’s the final thing that I wanted to say about this game. To me, it looked like Tampa ran on Seattle fronts that were favorable to run on, but what I don’t know is if when Seattle shifted more to heavier looks, Seattle defenders didn’t do enough to shift their mentality to stop the run as they needed to, and if that is what Carroll was referring to when he said “respecting the run.”

I think that winning football often comes down to who wants it more. I think Tampa really wanted to assert their run game. I suspect that they felt there was a chance that they could catch Seattle off guard with it, but once they started having success, that success bred further success on the ground. Offensive linemen would much rather be run blockers than pass blockers. It allows them to be the aggressors.

Perhaps this game was just Tampa’s day in that regard, and maybe this is the best lesson for a young Seattle team to take away from this. Winning in football is almost always hard, and in any given Sunday, a seemingly inferior opponent can rise to the occasion.

When I look at this Seahawk schedule and the remaining games, I see winnable ones, but these Seahawks can’t play like this. They are going to have to be prepared for dogfights each and every week.

I think this game in Germany serves as a good reminder of that, and is the thing they maybe needed to experience in order to come out of their bye week even more determined to prove the doubters wrong. This was their bad day at the office. We’ve all had those days.

And let’s face it, sometimes we need to be knocked down a peg in life when we start feeling cocky and overly confident. We need to be reminded to respect the process and do the hard work. Doing all the little things right matters.

Now is a great time for the players to get some rest and heel, and refocus on the little things. It’s also a great time for the coaches to self scout, and make all the tweaks they need on both sides of the ball to get back on track and finish this season out right. I think they will.

I’m ready for that, and I am excited about that.

Go Hawks.

Tom Brady has done it all as a professional quarterback.

He went from underdog 6th round pick to Super Bowl winning quarterback in short order during his long, and glory filled career. Since that time, he married a super famous and super wealthy supermodel, started a family with her, and he played in eight more Super Bowls, and won seven of them all together. What a life.

Tom Brady also has made millions upon millions of dollars as a high salaried athlete and a recipient of countless endorsements. What he has done for himself as a person, and what he has accomplished on the field won’t likely be matched by another quarterback anytime soon, and most likely not in my lifetime. Therefor, it is not a stretch to call him the greatest of all time (aka the GOAT).

He could have walked away from the game last Winter, at age 44, having just lost in the divisional round to the what would become the Super Bowl winning champs in the LA Rams, and not a single soul alive would have blamed him for it, and most would have admired how he hung tough against a dominant Rams pass rush. In fact, he did just that. He walked away from the game.

.. But then after a few weeks of being at home with his gorgeous wife and kids, he decided that he needed to come back to it.. to prove he could win one more ring (as if seven wasn’t nearly enough).

Fast forward a few months later, and supermodel wife Gisele has apparently finally gained enough self respect, and has filed for divorce. As if that wasn’t enough misfortune, now he’s apparently losing his shirt off of some shady crypto currency investing. Also, his offensive line sucks and therefor, so does his offense, and his team has a losing record.

It is more than fitting that he is now facing a surprisingly strong Seattle Seahawks team led by the even more surprisingly good quarterback play out of Geno Smith in Germany. I sense the Football Fates at play, here.

There is no universe out there where Tom Brady deserves to beat Geno Smith and the Seattle Seahawks this Sunday. Anyone who has studied Greek mythology understands that you do not tempt the motherf’ing Fates. When you do, it needs to end badly, as it did with Icarus and many others who were guided by impulse over reason.

Tom Brady very much deserves the fate of getting beaten badly by the Seahawks in Munich, and I think this is a game that is shaping up for just that. His offensive line is bad, and he lacks explosive playmakers around him. This is a bad matchup for him going against the resurgent Seattle defense that is quick and strong up front, and has playmaking speed in the backfield.

It is proper for Seattle’s defense to break Brady in this one, and bury him deeply into the German turf to which this game will be played on. Seattle doesn’t have to worry about any threat of running quarterback for the first time in many weeks. They just need to be sound, and play their game against him. The current trends suggest that they will.

Now, what Seattle really needs to do in this one is continue to be patient and efficient with the ball on offense, and not get rattled by an aggressive defense that can get after a quarterback. Fortunately for the Seahawk offense, it has faced similar defenses in the last month with the Giants and playing the Cardinals twice. In all those outings, Geno Smith came out looking pretty darn effective. There is no reason to think that he can’t be just that again in this one.

The Buccaneer defense is an interesting one. They are top five in the league for sacks, and they are also good at taking the ball away, but they can also give up yards on the ground and through the air, and they haven’t been great in the red zone. Geno just needs to continue being smart with the ball, and he needs to be aided by a dynamic ground game led by Ken Walker aka K9.

