Who are the real Seattle Seahawks?
The team that won at San Francisco and beat Arizona twice to climb back atop the NFC West? Or the team that crashed back to earth last Sunday against the Green Bay Packers, a 30-13 loss that also accentuated a troubling trend when Seattle plays winning teams?
The Seahawks have three games left to answer that question, games that will also dictate whether Seattle can win the NFC West, get back to the playoffs and make coach Mike Macdonald’s rookie season an unqualified success, or miss out and show that there is still some building to do.
It’s a stretch that starts Sunday at 1:05 p.m. against the Minnesota Vikings, a team as hot as any in the NFL, at Lumen Field.
The Vikings have won seven in a row to stand at 12-2, tied with the Eagles and Lions for the best record in the NFC.
The Vikings are tied for eighth in points scored per game at 26.4, powered by one of the best passing attacks in the NFL, and fourth in points allowed per game at 18.0, keyed by a constantly pressuring defense that has 42 sacks and is second in fewest rushing yards allowed per game at 89.2.
The Vikings are hardly unbeatable; they had to go to overtime on Nov. 24 to beat the 4-10 Bears and needed a late interception to hold off Arizona in Minnesota on Dec. 1, 23-22.
But when matched up against the best in the NFL this season, the Seahawks have usually come up wanting.
The loss to the Packers dropped Seattle to 1-4 this season against teams that currently have winning records, the lone win coming in the season opener against Denver and rookie quarterback Bo Nix.
In four games since then against teams that currently have winning record (Buffalo, Green Bay, Detroit and the Rams), the Seahawks have been outscored 129-72, allowing 26 or more points in each game.
Put another way, Seattle’s eight wins this season have come against teams that are a combined 49-64; the losses against teams that are a combined 51-35 (which includes the mystifying defeat to a Giants team that is 2-12).
The hope was the four-game winning streak preceding the Green Bay game, in which the Seahawks went from 4-5 to 8-5, marked a true turnaround.
The fear now is the Packers game exposed the Seahawks as a team not quite ready yet for primetime. Green Bay led 14-0 at the end of the first quarter and Seattle never got closer than within 10 points the rest of the way.
Seahawks players, though, insisted this week that the game — and especially the start — wasn’t illustrative of their true selves.
“I wouldn’t say (it was) a step back,” said safety Coby Bryant. “Just out of character a little bit, just little things. Obviously, you can see in the second half we tightened up. We just got to start off faster. That’s the biggest thing.”
The Seahawks won’t have any excuses for another slow start.
After a few days of worry over the health of quarterback Geno Smith — who left in the third quarter of the Green Bay game with a knee injury and Seattle already down 20-3 — the veteran was able to practice fully all week and will start.
The Seahawks are also getting starting running back Kenneth Walker III back after he missed the past two games with a calf injury. Center Olu Oluwatimi — who missed the last three quarters of the Green Bay game with a knee injury — is also back and expected to start.
Seattle also has all the motivation it could want in terms of playoff position.
While the Seahawks are tied with the Rams atop the NFC West at 8-6, LA holds the tiebreaker due to a win over Seattle on Oct. 27. Seattle also is a game out of the wild-card race.
There remain numerous potential playoff scenarios.
But the most likely scenario is that Seattle will have to beat the Rams in LA on either Jan. 4-5 to win the West and get into the playoffs.
And with the Rams playing Sunday at the 4-10 Jets and then hosting Arizona the next two weeks, Seattle likely has to win at least one of the next two games — the Seahawks play at the Bears on Thursday — to assure the finale against the Rams means something.
Two Rams wins and two Seahawks losses the next two weeks and the season is over by Week 18.
Still, the Seahawks also know that if they win out, they also win the NFC West and the right to host a playoff game.
The Seahawks enter the weekend listed as having a 23% chance to make the playoffs, according to The New York Times’ The Upshot playoff calculator.
A win and a Rams win increases Seattle’s odds to 31%. A win and a Rams loss increases them to 44%. But a loss and a Rams win decreases them to 8%, while a loss and a Rams loss leaves them at 21%.
“Definitely a sense of urgency,” Smith said Thursday.
There’s also a sense of wanting to play better at home. Seattle is a mystifying 3-5 at Lumen Field this season, having allowed 29, 36, 31, 26 and 30 points in the losses.
Defensive players said it took them too long against the Packers to adjust to the pace of Green Bay’s offense.
“I think just getting settled down, not making a moment too big and getting settled down,” linebacker Derick Hall said of what the Seahawks have to do better against the Vikings. “We did some stuff up front movement-wise. I think once we got that settled down and got the corrections in the second half we played a lot better ball.”
But while the Seahawks might have lost some face last week, what they didn’t lose is control of their own destiny, knowing they can win the final three and they’re in the postseason.
“I think that’s huge,” Hall said. “Just going through everything we’ve been through, starting out hot and going cold and striking iron again. We’ve been battle-tested, so we know what it takes. We have a really good football team coming here this weekend. Being able to still control your own destiny at this point in the year even with everything we went through is really big for us. I think the motivation is not even that, but just being able to go out and play again on another Sunday and be able to redeem yourself for what happened last week.”
Notes
— The Seahawks signed quarterback Jaren Hall off the practice squad to the 53-man roster, creating a spot by placing outside linebacker Trevis Gipson on injured reserve. Gipson suffered an ankle injury in practice this week. Hall is likely to serve as an emergency third quarterback for Sunday’s game as insurance in the event of any setback to Smith. Hall has been on the practice squad all season and has not played in a game but was elevated off the PS two times earlier this year, including last week. Hall was a fifth-round pick of the Vikings in 2023 and started two games for Minnesota last year.
— Seattle also elevated cornerback Artie Burns off the practice squad for Sunday’s game. Burns has played just one game all year but is recovered from a toe injury and could be used on special teams and as depth.
— The NFL revealed its weekly list of fines Saturday. The Seahawks incurred one from Sunday’s game with cornerback Riq Woolen tagged $5,933 after getting called for a personal foul for a late hit on Green Bay quarterback Jordan Love on the second play of the game. That was the only fine for either team.
