Seahawks fans lower expectations after 3-game slide, defensive collapse

How expectations for the Seahawks playoff hopes, Geno Smith, and Mike Macdonald's defense has changed since the preseason: Seaside Joe 2053

“Act as if…”

Seaside Jay and I are nearing the end of The Sopranos and there’s a moment in season six when a hobbled Tony tells Dr. Melfi that he doesn’t feel like his subordinates are respecting him like they used to. Unknowingly, I assume, Melfi creates a violent situation when she tells Tony:

“Act as if…”

The Seattle Seahawks could use some “act as if” right now because the last thing the defense is doing is creating violent situations. At least, not as many as Seattle’s offensive line. Melfi also expands on her advice:

“Act as if you’re not feeling vulnerable, as if you’re the same old Anthony, strong and decisive. People only see what you allow them to see.”

The 49ers traveled to Seattle expecting to beat the Seahawks, expecting to be the better team, and long since removed from the days when San Francisco couldn’t buy a win in Seattle with Colin Kaepernick or Jimmy G’s overpaid contract extensions.

Tony took Dr. Melfi’s advice and beat up the beefiest guy in the crew in front of his captains to prove a point.

How will the Seahawks respond to their latest beatdown when they face the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday?

One of the most difficult challenges that I face as a writer covering a sports team is that I’m equally fascinated by a negative as I am by a positive. I’m trying to cover the Seahawks without a bias for them, so at times I feel compelled to share stats and findings with readers that are not complimentary of Mike Macdonald’s defense or Ryan Grubb’s offense or Jay Harbaugh’s special teams.

But especially of the defense. Oh boy, this is shaping up to be one of the worst defenses in the NFL if the Seahawks don’t improve considerably when Byron Murphy II returns. (More on how important Seattle’s rookie defensive tackle is in a future article, so be subscribed!)

However, I know that if every day of this daily newsletter becomes about my fascination with what the Seahawks are doing wrong, some of you are going to start letting the newsletter hit your social tab or promotions tab or junk folder without a second thought. We can’t have a negative day every day even if the Seahawks go on a monumental losing streak.

Hopefully the Seahawks “act as if” they’re a better defense and a better rushing offense and a special teams unit without lapses against the Falcons, get a win in Week 7, and we can take a week off of being depressed about Seattle not stopping anyone. Hopefully the offensive line that can’t stop any pass rushers will get the better of the defense that doesn’t have any pass rushers—and Stone Forsythe can get a break from being the sacrificial lamb. (Do you think that if Forsythe allows 0 pressures against the NFL’s worst pass rushers that it will get reported the same as when Forsythe allows a lot of pressures against the NFL’s best pass rushers on a ton of pass blocking snaps?)

If that happens, if the Seahawks beat the Falcons, end the losing skid, go back above .500, the attitude about how this season is going is going to change back to what it was a couple of weeks ago. The 49ers host the Chiefs and Cowboys in back-to-back weeks, so Seattle could be in first place in the division again before you sit down for Sunday supper.

But that’s then. The preseason was the preseason. And now is now.

I run surveys so that we can have a historical record of how people feel about certain things at certain times. It’s like a history of the weather, but for emotions. Before the season, hopes for the Seahawks (and almost all teams) were high because before the season, all the moves intended to get better “will work” and all the problems that Seattle had last season “were last season”.

Then the Seahawks won their first three games and their attempts to tackle players were successful.

Now the Seahawks have lost their last three games and the tackling…

Seaside Joe ran some polls last week — nine to be exact — because Seaside Joe wants to compare 0-0 expectations to 3-3 expectations. Just don’t take this as Seaside Joe saying, “Ha, see, the Seahawks ARE BAD and FANS WERE WRONG!” No. As I said, watch what happens to fan expectations if Seattle beats the Falcons and the Chiefs beat the Niners… It’ll change back to positive as quickly as it turned to losing hope for the playoffs.

This is just now. This is just right after losing to the 49ers on TNF. And no matter what happens next, “People only see what you allow them to see.”

Time for the Seahawks to act as if they can tackle and run fit and force turnovers. Until then, here’s what you expect of the Seahawks now compared to what you expected prior to Week 1.