Ultimately, I think Geno will be. He’s playing too consistently good right now, and K9 feels like a player ready to take the NFL by storm as a runner. That’s a winning combo to pair with a Seattle defense that is also playing hot right now.

Therefor, I think the Seahawks win this one, and I think comfortably in the end, 24-13. This is what the Universe and all its Football Fates want, and therefore, I believe it will be.

It might not be the prettiest win for Seattle, but I think it is destined to be another ugly loss for the Bucs. Tom Brady might be feeling his magic coming back with that come from behind win against the struggling Rams last Sunday, but I think that’s just the Fates toying with him like a kitty playing with a mouse before biting the motherf’er’s cute little head off.

Tom Brady is going to feel pain in this one. I don’t know how many sacks Seattle will actually get on him, but he will likely feel Uchenna Nwosu, and Bruce Irving, Poona Ford, and Shelby Harris, and company. He will also see that speed and playmaking ability in Seattle’s secondary, as well. These Seattle no name defenders are ready to take down the GOAT like a sacrificial lamb at the Alter of Athena.

After all, Tom Brady has deeply offended the Virgin Warrior Goddess, gravely. There is no way for him to dodge that, either.

She will be with the Seahawks on their sidelines, whispering into the ears of Geno Smith and telling him she is with him on this day. She will flash her blinding breasts into Brady’s face just before Poona breaks free out of his stunt, launching himself into the GOAT’s ribcage. Tarig Woolen will dart out of nowhere to steal a pass for, and Athena will meet him in the end zone with the radiance of the sun.

.. Because this is what Tom Brady deserves. He does not get to enjoy victory on this day. Instead, he needs to receive the sobering reality that he chose pursuing yet another Super Bowl ring over his wife and family, and he just lost to Geno Smith on foreign soil for all of the World to see as part of the price.

This motherfucker deserves to lose and lose badly, and therefore, I believe he will.

Go Hawks.

As I have mentioned a few times before, games between the Seattle Seahawks and the Arizona Cardinals can often be weird. These team know each other well, and each team kinda knows what it can do to beat the other team, if all goes according to plan, but that does not prevent the football deities from sending their gremlins down to stir up shit for both teams in the process.

Often times, each of these teams find ways to win on the other’s home turf, and that, in and of itself, is a wacky NFL oddity. Not this year, though, which leads me to this other odd fact about this rivalry.

What is really super duper odd in this weird ass rivalry is that, since 2010, every four years, the Seahawks sweep the Cardinals. Yup. They have done this in 2010, 2014, 2018, and now in 2022. Spooky, really, and also maybe Vegas betters should have paid closer attention to this.

At any rate, it’s joyful to muse over this victory for my Seattle Seahawks. My biggest takeaway from this outing is really just how polar opposite both of these programs are right now, and how it played out in this rematch.

Going into the season, there was a fair amount of hype around Kyler Murray and the Cardinals finally being able to take the NFC West, like this was maybe their year, or some such thing. I was skeptical, but I sensed others were not.

Contrastingly, most thought that the Seattle Seahawks would suck donkey turds. Many thought that Pete Carroll was crazy for promoting Geno Smith to QB1, and he should have traded for Baker Mayfield, or just went with Drew Lock. Most thought Seattle’s real plan was tanking for a quarterback in next year’s draft. I was a bit skeptical of that, as well.

I felt that anyone who believes that Pete Carroll would purposefully tank for an unproven quarterback coming out of college doesn’t really know anything about Pete Carroll and his culture. While I didn’t anticipate Geno Smith playing this well (among tops in the league), I didn’t necessarily believe he would play that poorly, either. At worst, I felt that if Carroll believed in him, there must be something to him others weren’t seeing.

Therein lays the biggest difference between these two programs. Seattle is exceeding low expectations while Arizona is falling on its face with the expectations placed upon them. Where Seattle players feel up lifted by the belief their head coach has bestowed in them, Arizona watches Kyler Murray fight with his head coach and teammates, and lose games in the process.

Arizona arguably has more overall talent on their roster than Seattle does, but because of their dysfunction, they can’t produce winning football right now. Seattle, on the other hand, is playing extremely well together, and the young talent on their roster is learning how to become great in this league on the fly, each and every week, and because of that, they are winning games.

Seattle is developing and building while Arizona is imploding. It’s that simple.

Geno Smith is better at quarterbacking than Kyler Murray is right now, and therefor, is a better quarterback. Sure, he doesn’t have the dynamic skills that Murray has, but he is better in terms of nuances vital for success at the position. So, it shouldn’t really be that shocking that Geno out performed Kyler again in this one.

