Vision Board: Seahawks-Steelers

How Geno Smith, Zach Charbonnet can lead Seahawks to win over Steelers: Seaside Joe 1762

How close are the Seahawks to being considered the best wild card team—therefore a top-4 team—in the NFC? In Pete Carroll’s latest post-game show with Seattle Sports, he expressed that the team’s most disappointing moment this season was not finishing their final drive against the Cowboys and losing 41-35. That like the Seahawks have done against the Eagles and Titans, Seattle has prepared to win games in the final two minutes and that’s what they expect to be able to do.

Well, if the Seahawks had closed the game against Dallas like they did the last two weeks, they would be the five-seed right now, the Cowboys would be the six, and the Rams would be the seven. That’s how close Seattle is to being considered at least as big of a threat as Dallas, just that one series this season that could have drastically changed the perception of the Seahawks, as well as the stakes for Week 17’s game against the Steelers.

Instead of clinching or being on the verge of clinching a playoff berth, the Seattle Seahawks need to win their final two games to guarantee entry.

I have been as critical and skeptical of the Seahawks as anybody this year, and it doesn’t mean that I think Seattle is one finishing move against the Cowboys from being a much better team than they are—they’re the same team either way—but what that win could have done is FORGIVE practically all of the Seahawks mistakes and disappointments this season. Even the fact that they got swept by the Rams.

It’s not as though the Seahawks were ever going to win the NFC West this season, that much should be obvious. So the best that Seattle could have hoped for with what they had to work with this season was the five-seed. The Seahawks are a single disappointing drive, or one decision to not block Micah Parsons, away from doing as well in the regular season as they could reasonably hope to do, in my opinion.

There is a 0% chance that Seattle gets the 5-seed now, but there’s a good chance that if they win the next two games that they’ll be the 6-seed, which could end up as a preferable draw anyway.

I don’t intend to get ahead of what’s important, which is that the Seahawks need to beat the Steelers and Cardinals to guarantee the playoffs. If they split their last two games, Seattle has a 70% chance to make the playoffs. If they lost both, it will take a miracle to make the playoffs, which is why the Seahawks must beat Pittsburgh so that they don’t have such high stakes in Arizona next week.

Let’s see if we can put it into the universe to guarantee a win over Mason Rudolph and to put the once bitterly hated (still bitterly hated?) Steelers on the verge of Mike Tomlin’s first ever losing season. But first, what happened in last week’s vision board?

In Joe’s previous vision board against the Titans, we asked for:

- Geno Smith 2 TD, 0 turnovers

- Derrick Henry under 70 yards, 0 TD

- DK Metcalf 120 yards, 1 TD

Geno Smith had two touchdowns and no turnovers. He fumbled, but recovered. In fact, both QBs fumbled in the first 5 minutes of the game and then there were no turnovers or fumbles by either team after that. The Seahawks actually did a good job against Henry but he had 88 yards and two touchdowns, one of those being a pass. Metcalf did score, but was held to 56 yards.

That’s one point for Seaside Joe’s visions this week, bringing the season total to:

22/45

Can Joe finish the season above 50%?

Since the Seahawks need to beat PIT this week, I figure we’ll use another type of Pitt as the framework for our visions.

A Rookie Runs Through It

I hope the Seahawks are “witnessing perfection” when rookie Zach Charbonnet is on the field this Sunday. With Ken Walker being held out of practices again this week, it’s not certain that he will play in Week 17 and best case scenario, he’s probably being spelled often against the Steelers.

Seattle picked Charbonnet in the second round for this reason, to give themselves a starting caliber running back when they don’t have their starting caliber running back at full health. And there’s rarely been a better opportunity to run against a Tomlin defense than right now.

The Steelers don’t have a horrible run defense, but they’ve given up at least 150 on the ground in two of the last four games and they’re doing to street free agents at linebacker: The team signed Myles Jack to the practice squad in November and elevated him for his first game of the season last week. The other off-ball backer, Mykal Walker, was elevated from the practice squad last month.

Now is the time to play a physical, violent, run right at them style of offense against Pittsburgh. But it’s also time for Charbonnet to (finally) make good on his promise as a physical, tough, between the tackles runner who could be relied on in short yardage situations.

The Vision: Zach Charbonnet scores a touchdown

If this sounds like one of the easiest visions to secure all season, it isn’t. Actually, this is one of my riskiest picks of 2023.

Charbonnet has only scored one touchdown all season and he’s been one of the least-effective running backs in the entire NFL near the goal line. Per Field Gulls: 13 carries for 0 yards inside the 10. He did score a one-yard touchdown against the Cowboys, cutting the lead down to 17-14 at the time.

Furthermore, Charbonnet only had two carries last week (for 0 yards) and he lost four yards on his lone reception. The week before that, Charbonnet had four carries for 16 yards and no catches.

But the Seahawks need him to come through now more than ever and I’m putting it out into the universe that he helps Seattle score at least 7 against Pitt Pit.

Se7en’s Deadly Spins

What’s in the box?