Fear of Ownership

Start BENCHING these players: The Seahawks find out who fits into their 2025 plans

This could be the most important quote by John Schneider that you’ll read all year, his answer to a question back in March about why the Seahawks are not rebuilding in 2024:

“That’s a mandate from Jody (Allen). We want to be the best.”

Is this why the Seahawks didn’t cut any dead weight at the trade deadline? Because the team owner sees, like many fans do, that Seattle is “only one game back” of the division lead and NOT that there are almost no roads left that lead to the playoffs?

I wouldn’t have argued that the Seahawks should be “sellers” if I thought that they had a decent chance of winning the NFC West. But I don’t believe that — I’ll add one more reason why at the end of this article — and I don’t think Schneider believes that. However, Schneider might have to string along Allen (past the trade deadline, unfortunately) because he was “MANDATED” to compete this year and to the layman, “Seattle is competing”.

Give it 11 more days.

The sooner the Seahawks accept their fate, the sooner they can find out who else they have on the roster and what they’re capable of; players with better odds of being here next season and the season after that.

Where the Seahawks could be in 11 days

Just like last week’s post about Seattle heading down a path that looks unwinnable, this is not a “Should the team tank?” debate. Forget tanking, the Seahawks have been bad for the last six weeks while they were MANDATED to be good. Not only do they not need help to be bad, making changes to the roster could also make them better!

After the bye week, the only thing that matters is how the Seahawks do against the 49ers in Week 11 and the Cardinals in Week 12. If Seattle comes back from the bye and loses to San Francisco, the entire fanbase — and the owner — will have caught up to the reality that the Seahawks are screwed. For this season.

That Which Cannot Get Twisted: I want the Seahawks to BEAT the 49ers!

Beating the 49ers would be great for MANY REASONS and nothing would feel better than turning the page on that book in Mike Macdonald’s first season, but in the last six meetings there hasn’t been one time where it even appeared like Seattle might win. If the Seahawks lose, they’ll be 0-4 in the NFC West and “only one game back” will feel like it happened 36-and-a-half months ago.

The Seahawks did not trade any players at the deadline and that’s partly because other teams don’t want Pharaoh Brown and Dre’Mont Jones. But just like trading Darrell Taylor because he wasn’t in the future plans, it’s now past the time to start shedding others and finding out if these other guys can play.

Play Him, Not Him!

It could be a blessing that Mike Macdonald has eight more games left to find out what the Seahawks have in their reserves, but how many of those opportunities will he actually use?

Any ONE of these statements could be true and it doesn’t have to be that ALL or MOST of them are true. But some of these changes have to start happening soon:

The Seahawks need to be playing Josh Jobe, not Tre Brown.

The Seahawks need to be playing Christian Haynes, not Anthony Bradford.

The Seahawks need to be playing Olu Oluwatimi, not Connor Williams.

The Seahawks need to be playing Cody White, not Tyler Lockett.

The Seahawks need to be playing A.J. Barner, not Noah Fant.

The Seahawks need to be playing Brady Russell, not Pharaoh Brown.

The Seahawks need to be playing Tyrice Knight, not Tyrel Dodson.

The Seahawks need to be playing Mike Morris, not Johnathan Hankins.

The Seahawks need to be playing (anyone), not Dre’Mont Jones.

The Seahawks need to be playing Sam Howell, not Geno Smith.

A couple of these statements are controversial, but if it’s Week 17 and the Seahawks are eliminated from the playoffs does “Howell to White” make more sense at that time than “Geno to Lockett”? Well, what if the Seahawks are eliminated from the playoffs in 18 days?

A few changes, like phasing out the Browns, is already underway. Other switches that need to happen — like Williams to Olu or Jalen Sundell; Hankins to Morris; Dodson to Knight — should have already happened.

Look no further than the team that just beat the Seahawks:

• The Rams drafted G/C Steve Avila at the top of the second round and paid G/C Jonah Jackson a $17m average salary to rebuild their iOL

• With both players on IR, sixth round pick C Beaux Limmer and UDFA G Justin Dedich have been outstanding; nobody would have known!!!

If the Seahawks are waiting because of a mandate, that’ll be over unless they beat the 49ers and Cardinals in their next two games. How many more games does Seattle need to lose before they start to do what’s necessary?

The Standings Hit Different

All of our brains want to do the same thing when we look at the standings because we’ve been trained to think the same thing: “If that team is 5-4 and this team is 4-5, that’s one game back.”

Makes sense, right?

Instead, think this when you look at the standings: “The Seahawks are in last place.”

Being one game back of the Cardinals is as misleading as any other stat in the league because the Seahawks don’t have to be just better than Arizona…They have to be better than Arizona, L.A., and San Francisco, and they’ve already lost both home games to the Rams and 49ers.

Consider how far back other last place teams basically are:

• AFC East (Pats 5 games back), AFC North (Browns 5 games back), AFC South (Jaguars 4 games back), AFC West (Raiders 7 games back)

• NFC East (Giants 5 games back), NFC North (Bears 3 games back), NFC South (Saints, Panthers 4 games back)

Chicago is a perfect example of how quickly teams go from “contending” to where they actually belong, as they were 4-2 after back-to-back blowout wins, but they’ve lost the last two and most have accepted that their <1% odds to win the division and 7% to make the playoffs are real.

Why should they accept it and not Seattle, given that:

• The Bears have better playoff odds (7% to 4%)

• They have played better, including beating the Rams

• Chicago hasn’t played a division game yet, so they have more opportunities to catch up

The Seahawks are playing must-win games in the middle of November against a team they haven’t beaten in 3 years because they have struggled WITH the players they expected to lead them to the playoffs. What could it hurt to lose — or win — with the players they expected to wait?

Seaside Joe 2046