2 birds, 3 weeks

Seahawks playoff odds, scenarios, and what they need to do to have a shot at the postseason

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a bird! No, it’s…the Seahawks next three games:

• Cardinals

• Jets

• at Cardinals

The Athletic’s current projection of an 11% chance to reach the postseason and a final record of 8-9, behind the Cardinals, Rams, and still behind the 49ers despite beating San Francisco, only feels “off” if the Seahawks play considerably worse or considerably better than they have so far. But the most likely rest-of-season scenario that would benefit Seattle’s playoff chances:

Play just as they have all season, but get luckier.

Beating the 49ers was a case of the Seahawks playing just as well as their hated division rivals — which in itself is a huge accomplishment for Mike Macdonald’s team — and then executing/getting a little lucky on the final drive. (Watch the entire drive here.)

• How far does the drive go if Nick Bosa doesn’t leave the game?

• What if instead of unnecessarily biting on Zach Charbonnet, 49ers linebacker De’Vondre Campbell spies Geno and makes a tackle in bounds?

Every winning team gets luckier than the losing team. The Chiefs haven’t won three Super Bowls without getting lucky. So Seattle playing up to San Francisco’s standard instead of digging a hole that they couldn’t escape (like their previous six games against the 49ers) is a sign of progress.

And if the Seahawks had been luckier against the Giants and Rams, Seattle would be 7-3 with a commanding lead in the NFC West, but the reason that the Seahawks remain in fourth place in the division’s playoff odds hierarchy is because Seattle wasted no time in deleting their margin for error.

First, here’s what the Seahawks NEED to do to have life again:

• Sweep the Cardinals

• Win 4 of their other 5 games

• Beat the Rams in Week 18

It’s unlikely that the Seahawks could make the playoffs without needing to make amends for losing to the Rams, but it is non-negotiable that Seattle has to go 2-0 against the Cardinals.

Even if the Seahawks win their next two games, which would make them 7-5 overall and 2-2 in the division, a loss to Arizona in Week 14 guarantees that the Cardinals would lead the NFC West going into the final four games. That’s even if Seattle beats the Cardinals and Jets in the next two weeks because Arizona would be at least 7-5 (8-4 if they beat the Vikings in Week 13) and they’d have a better division record than the Seahawks.

Final Four

Cardinals: 3-8 Patriots, 3-7 Panthers, 5-5 Rams, 5-5 49ers

Seahawks: 7-3 Packers, 8-2 Bears, 4-6 Bears, 5-5 Rams

Maybe it’s actually not true that Seattle needs to simply be luckier. They need to continue to get better and as you’ve probably ascertained, this also means that a loss to the Cardinals this week would be DEVASTATING to Seattle’s playoff chances.

No acceptable losses…but…

If the Seahawks were to have one hiccup left in them this season, it has to come against the New York Jets because Macdonald is still trying to climb out of the 2-4 conference record hole that Seattle dug itself by not getting luckier or playing better.

The Seahawks earning a wild card berth is nearly unimaginable because despite seeming close to the 7-4 Moons in 7th place, Washington’s 5-2 conference record (the first tiebreaker in wild cards if there is no head-to-head) puts Dan Quinn within reach of guaranteeing that Seattle needs to be a full game better than them.

Of course, going 7-0 the rest of the way will guarantee that the Seahawks make the playoffs as the NFC West champions, while 6-1 should also do the same trick. But even 5-2 would necessitate answering important questions about who those 2 losses were against (can’t be against Arizona or L.A.) and how their competition fared against their own schedules.

A 10-7 record in the NFC is not what it used to be or what most of us expected when the season started, which is potentially not good enough to make the playoffs:

• The Rams could go 10-7 with a win over the Seahawks in Week 18 and win the division

• The Cardinals could go 10-7 with only one win over the Seahawks and win the division

• The 49ers still have more conference wins than Seattle (3-4 to 2-4) and 10-7 could be good enough for San Francisco to take the division

• 10-7 probably isn’t going to help the Seahawks get a wild card over the 3 teams currently slated in those seeds barring a collapse

"Joe, I specifically requested draft talk”

At 5-5, the Seahawks, Rams, and 49ers control the final three draft slots for teams that didn’t make the playoffs:

With or without the Seahawks in the postseason, it’s looking inevitable that one NFC West team will make the playoffs and the other three will miss the postseason and be left picking between 10th and 18th.

Some fans would say that they’re tired of seeing the Seahawks flopping around on the dock like a fish that exists somewhere between life and death at the end of every season.

If the Seahawks make the playoffs at 10-7, then what happens? They go 4-0 or 3-1 with an NFC Championship appearance for the first time since 2014?

If the Seahawks miss the playoffs at 8-9 or 9-8, then what happens? Is it a repeat of the last 7 or 8 drafts and a belief that very little needs to change after the season? Or do the Seahawks still go into the offseason knowing that 2024 was just one step in a longer process to re-imagine Seattle’s process for building a championship contender?

It seems like the Seahawks are in a little bit of limbo once again and the only thing that’s going to change that perception is an extreme outcome — in either direction of wins or losses — over the last seven games.

Seaside Joe 2087