Seahawks-Rams: Dos and Dont's

There is no greater fear in life than losing to Jimmy Garoppolo

If the Seahawks beat the Rams, they could end up with a better record than as many as three playoff teams if the Bucs, Texans, and Broncos all lose their finales, and the same record as three others, including the winners of the NFC West.

That would essentially put Seattle somewhere in the middle of all the playoff teams.

This would still make the Seahawks a good bit worse than the top 5 or 6 teams in the playoffs, at least in terms of how all of them performed in the regular season, but we’ve had a very imbalanced season: NINE teams have lost at least 12 games, and the Saints could make it ten.

That’s twice as many as the number of teams that have won 13+ games.

So the NFL has a big fat bottom, a sturdy middle (Seahawks live here), and a small head. Kind of a Goofy season…

How do the Seahawks show up for a game like this one in which their opponents are, at best, not allowed to give their best because Sean McVay wants to give his starters a bye week?

In lieu of a vision board this week, which feels more appropriate when there are stakes in the outcome of the game as far as the playoffs, these are some Dos and Don’ts for the Seahawks in Week 18.

REMINDER: We have over 200 comments(!!!) in Friday’s article asking for Seahawks fans to share their thoughts on various people in the Seattle organization. Keep it going! Write more comments, read what others have said so far, and rec the comments you like the most, as we’re far from done with that thread on what you have to say about Geno, Grubb, John, etc.

DO: WIN!

There’s no apparent upside in losing. If the Seahawks were going to fail upwards for a better draft pick, they’re at least two months too late. Seattle is almost guaranteed to be picking 18th and the best they could do is 17th.

DON’T: Lose to Jimmy Garoppolo

Garoppolo hasn’t had a good career against the Seahawks and he could see this as an opportunity to right some past wrongs. Don’t let him.

Garoppolo is 1-4 against Seattle as a member of the 49ers, but this will be his debut as the quarterback of the Rams. NFL fans last saw him going 0-1 with 1 sack in the 2023 season finale with the Raiders, which came after a two month hiatus of being benched in favor of Aidan O’Connell.

He threw at least one interception in all six of his starts last season.

But in the words of Tony Soprano, “Every day is a gift”.

Garoppolo has a chance to showcase that he could be the next Joe Flacco, if not the next Geno Smith, and the prospect of losing to him is a good bit scarier than losing to Matthew Stafford. So the pressure is on this coaching staff to not get embarrassed in the finale against a backup quarterback surrounded by backup talent.

Don’t let the pressure get to you.

DON’T: Pad your stats

We’ve been hearing it all week:

• Geno Smith has financial incentives

• DK Metcalf wants 1,000 yards for some reason

• Jaxon Smith-Njigba wants to break Tyler Lockett’s reception record

Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion on the importance of stats-based history, but the only one of these things that appears to matter is Geno’s bonuses and this is my reason for saying that:

If you had asked me prior to this week, “Who holds the Seahawks single-season record for catches in a season?”, I might have said Lockett, but I would have only been guessing. And I follow this team as closely as I can, plus this happened only four seasons ago when he had 100.

The best receiver in franchise history is Steve Largent. I didn’t need to look at the history books to know that. With the 17-game season (soon to be 18), not only are single season records literally meant to be broken, JSN is probably going to catch more passes in 2025 than he does in 2024.

And though I sincerely hope that DK Metcalf gets his 1,000-yard season, that’s only because the 61 yards he needs to get there would be a pretty good game…for him. The Rams are sitting Puka Nacua even though the second-year receiver is only 10 yards shy of 1,000…and Puka only played in 11 games (he led the NFL in 100-yard games despite this).

The fact that Metcalf can get to 1,000 yards without having a 100-yard game since the first month of the season tells us all we need to know about the importance of a 1,000-yard season in the modern NFL. But if it makes him more attractive on the trade market, what’s the harm?

The only harm that I see in going for records and milestones is that now your priority isn’t team success, but individual success. And if the Seahawks go into their game against the Rams as individuals, they could lose to a group of backups out to prove that they can beat Seattle as a team.

DO: Stay healthy

We saw what happened to Jordyn Brooks two years ago. Don’t take it for granted that just because it’s the season finale that an injury couldn’t have an impact on next season.

The only way the Seahawks could really justify a loss this weekend is to match the Rams in how many players they bench. So there’s potentially some opportunity here for Seattle to rest all the key guys that they expect back in 2025 and I don’t know of any fans who would blame them for that given the circumstances.

But Mike Macdonald says they intend to play to win. That’s good too. Just don’t win at the cost of something greater.

Seaside Joe 2136

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