Seahawks schedule retrospective

How do Seattle's wins and losses look with benefit of hindsight?

Seahawks fans have survived the dreaded bye week Sunday, going a full day without football news that did not directly involve the Seahawks.

In indirect news, the 49ers lost and that puts Seattle in a temporary first place hold of the NFC West, tied at 5-2 with a Rams team that the Seahawks will face in three weeks. Should the Seahawks win their next three games (at Moons, vs Cardinals, at Rams) their odds of winning the division title reach peak levels and the number one seed will be a conversation.

But that’s for the future. What about the past?

Seaside Joe starts Week 9 by reviewing Seattle’s schedule and the 7 teams that the Seahawks have faced so far. Do those results look better with the benefit of hindsight, worse, or about the same? Spoiler alert: I think the Seahawks are a good team that has robbed themselves of becoming a great team because of mistakes (6 turnovers, 1 takeaway in the last three games) and offensive inconsistency.

The good news is that Seattle is 5-2 as they experience a “coming of age” season. The better news is that we’ve yet to see the best version of the Seahawks and maybe we will this Sunday night against Washington.

If you’re new to Seaside Joe, join the mailing list for free and you’ll get a new Seahawks article in your email every day. If you’re already a free subscriber, consider a $5 subscription to support Seaside Joe and get bonus content:

Week 1 - 49ers 17, Seahawks 13

I’m not going to replay how the games unfolded and the “what if”isms of every decision and play execution, but what is interesting about playing the 49ers in Week 1 is just how many more personnel changes San Francisco has gone through since then:

• Brock Purdy has missed 6 of the last 7 games

• Ricky Pearsall has been out for a month

• George Kittle missed almost two months

• Fred Warner went on season-ending IR

• Nick Bosa went on season-ending IR

• Bryce Huff is now injured

The Seahawks had to face all of these players in Week 1 and that could end up being the best version of the 49ers any team will see all year.

I think it is pointless to compare “lucky breaks” when teams face lesser versions of other teams due to injuries or having nothing to play for — Seattle got its 10th win last season under those circumstances — it can still be true that the Seahawks got the Niners when they were relatively healthy…even though the story in Week 1 was how short-handed San Francisco was going into the season!

The 49ers lost to the Texans on Sunday, their third loss in the last five games. The 49ers might officially be turning into a bad team and I think a lot of that can be attributed to the season-ending losses of Bosa and Warner. A negative EPA (estimated points added) is bad and look at three of their last four games on defense:

Negative double-digits is especially bad. The Texans had their worst offensive game of the season against the Seahawks (-20.78 EPA) followed by their best of the season against the 49ers (+21.47). There’s been a lot of talk about 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh being a one-and-done because he’ll get a head coaching job in 2026, but should he be looking over his shoulder at Aden Durde?

Hindsight grade of losing to the 49ers: B+ (Acceptable)

The 49ers are still 3-0 against the NFC West and therefore a threat to crash the playoff party. Purdy could return this week and maybe he can help the running game (32nd in yards per carry) and maybe take a little pressure off of the defense (25th in turnovers) but also maybe he won’t. Purdy had 4 interceptions in 2 games.

The Seahawks were not fully formed in Week 1 (season-low 146 passing yards, season-worst 119 rushing yards allowed) so I would feel much different about a rematch if it happened this week. Instead, Seattle doesn’t face San Francisco until the season finale. Who knows what version of either team we’ll see then.

Week 2 - Seahawks 31, Steelers 17

My sense of the Steelers after that game was that they just seemed softer than what we’d expect of a Mike Tomlin team and after the game I wrote that this could be the worst Steelers team of the Tomlin era. I stand by that six weeks later. Maybe too concerned with getting names (Rodgers, Metcalf, Ramsey, Slay) than with building a cohesive roster.

In that game, the Seahawks had five drives over 50 yards and they scored 24 points with one missed field goal. The Steelers had ONE drive over 50 yards and it ended in an interception. The score should not have been as close as 14 points and even that was aided by the weird kickoff recovery touchdown by George Holani.

The Steelers lost to the Packers 35-25 on Sunday night (and DK Metcalf did me a huge favor by proving again on national television that his penalties warrant no comparison to JSN’s) and Pittsburgh ranks 30th in yards allowed, 32nd in passing yards allowed, and 32nd in plays per defensive drive, meaning that their defense can’t get off of the field. Even though Aaron Rodgers leads the league with a 7.7% touchdown rate, that’s largely because the Steelers can’t run the ball and they need to score a lot of points to keep up with their terrible defense.

The Steelers were once 4-1 and the Ravens were once 1-5. Now the Steelers are 4-3 and the Ravens are 2-5; Baltimore could still win the division! Or the Bengals! Imagine the Bengals winning the division at 8-9 and going into the playoffs with Joe Burrow back.

Hindsight grade of beating the Steelers: A- (Good)

Seattle didn’t play their best game and they still won a road game by 14 points in Sam Darnold’s second start. This is another one where I feel as though the rematch wouldn’t be close.