Geno Smith has also been helped out by having a true blue chip franchise running back in Ken Walker III (aka K9). Geno Smith also isn’t hurt either by Shane Waldron’s perfectly balanced play calling, and having superb tight ends to throw to like Noah Fant. It’s probably nice that Geno Smith still has DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett on the outside, too.

But it is not like Kyler Murray doesn’t have great weapons because he does, plain and simple. DeAndre Hopkins is supposed to be the best receiver in the league, and this Rondale Moore kid looks pretty snazzy, too, and the last time I checked, Zach Ertz is still a pretty damn good tight end.

I wonder how much those guys would enjoy playing for a quarterback like Geno Smith?

I don’t mean this to be a smart ass question, either. After watching the sideline shit show of Murray chewing out Hopkins, and then shots of Hopkins looking emotionally detached the rest of the game, I actually think it is a fair question to ask.

Do these Cardinal guys love playing together? I have mighty doubts.

I predicted that Seattle would win this game precisely because of antics just mentioned. Call me old fashioned, but dysfunction does not deserve victory. It just doesn’t, and because Seattle has been playing so connected, and together, and for each other, I felt that they would handily win this one. While the game was a lot closer than the final score indicated, it also really wasn’t, was it?

Seattle gifted Arizona six points off of a pick six that I am sure Geno Smith won’t throw into the flat again, but up until that point, Seattle seemed like they were in firm enough control on both sides of the ball. True enough, though, in their next offensive series, Geno guided the Seahawks offense to an impressive touchdown score to retake the lead. Seattle never looked back afterwards.

In that drive, Geno was as gutsy and determined of a quarterback as you will ever see. Nothing phased him, and Arizona brought all kinds of pressure. After that drive, Seattle put together more scoring drives. They kicked the door down on Arizona’s attacking defense, and Kyler Murray just couldn’t do enough in the end, even with an impressive drive of his own to make it a closer score in the final minutes.

True to form, after Arizona scored, Geno led yet another touchdown scoring drive throwing a gorgeous catch and run ball to Noah Fant, and then handing the ball off to K9, down after down, as K9 crushed the souls of would be Cardinal tacklers. In those moments, with K9 run, after K9 run, I could sense legendary Seahawk coach Chuck Knox peering down from the heavenly skies with a shit eating grin as wide as Brian Mone’s buttocks.

This is winning football. This is what winning culture looks like.

In a match sure to inspire weird events, Seattle stayed focused, and they outplayed a desperate opponent who were searching for momentum in a must win game for them. Do not underestimate how much a victory likes this means for the upstart 2022 Seattle Seahawks.

This was such a complete victory over the dumbstruck Cardinals that I am having a difficult time deciding who my game ball goes towards. Part of me thinks it should be Geno Smith’s for overcoming what could have been a very costly pick six. Part of me also thinks it needs to be K9’s after that stellar closing drive to ice the game, and part of me wants to give it to Noah Fant who had himself a break out game at tight end.

But if I am to be absolutely honest, if I am to hand out any balls, I would give it to all the dudes on this impressive, and very underrated Seahawk defense. This defense played balls out. They kept Hopkins quiet, they stuffed the run, and made Murray have to work extra hard for his big plays.

For as good as Seattle’s offense has been this season (they’ve been really good), this defense feels like they are playing just as inspired. In this one, they made an offense that was getting their star players back look very ordinary. This has been the forth week in a row where the Seahawk defense has done this to a good offense.

I cannot praise enough what Clint Hurtt have done with turning around this unit. They play fast, they play hard, they can cover, and hit, and tackle, and they force you into mistakes. Best of all, through this stretch, it also feels very sustainable, every bit as much as Geno Smith and the offense does.

Watch out, these 2022 Seahawks feel dangerous. I haven’t sensed dangerous from this team in a number of seasons now, not like this, anyhow.

And I am one hundred percent behind this. This is what winning culture eventually becomes. It’s dangerous for other teams to face.

Seattle travels abroad to Munich to take on another bit of a dysfunctional mess next Sunday, and they have a huge following in Germany, oddly. Needless to say, I like their chances. As Coach Carroll would say, this is another great opportunity to play championship football.

So, go get Tom Brady and the Bucs. Bury them. Do it.

Go Hawks.

Outside of possibly the Philadelphia Eagles, there might not be a hotter team in the NFL right now than the Seattle Seahawks. Stop rubbing your eyes, and do not turn away from your screen. This is not hyperbole.

Through the last three weeks, these Seahawks have beaten teams who have been perceived to be more talented than they are, and they have been beating them decisively. They have been beating them with defense, with offense, and with special teams.

