On Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks suffered the worst loss of the Pete Carroll era. This has caused a question to circulate, is this the end of the Seahawks? No, not even close.
Injuries
The injury bug bit a lot of teams this year, but the Seahawks got arguably the worst of it. The New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers are the only teams with more players on injured reserve than the Seahawks, with 25 each.
The Seahawks have 20, and that’s not counting players who are playing through injuries. That list includes Bobby Wagner, K.J. Wright, and Earl Thomas. Let’s go through some of the players on injured reserve: 4-time Pro Bowler and 3-time First Team All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman. 4-time Pro Bowler and 2-time Second Team All-Pro safety Kam Chancellor. Pro Bowl defensive end Cliff Avril, the list goes on and on. Coaches don’t use injuries as an excuse, but in this case, it’s hard to overlook them. Teams can’t lose players like that and continue to play at the elite level they’re expected to.
The Offensive Line
The Seahawks have one of the best quarterbacks in the league in Russell Wilson. If they can protect him, then this team can stay dominant for years to come. The team took steps towards that by drafting Germain Ifedi in the first round of the 2016 draft and Ethan Pocic in the second round of the 2017 draft. While Ifedi hasn’t panned out the way the team hoped, they are finally showing a commitment to protecting their franchise quarterback.
They reinforced that statement by trading for Duane Brown this season. The 2018 offensive line class looks promising, with players like Conor Williams, Mike McGlinchey and Orlando Brown. According to Matt Miller, five O-lineman are projected to go in the first round right now. After Wilson took seven sacks on Sunday, the Seahawks will probably pounce on the best one available.
The Locker Room
Earl Thomas and Bobby Wagner got into a feud after the loss on Sunday. Thomas called out Wagner for playing on his bad hamstring and said, “The backups would have done just as good.” A few hours later, Wagner responded with a tweet telling Thomas, “… keep my name out [of your] mouth. Stop being jealous of other [people’s] success.” But this happens every year in Seattle, players have a problem with each other or there’s a holdout of some kind. Every time it gets resolved and forgotten about within a week or two. This particular incident isn’t a big deal, there aren’t many players who would have good things to say after a 42-7 loss. By this time next week, this won’t be a story anymore.
Every team suffers bad losses, but the great ones know how to bounce back. This team has an interesting schedule coming up, with the Cowboys and Cardinals. Ezekiel Elliott is coming back for the Cowboys, and while the division might be out of reach, the Wild Card isn’t. This team knows that, and they could come out strong on Sunday in Dallas. But no matter what happens through the end of this year, this is not the end of the Seattle Seahawks.