Vision Board: Seahawks-Moons

After losing by 34 poinst to Ravens, Seahawks demand a recount: Seaside Joe 1714

Nov 11, 2023

Washington is bad at tanking. I guess that’s why the moon never sets.

In a season during which your team loses by 20 points to the Bears and falls to the Giants, you shouldn’t also have four wins and nearly beat the Eagles twice. I don’t think that Washington’s new ownership group expected or wanted to be losing ground on a top-5 pick, but management can’t force players and coaches to stop trying and the team fell into an easy schedule.

In two months, the Moons will be interviewing prospective new coaches and debating if they should trade up in the draft, as they did in 2012 for Robert Griffin III.

But on Sunday, Washington will attempt to make life very difficult for Pete Carroll and Geno Smith over the next week if they can pull off an upset in Seattle. Are the Moons bound to put a crater in Lumen Field? Not if our visions have anything to say about it.

In Week 9’s visions for Seahawks-Ravens, I foresaw:

Seahawks force 3 turnovers

Jake Bobo scores

Seahawks play their best in the 4th quarter

I’ll need to get my third eye checked.

I put “Seahawks will be down double digits in the fourth quarter and then get back into the game” on my vision board, so I was at least half-right. As usual, the Seahawks played their worst ball in the middle of the game, getting outscored 30-3 in the second and third quarters. Even when the Ravens pulled starters and Seattle didn’t, Baltimore won the fourth quarter 7-0 on a pass from Tyler Huntley to Odell Beckham.

Bobo had his first game of the season in which he was basically a non-participant. I had the Ravens down for a Lamar Jackson interception, fumble, and a receiver fumble and got two out of three.

But I can’t accept any points this week.

Season Total: 10.5/24

A Washington, D.C. themed vision board will guide us to victory this week. Just remember, at Seaside Joe we can discuss political movies, but not politics. It’s just nicer that way.

All the President’s Ken

A little birdie told me that Washington’s true Achilles heel on defense is against the pass: 19 TD, 6 INT, 7.5 Y/A, 97.3 passer rating allowed

The only team allowing as many touchdowns per game is surprisingly the Eagles. The only team allowing as many touchdowns per attempt is the Broncos. Washington is a bottom-10 defense in nearly every passing category and they just traded their two best edge rushers for day two picks.

I know we could have done a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington bit, but I just wasn’t feeling it. That doesn’t mean that Geno has any excuses for not shredding the Moons with at least a couple of scores, something his stat sheet desperately needs, especially as he is tumbling towards not reaching any of his individual incentives to make as much as $10 million extra this season.

Geno needs almost 2 touchdowns per game to reach 31 touchdowns, but he only has nine through eight games. Since Week 15 of last season, Geno has only four multiple touchdown games, something he did 11 times in his first 13 starts with the Seahawks in 2022. Washington has allowed six different QBs to throw multiple touchdowns against them, including 4 by Jalen Hurts, 4 by Justin Fields, and 3 by Russell Wilson.

It’s the perfect opportunity for Geno to get on that train.

Maybe the best way to do that is to “Follow the ~~money~~ Kenny”

The Vision: Ken Walker gains 100 total yards and 2 TD

There is a chance as I write this that Kenny McIntosh is activated to the 53-man roster and will make his NFL debut on Sunday, doubling my chances to incorporate a running back Kenny prediction, but as of now I can’t confirm that.

What I can confirm is that Walker will total over 100 yards on the ground and air (nobody has rushed for 100 yards against Washington yet this season, as the most is 98 yards by Buffalo’s James Cook) and he will both rush for a touchdown and catch a touchdown. If my vision is true, then we will know that Seaside Joe is a higher power: Walker has yet to score his first career receiving touchdown.

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Frost/Dickson

When the punter does it, it’s not illegal.

No surprise: The most valuable player against the Ravens was Michael Dickson. Seattle’s punting unit accounted for 3.82 EPA against the Ravens, which was basically the highest for any unit other than the two turnovers forced.

Dickson punted seven times for 320 yards and did all he could to help the Seahawks at least win the field position battle, if nothing else.

As for stats, I posted some of Dickson’s best this week in 12 Positive Things to Say About the Seahawks. To read those bonus articles—and to just keep a Seahawks newsletter moving up in this world so Seaside Joe has time for more content—join the Regular Joes club or upgrade to Super Joes:

The Vision: Michael Dickson stars in some way

Remember when Dickson had to run for a first down as a rookie in 2018? We haven’t seen another one like that in the last five years. It could be a trick play, or a heady play to give the Seahawks a first down, or pinning multiple kicks inside Washington’s 5. Like the courts said about adult entertainment: “I’ll know it when I see it.”

To be honest, this is mostly that I liked the pun Frost/Dickson, we’ll see how far that takes us.

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Wag, the dawg

I have no strong feelings for the movie Wag the Dog, but how could I not use this as an excuse to write about Bobby Wagner?

Coming off of one of the worst losses in his Seahawks career (he had more than a few with the Rams last season), Wagner will be a necessary component in the locker room and meetings to get Seattle reset for the Moons and he was asked about that this week.

“The biggest thing is you learn from it and you gotta move on. There’s a lot of season left. The biggest thing is that it’s a reminder that if you don’t bring your A game, a good team will beat you.”

Wagner had a career-high 170 tackles in 2021 and he’s on pace to break that with 85 tackles in his first eight games. Nobody was good in run defense against the Ravens last week, including not Wagner, but rushing is not something that Washington offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy seems to care about.

At all.

The Moons are 32nd in rushing attempts, but ninth in yards per carry. Starter Brian Robinson is averaging 11 carries for 38 yards per game in his last six contests.

The player who the Seahawks defense will be most focused on is quarterback Sam Howell, who has struggled at home (7 TD, 7 INT, 2 fumbles in four games) and been more careful on the road (7 TD, 2 INT, 1 fumble in five games), and for that reason the Moons are 3-2 away and 1-3 at home.

He is by far the most sacked QB in the NFL, but that pace has slowed a bit recently, as he’s been sacked “only” four times in the last two games.

Seattle needs their veteran linebacker to lead the charge, as I have to say that I’m less trusting of the offense leading the way because the Seahawks have only scored eight offensive touchdowns in their last five games. I am more confident that the Seahawks could rattle Howell and stuff the run in the Lumen Field home environment.

The Vision: Bobby Wagner has 12+ tackles, 1 sack, 1 TFL, participates in a turnover

Seattle runs a covert operation to open up Wagner for a sack opportunity. Because Washington doesn’t run that much, the hardest part of this vision might be the tackles: Nobody has more than 11 against Washington this season.

But those that have double digits (Nakobe Dean, Ja’Whaun Bentley, Nicholas Morrow) all had multiple tackles for a loss and two had multiple QB hits.

I’ll put Wagner in that category and the Seahawks should be able to hold Washington under 20 points. Is that enough for the offense to win?

If not, I demand a recount.

Seaside Joe