A brutal 17-14 overtime loss to the Denver Broncos just dropped the Seahawks to 3-3, and let’s be real, this offense straight up stinks. Forget the points we’re putting up, because the underlying stats tell a much uglier story. We’re talking about an offense that may very well cost us a playoff berth, and honestly, it’s pretty much already waved goodbye to the NFC West title unless the 49ers pull off some epic collapse. This isn’t just a bad stretch; it’s a chasm, and it’s making us look like those impossible-to-watch 90s throwbacks.
This Mess Is On Fleury, But It Goes Deeper Than Just Him
Our three losses this season have been by a combined eight points, which sounds tight, right? But then you look at the turnover margin in those games: a combined -7. You just can’t win like that! Sam Darnold has played poorly enough that people are actually talking about benching him, and frankly, you can’t blame ’em. The running game? It’s banged up and an absolute disaster. If Jaxon Smith-Njigba wasn’t out there making plays, this offense would be even more unbearable. New offensive coordinator Brian Fleury is taking a ton of heat for how this unit has cratered, especially coming off a Super Bowl season. And while I’m not going to excuse Fleury for this offensive slide, there’s a bigger picture here, a problem that started rearing its ugly head last season under Klint Kubiak.
The Warning Signs Were Blaring All Last Season
For those of you who might have forgotten, or maybe you’re new to the Emerald City faithful, the warning signs for this offense were flashing bright red last year. Right before the season finale against the San Francisco 49ers, we were on a six-game winning streak. Awesome, right? But the high-flying, high-scoring offense we saw early on had noticeably dipped during that very streak. The passing game clearly got less efficient from the Los Angeles Rams loss onward. Yeah, the run game got better, which was a relief, but Sam Darnold’s hot start noticeably cooled. Remember that four-interception disaster against the Rams? Even if you took that game out, his sack rate would have been worse.
Teams started adjusting, too. They began blitzing Sam Darnold more and stacking the box less. Four of Darnold’s six highest blitz rates faced came from Week 11 onward. That Minnesota Vikings game, with Brian Flores just sending everyone, was brutal, and even the Carolina Panthers blitzed on over half of Darnold’s dropbacks. Teams stopped fretting about our running game and basically dared Sam Darnold to beat them through the air. And that exposed the real issue: Darnold’s weaknesses in pure dropback situations. When he was running play-action, we were the best play-action passing team in the whole NFL. Take away that play-action, though, and things got a whole lot worse. At the time of that article last year, Darnold was 23rd in EPA/dropback on non-PA throws. This isn’t a new problem, folks. This is a carryover, and it’s worse now.
This is our season slipping away right before our eyes. We’ve got to find some answers, and fast, or this 3-3 start is only going to get uglier. We need to see some serious adjustments, because the current trajectory is taking us nowhere good.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Field Gulls.
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