Seahawks fans expect .500 record, but 30% went from 11+ wins to 7-10 or worse

In the first survey, I asked fans to choose a poll based on their expectations for wins in 2024: Either you fell into the 7-10 or worse camp, the 8-10 win camp, or the 11+ win camp. Based on the last week’s results, the biggest change has been a 30% increase in the number of fans who think the Seahawks will finish 7-10 or worse:

Before the season started, only 7% of Seahawks fans thought the team could go 7-10 or worse. That number is now 37%. I decided to break up the 8-10 wins into two different categories because I didn’t find it likely that many fans would still expect the team to win 11 games and I was right: The 11+ win group has dropped from 31% to 1%. And 10% of fans are still hanging onto 10-7, which is fine, I definitely don’t think that’s an impossible goal. The Seahawks would need to go 7-4 in their last 11 games.

Mike Macdonald first season grade

In the first round, Macdonald got either an A or a B from essentially 95-100% of fans who expected the team to win 8+ games. Obviously the 11+ win group was the most optimistic (65% expect A, 35% expect B), but generally everyone expected Macdonald to be the star first-time head coach of 2024. The “Seeds of Doubt” group had 65% “B” and 25% “C”. Well, now it’s 5% “A”, 51% “B”, and 40%” C.

The biggest change here is seeing almost all of the “A” expectations disappear. This is probably related to how many of you see the defense as the biggest source of frustration

Not many of you thought the Seahawks would be a top-5 defense, but even fewer fans expected the Seahawks to be ranked 20th or worse either. Now that number has jumped from about 5% of you to about 50% of you. Again, the Seeds of Doubt kind of wins out so far because 97% of those voters fell between 11-27. Now we see 12% of people in the “Bottom-5”.

Nobody thinks Geno should be benched yet

If there’s one takeaway today, I hope it’s that you remember this survey the next time you read a comment or a tweet from someone along the lines of, “Oh all these fairweather Seahawks fans who don’t know ball or watch film, they think Geno should be benched! He gets so much hate boohoo.” These are made up, fictional stories to have some sort of common enemy that doesn’t actually exist. The reality of the situation IS and has ALWAYS been that most fans are just apathetic to the whole situation. Only 2% of you think Geno is or will be “benchable” this season:

Prior to the season, Geno’s “Pro Bowl” expectations were 74% by the 11+ win group, 53% for the 8-10 wins group, and 25% for the 7-10 or worse group. Now we see 24% is the general consensus for Pro Bowl caliber and the survey most closely resembles what the “Seeds of Doubt” group expected in Week 0.

Offensive Line

Rather than me go back and find tweets or reactions related to the offensive line, like “Olu Oluwatimi will do this” or “Christian Haynes will do that” or “Abe Lucas will play”, etc., just pretend like I did and we can all remember together that there was an expectation that the Seahawks would not only have an offensive line with Olu, Haynes, Lucas, and Laken Tomlinson, but that it would be good. “I don’t care about the past history of day three centers, Olu Oluwatimi is going to be great.” That kind of thing.

I’m not trying to say “I told you so” but I do rely on historical evidence—like the history of offensive linemen who were investments at the level Seattle invested—because it rarely lets us stray into over-hyped expectations.

In our surveys, 87% of people who expected 8-10 wins thought Seattle’s offensive line would be “middling” and only 8% thought they’d be a bottom-10 unit. The 11+ win group had 24% voting the OL as a “top-10” unit and only a few percentage points for a “bottom-10” unit. And not even the Seeds of Doubt group was anywhere CLOSE to predicting how low OL expectations would be after six weeks:

The Seeds of Doubt group had just 25% in the “bottom-10” expectations. Now the GENERAL consensus is 75%! It’s not “I told you so” but let’s remember these changes in expectations if the Seahawks enter 2025 with a similarly-constructed offensive line, which I think they probably will do.

Finally, 59% of you voted that the Seahawks are “worse than I expected”, 33% of you answered that they were “Same as I expected” and 7% voted “Much worse than I expected”. It would appear that maybe one or two people voted “Better than I expected”. The other two polls were about the rushing and passing offense and unsurprisingly there is a lot more hope for the passing game than the rushing game, although I would like to see Kenneth Walker III get more time to prove himself because he’s carried the offense more than once this season.

Whether the Seahawks are better than you expected or worse, let’s hope the Seahawks can act as if they’re better than they’ve been in the last three weeks.