They have been winning with stellar quarterback play, they have been winning with exciting rookies, they have been winning in the trenches, and they are winning our hearts, our minds, and our imaginations as Twelves. Above all, through these last three weeks, they have been winning together as a team playing for each other. In my opinion, that’s the best way to win.

Don’t look now, but there is a very 2022 Seattle Mariner vibe about these 2022 Seahawks. In fact, it is so strong that in the final minutes of the game last Sunday, a ref announced a penalty over the mic, he called the Seahawks the Seattle Mariners.

Conversely, there is a kinda Celebrity Rehab vibe about the Arizona Cardinals right now. Kyler Murray seems to have such a video game addiction that he will bite the head off of anyone who tells him that he can’t just rely on his physical talents. His head coach Kliff Kingsbury has the vibe of someone more interested in seeing how many Paradise Valley trophy wives he can fit into his jacuzzi than he is about making smart decisions as a play-caller. This team has all kinds of talent, but they don’t have the feel of a unit that is playing together particularly well.

To their credit, their defense actually plays a pretty respectable game, and they seem to be coached well enough there, but collectively, as an entire team, they seem to lack joy. In fact, their quarterback has been more inclined to cuss out his coach when he throws an interception than to just give a “my bad” to his teammates who are trying to play their asses off for him.

As I look at this Arizona team right now, I don’t think they’re a bunch that deserves to win, frankly. This isn’t just my biased view as a Seahawk fan, either. There is a greater reasoning at play here.

Dysfunction doesn’t deserve victory. In fact, it might be better for them to just suck the whole rest of the season so that proper changes happen for them. They need to feel their bottom because the organizations that they compete with in the NFC West are all better run. They are coached better, and more importantly, their cultures function better than what is going on in Arizona.

So when I look at the Seattle Seahawks, and I see a quarterback in Geno Smith who is consistently playing really good ball with bright talent around him, and I see a defense that has been playing impressive ball lately, and I look at this mess with the Cardinals, I’m seeing Seattle traveling down there, and winning another game in convincing fashion. I don’t think these Cardinals are going to lay down for them in any way, but I think Seattle comfortably wins this game in the end.

On top of the dysfunction of Kliff and Kyler, Arizona has a banged up offensive line again in this one. Seattle took advantage of it last time, and I don’t expect anything to change in their second match.

One of the most underrated aspects to Seattle’s turnaround on defense is just how well their defensive tackles have been playing. They are an underrated unit in this league. When you look at the fact that Arizona doesn’t possess much of a ground game outside of Kyler scrambling, eventually these interior defensive linemen (along with the dynamic play of the edge rushers led by Uchenna Nwosu) are going to be able to pin their ears back.

Furthermore, the memo is out on how to stop a small scrambling quarterback in this league, and every Seahawk fan should know this because of their own former short quarterback. That memo becomes much easier of a task if the small QB doesn’t have a run game supporting him, and it reads as follows.

You contain him with your edge rushers, and you get good inside push from your tackles. Poona Ford, Shelby Harris, and Quinton Jefferson are good at getting inside push. Trust me, Seattle probably wants Kyler contained to a pocket, and passing, even with DeAndre Hopkins back as receiver.

Offensively for Seattle, I am putting my trust in Geno Smith to continue making good decisions and doing everything he needs to do to secure victory. Geno didn’t have his best game a few weeks back against these Cardinal defenders, and he was the first to say that in his post game presser, but he didn’t play terrible, either. He game managed well enough, and I think traveling down there to face them again, he will have a much better sense about what that defense does, which is very feast and famine with the blitz.

Will Geno better recognize weaknesses when they blitz? I would not bet against that. Geno Smith seems to be very good at football right now, and I think a lot of that has been in his recognition of what a defense is doing.

I also suspect that we are going to see yet another impressive day from rookie running back Ken Walker III (affectionately now known as K9). There will be things he does in this game that will continue to wow because that is what this dude does. I sense we could see his impact play more out as a receiver in this one.

I think the Seahawks win this one 33-17. Am I nuts to say this? Sure, I absolutely could be, but we will see.

I think Seattle’s defense is legit and can sustain itself this Sunday. They did a good job against Kyler last time, and I am sure that Arizona will have made adjustments on how they want to attack it, but I also sense that Seattle will likely be ready for it.

Offensively, I can see the Seahawks controlling clock more than the Cardinals, and while that might not lead to touchdowns on every scoring drive, it can lead to a lot of field goals, and time drained off the clock. Thus, I can envision Pete Carroll winning this one the way in which he truly loves to win at football; seeing his offense sustaining long drives, controlling clock, getting points on the board, and forcing the other team’s offense into a one dimensional style in which it will become harder for them to play against his defense.

I think the Seahawks stay hot in this one.

Go Hawks!