Seahawks-Cardinals, Bears-Packers

Is it best that the Seahawks win, but miss the playoffs? Seaside Joe 1769

As previously discussed this week, I will always root for the Seattle Seahawks to win and you never know what could happen in the playoffs. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a Super Bowl championship to justify entry, sometimes it’s the discovery of a hidden talent or the summoning of a man-made earthquake.

However, another part of me knows that the worst case scenario for the Seahawks probably isn’t losing to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday or missing the playoffs if the Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears.

No, the worst case scenario actually involves making the playoffs AND winning a playoff game:

Can the Seahawks, as we know them now, survive a 45-0 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round?

Because if Seattle does make the postseason this weekend, there’s no path to the NFC Championship that doesn’t go through San Francisco first and the most realistic and honest view on the Seahawks right now is that they are ill-prepared to take on a 49ers team that will have rested for multiple weeks.

You’re here right now, so obviously you love sports. And when is being a sports fan at its greatest? When you can’t predict what will happen.

Maybe there is some scenario in which Seattle faces the Niners in the playoffs and doesn’t look like the out-matched, less physical, under-prepared, playing-on-their-heels team that has lost their last five games against San Francisco by an average score of 30-14. And then we’ll go, “Man, that was BEST Seahawks victory of my entire life!”

I’m down.

However, I’m talking about the worst case scenario and I’m talking about the most likely scenario, which is even if Seattle gets that far: The Seahawks needing to go to the 49ers in the divisional round and then potentially coming out dejected after a loss in which they weren’t as fast as Christian McCaffrey, weren’t as physical as Deebo Samuel, and didn’t cover George Kittle.

As much as I DON’T want to write paragraphs like that one, maybe it actually is best for the Seahawks to delay the next time they have to play the 49ers until both teams have had another offseason to prepare and reset.

Because if the Seahawks suffer a sixth demoralizing loss to their division rivals, what does it do to the players? What does it do to the coaches, the ones who would even still be on the staff? What if the Seahawks decide to fire Pete Carroll, but now they’re two weeks behind every other team on the interview/hiring cycle?

(New rules are the teams can’t do in-person interviews until after the divisional round, so this does offset the issue considerably, but they’re still going to spend that entire time in Pete’s limbo.)

I don’t want to imply or flat out say that the Seahawks should AVOID challenges like these ones, but maybe the best case scenario is that Seattle beats the Cardinals (because goodness what a dire situation it would be to go 1-5 in the division) and the Packers beat the Bears so that the franchise puts another winning season under its belt and the team goes back to the drawing board to figure out how to not be in this position next season.

The Seahawks need to have one goal and one goal only for 2024: Win the NFC West.

Having done that only once in the last seven years—since the arrivals of Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay—Seattle should know by now that the position they’re in this weekend is the one that punches their tickets to the offseason faster than any other. Which is to have to go on the road, on the road, on the road in the playoffs. If the Seahawks can get back to winning the division, then we can talk about the number one seed and the NFC Championship, and the Super Bowl again.

But for right now, Seattle has already fallen short of the main goal they had to have going into year, which was to win the NFC West. They didn’t do that, they got swept by the two teams that they needed to be more competitive than, and now my main focus is simply on players coming out of Week 18 without any injuries that will require surgery.

Beat the Cardinals. Address the tough decisions you will need to make in order to not repeat your mistakes of the last eight or nine years. Come out of the season as healthy as you can possibly be. And get started on the next era of the Seahawks.

That might honestly be better than the playoffs.

This is what I say today, but I’m telling you right now…I’m rooting for the Seahawks and the Bears. Hard.

Let me know in the Seaside Joe comments your thoughts and opinions on playoffs vs. no playoffs:

Packers vs Bears

In case you haven’t noticed or paid attention, the ongoing debate draft for the Bears is whether or not they should trade the number one overall pick (acquired from the Panthers last year) and keep Justin Fields or trade Fields and use the pick to take a quarterback. Well, I’m going to give you a take that NOBODY else has even considered yet:

Trade the quarterback AND trade the pick.

2023 hasn’t exactly been “the year of the quarterback” and I wonder what I would do if I was actually running the Bears. (Probably quit my job since I hate the Bears so much.)