Week 3 - Seahawks 44, Saints 13

The Saints currently hold the number one pick in next year’s draft:

It looks like Spencer Rattler will either be benched this week or is one more bad game away from being replaced by rookie Tyler Shough.

Hindsight grade of beating the Saints: A+ (Excellent)

You could argue that Seattle should have run the ball better, clamped down harder on Rattler, and converted more drives into touchdowns, but don’t be greedy. Beating NFL teams by 31 points is not easy, even when it’s the Saints.

Week 4 - Seahawks 23, Cardinals 20

Going to Arizona on a Thursday usually feels like this:

Seattle didn’t just survive this game, they won. I’ll take it.

Hindsight grade of beating the Cardinals on TNF: A (Alive)

The Seahawks were up 20-6 midway through the fourth quarter and they let Arizona climb back into it. The Cardinals are a tough out, but they’re 2-5 and they’ve only beaten the Saints and Panthers. There are circumstances where I think you have to play better against teams like Arizona — like Seattle hosting them in Week 10 — but going on the road on Thursday isn’t one of them.

Week 5 - Bucs 38, Seahawks 35

The difference between being 5-2 and “in the running” or 6-1 with a win over a major contender is just 3 points. The Seahawks led 35-28 with 3:18 remaining but couldn’t stop Baker Mayfield on the next drive, then a tipped-pass interception gave the game away.

That had Mayfield squarely in the lead of MVP talks, but here are his last 2 starts:

58% completions and just one touchdown over 74 pass attempts, plus an interception and two fumbles. The Bucs lost to the Lions 24-9 and beat the Saints 23-3.

Seattle has only had one bad defensive game since Week 1 and they were atrocious against the Bucs: -25.29 estimated points added. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel, as I wrote last week, with the returns of Julian Love and and Devon Witherspoon, neither of whom were available against Tampa.

Hindsight grade of losing to the Bucs: B+ (Acceptable)

The biggest issue with this loss is that it hurts the Seahawks chances of getting the number one seed and over the past three years, 4 of 6 #1 seeds have reached the Super Bowl. However, the Seahawks have been a great road team and games like this help build the case that there’s no team that Seattle can’t beat.

Week 6 - Seahawks 20, Jaguars 12

For the second time this season, Seattle had a 20-6 lead in the fourth quarter and they didn’t put that team away like they should have; after their last touchdown, the Seahawks punted on four straight drives and gained a total of 22 yards on those possessions.

A 61-yard completion to A.J. Barner to essentially end the game was basically Seattle’s entire offense after the first possession of the second half.

I’ve been adament that you have to ignore Jacksonville’s previous 4-1 record because I think they’re one of the worst teams in the league (again). They lost to the Rams 35-7 last week. What’s it going to take for the Jaguars to have serious talks about benching Trevor Lawrence? Here are his last 22 games:

The Jaguars have gone 6-16 in those games and he’s averaging over one turnover per contest. To put it another way, Darnold was a better and more successful quarterback during his first two years on the New York Jets than Lawrence has been in Jacksonville since last season and he’s being paid $55 million per year.

When I say that the Jaguars could go from 4-1 to picking in the top-10, I really mean it.

Hindsight grade of beating the Jaguars: C+ (you can do better!)

This is one where the Seahawks should have stepped on the gas and won by at least two touchdowns, but the offense was very one-dimensional (no run game, all the passing went through Jaxon Smith-Njigba) and the game almost slipped away against one of the worst pass defenses in the league:

The Jaguars are 32nd in sacks, 26th in pressure rate, and they had just traded starting corner Tyson Campbell to the Browns.

Winning is what matters but this is a game that you’ll look back on in three months and wonder how Seattle’s offense fell so flat against a Jacksonville team that gets worse by the week.

(If my Jaguars record predictions are wrong, it might only because they still play the Titans twice, the Raiders, the Jets, the Texans, and the Cardinals. Maybe they get 4 more wins out of that.)

Week 7 - Seahawks 27, Texans 19

How much hindsight could we have for a game that happened seven days ago? More than you might think.

The Texans were up 23-7 late in the third quarter against the 49ers last night, Christian McCaffrey had his worst game of the season, and the Mac Jones dream is dead. It takes a little bit of pressure off of Klint Kubiak and Sam Darnold for having underwhelming games last week: The Texans are first in points allowed, yards allowed, passing touchdowns allowed, and points per drive allowed. They’re third in third down defense (35.2%).

By EPA, this was the Seahawks worst offensive game (-9.45) and best defensive game (+20.78) of 2025. That does kind of line up with facing the Texans.

Hindsight grade of beating the Texans: B+ (Acceptable)

I don’t expect the Texans to see the second round of the playoffs, and it’s disappointing to turn the ball over four times (5 if you include Drake Thomas), but Week 7 falls somewhere in the middle of what you want to see out of the Seahawks and what you never want to see again.

As long as you can do that and win, you’re doing OK. Because you never know what kind of team you’ll be — or what kind of team you’ll face — tomorrow.

Seaside Joe 2429