Too hard to fail

The Seahawks can't tank for a top 2026 draft pick

I would less shocked if the Seahawks won the next Super Bowl than I would be if the Seahawks had the worst record in the NFL. Or even one of the five worst records.

The Seattle Seahawks could not get rid of enough good players to lose 12 games next season, even if they tried, so the best they can do in 2025 is their best.

Does this need to be said? For some of us, maybe not. But sometimes Seaside Joe needs to remind himself of things that could be obvious with a list. If there’s any thought to the Seahawks tanking in 2025 to get the first pick in 2026, these reasons make it clear that no matter how highly John Schneider might think of Arch Manning or Drew Allar, Seattle’s just too good to be that bad.

There best and perhaps only option would be to seek a trade for a 2026 first round pick.

There are too many terrible teams

The Seahawks missed the playoffs and still won more games than 17 other teams in 2024, but more to the point there were 12 teams that lost 10+ games and quite a few of them seem to have no path towards immediate improvement:

• Giants, 3-14

• Titans, 3-14

• Browns, 3-14

• Patriots, 4-13

• Jaguars, 4-13

• Raiders, 4-13

• Bears, 5-12

• Saints, 5-12

• Panthers, 5-12

• Jets, 5-12

• 49ers, 6-11

• Cowboys, 7-10

Most of these teams will probably show some improvement next season, if only because there’s nowhere to go but up. A few of them will improve by a lot.

Let’s just theorize a few teams that could improve a lot and remember these are just hypotheticals:

• Patriots around .500 with Mike Vrabel and year 2 of Drake Maye

• Raiders around .500 with Pete Carroll’s leadership

• Bears around .500 with Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson

• 49ers rebound to make the playoffs if they’re healthy

• Browns get a QB and surprise some people

• Bryce Young steps up in year 3

That would still leave six teams that have a really good shot of losing 12 or more games in 2025. What’s really the Titans path towards being better when the draft isn’t expected to have a generational quarterback at the top? And even if it did, how long would it take for him to help the team win? There are sometimes going to be those cases like Dan Quinn’s phenomenal turnaround with the Moons and Daniels, a team that nobody saw coming after they went 4-13 the year before, but that’s still just one or two teams.

The point being that of all the terrible teams last season — and that was about half of the NFL — many of them will still be terrible next season. And new ones will join them.

Is it that hard to imagine these teams going 4-13 next year:

• Cardinals

• Falcons

• Colts

• Dolphins

They’ve done it plenty of times before and it wouldn’t take too many dominos to expect them to lost 13 games again. Then there are some other “questionable” playoff teams out there like the Steelers (I know Mike Tomlin’s streak but is Pittsburgh a house of cards?), Bucs, Broncos, and even the Rams, who are currently contemplating blowing up the team and trading Matthew Stafford.

No matter how bad the Seahawks want to be, other teams can be worse — and they will try to be!

If you think tanking for the Seahawks seems logical, then teams that have a lot less work to do to become unsuccessful could have the same idea and do it more successfully.

If the Giants are looking ahead to Manning in 2026 then they don’t have to “tank” at all. They just have to be themselves!!!

Of the 20 teams I’ve already mentioned, it would only take 25% of them to tank and that’s already five teams that are highly probable to be worse than Seattle. Not just because they’re less talented, but also because they’ll have a harder schedule.

Seahawks face too many softies

Of the 12 teams that lost 10+ games in 2024, the Seahawks have six games:

• Saints (home)

• Panthers (away)

• Jaguars (away)

• Titans (away)

• 49ers twice

They also have these games against teams I would call questionable:

• Falcons (away)

• Steelers (away)

• Colts (home)

• Bucs (home)

• Cardinals twice

Then we could add in Seattle’s two games against the Rams (important if they rebuild), as well as the Texans (what were they?) and Vikings (do they have a QB?). The best team the Seahawks face in 2025?

The Moons! The same team that was coming off of a 4-13 season a year ago.

No matter how much subtracing the Seahawks do in the next couple of months, it’s hard to imagine Mike Macdonald’s defense losing more than 10 games against these opponents. We saw Pete Carroll’s worst effort was 7-10 and that team had to lose Russell Wilson for a portion of the season (out for a few games, not himself for a few more) and given Seattle’s long standing history of not being that terrible — in 49 seasons they’ve only lost 12+ games four times — then 2025 would not seem to be an exception.

The Seahawks were decent in 2024 and they are most likely headed for another decent season again no matter what they do.

There’s not much to subtract

Tanking implies that a team will get rid of good and great players and not replace them. The Seahawks got rid of a “great quarterback” in 2022 and replaced him with a journeyman backup…and their record improved by two wins.

Fans are looking at a similar outcome if the Seahawks part with Geno Smith.

• If the Seahawks replace Geno with a new quarterback, what’s the new QB going to do? Throw more interceptions than 15?

• If the Seahawks trade DK Metcalf and promote Jake Bobo, is that move going to be a difference of eight wins?

• If the Seahawks bring back the same offensive line that’s not going to be a popular decision, but they still went 10-7 with the same offensive line

Because a lot of the Seahawks best players are already solidified as being a part of the roster next season — Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Leonard Williams, Devon Witherspoon, Kenneth Walker, Julian Love, etc. — guys who the team would need in the future if Seattle actually did lose 14 games (because you want to surround a franchise QB with a good team), it’s going to be difficult for Seattle to lose on purpose.

This Seahawks team will win at least seven games, even if the team parted with Geno and DK, just by way of still being more talented and better coached than half of their opponents.

I don’t want to call out too many teams (because I would have said the Moons couldn’t be good as soon as 2024) but the Jaguars have had six 13+ loss seasons in just the last 13 years alone; the Seahawks have had ONE season with 13 losses over the past 49 years total.

Trevor Lawrence has lost 13 or 14 games more times in his career (2) than the Seahawks have lost in a single season in franchise history (1).

Is Liam Coen the head coach who is going to defy Jacksonville’s entire history?

What do Seahawks do with this information?

The best the Seahawks can do is their best and that doesn’t necessarily mean that Seattle has to be scared of replacing key starters at quarterback, receiver, and so forth. Again, the Seahawks replaced the best QB in franchise history with a player who washed out on the Jets (a team that will most definitely lose at least 12 games again next year) and they got better.

Instead, if the Seahawks want to have power in the 2026 draft — which in itself is a GREAT idea — they must consider radical ideas to make trades that include 2026 draft picks. This could even include trading their 2025 first round pick for a lower 2025 draft pick + a 2026 first round pick, similar to what the Texans did last year when they traded pick 23 to the Vikings for pick 42 and a second round pick in 2025.

This doesn’t seem unusual at first, but Houston and Minnesota pulled off this trade in March, six weeks before the draft.

Can the Seahawks add value in the 2026 draft? They really have to try and they probably won’t be able to get a top-5 pick by not trying.

They’re just too good to be that bad.

Seaside Joe 2178