I love hearing the media talk about how Fields has finally started to come into his own lately: A quarterback who has 5 TD/4 INT/6 Fumbles in his last 7 games? Sign me up for a lifetime contract please!

Fields has had 5 years of being a starting quarterback above the high school level (2 at a top-tier program, 3 in the NFL) and he’s for sure not significantly closer to being an acceptable passer today than he was a year ago. But delusions are a good way to get through life without having to face your fears as an analyst!

The hilarious commentary that the Bears might want to trade Fields “to avoid a $150 million guaranteed contract” assumes that a quarterback with a career record of 10-27 is on the fast track to being the next Jalen Hurts or Lamar Jackson…both of whom were lightyears ahead of Fields after 2-3 seasons in the league. I mean, Lamar won MVP in his second season (deservingly so, not like Fields’ finishing ninth last year because voters are too heavily influenced by Twitter) and he didn’t even get his long-term contract until he had completed FIVE seasons.

Fields is at the end of his third and he’s not in the top-20 for Y/A, passer rating, QBR, success rate, INT%, yards, comp%, adjusted NY/A…but okay, let’s just go with what I heard from people on Twitter bullying me for not believing that Justin Fields is an elite quarterback. Let’s do that.

Ignore that Desmond Ridder, Kenny Pickett, Kyler Murray, Will Levis, and Gardner Minshew all have better passing stats. Ignore that.

So in my opinion, the Bears trade Fields (for two second round picks, which is a very Sam Darnold-like return and that’s the MOST FAIR comparison I can come up with) and then they start addressing their draft options. One of which is to draft Caleb Williams with the number one overall pick, but another would be to let a team that is slightly out of position for a quarterback move up for one…

Why?

Well, from where I’m standing, I’m not convinced that Caleb Williams is a signficantly better QB prospect than Michael Penix or Jayden Daniels.

Imagine a phone call from the Giants offering Chicago the fifth overall pick, the 39th overall pick, their first round pick in 2025, and a player like Evan Neal or Azeez Ojulari. Couldn’t the Bears move down to 5 and still pick whoever is left from Penix, Daniels, and Drake Maye?

They could. Or they could take a receiver because again, is this really the year of the quarterback?

Couldn’t the Bears just sign Joe Flacco or trade for Jake Browning or take a flier on Russell Wilson?

As long as the Bears lose this game to the Packers, they’ll have the number one pick and another top-10 pick. They don’t have a second rounder (because of the Montez Sweat trade) so trading Fields and/or trading down makes the most sense to get back more day two picks.

However, if Chicago wins, it complicates matters a little more: Do they fool themselves into keeping Fields and change almost nothing about their organizational structure because they won five of their last six and six of their last eight? Ignoring the fact that the Bears have been to the playoffs only twice since 2011 and they lost wild card games both times.

It’s a similar conundrum as the one facing the Seahawks, but with far less success in the last 14 years.

Who will win?

The Bears have indeed been winning lately, but they’ve defeated teams like the Panthers, Vikings (Josh Dobbs), Cardinals, and fading Falcons. They did beat the Lions and came close against the Browns, but I say it’s crazy to think that Chicago is anything more than a well below-average football team.

No, the Packers don’t have a lot more going for them (I wonder if Green Bay would considering firing Matt LaFleur if the Packers lose, if for no other reason than LaFleur is one of the biggest chokers in the NFL when it comes to games he needs to win) but they’re definitely a better team than the Bears.

Jordan Love is better than Justin Fields. Jayden Reed is a legitimately good receiver. Green Bay is running the ball well lately and protecting the football: Only five turnovers in the last seven games and three came in a weird loss to the Giants.

Because the Packers are subject to weird losses though, this should be a competitive football game. Green Bay choked against the Lions when the Seahawks needed them to a year ago and they’ve subject to choking this week against a Bears team that is motivated to prove they’re as good as the Packers. (If Chicago wins, they’ll do no worse than a tie for second-best record in the NFC North.)

I’m going to pick the Packers, but it’s only 52% in favor of Green Bay if it’s not a coin toss.